Chapter Thirty Seven

Boston



"What the fuck happened?" Lincoln shouts in a panicked voice, just as I make it to her side. After falling to my knees beside her still body, I reach out, praying to anyone that is listening that I'm able to find a pulse.

*Fuck!* I growl to myself when I find one, but it's weak.

"Someone call an ambulance!" I yell, running my hands over her body but being careful not to move her in case she has a neck or spinal injury.

Not even realizing that she'd left, the redhead kneels back down beside me, "I just called them, they should be on their way."

"Thank you," I murmur, looking the girl over, trying to place if I know her or not, but I'm coming up blank.

"Cheyenne," she tells me with a nod towards Aspen, "I'm sorry about my cousin. If she would just learn to keep her damn mouth shut, this could have been prevented."

"Your cousin?" Dal asks, when he steps up next to me on the opposite side of Cheyenne. He glances at Aspen sprawled out on the asphalt, then to me, shaking his head with a sorrowful look on his face, and then glanced at Cheyenne, a look of interest clear on his face.

The wailing sound of sirens can be heard in the distance, but even with that knowledge, I find no relief. *The woman I love is unconscious once again, and there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it.*

*Not to mention, will having had back to back head injuries cause any kind of severe or permanent damage?*

*Will she still be* my *Aspen, the woman that I fell in love with?*

"I've called Dad. He's going to tell Ashlynn and meet us at the hospital." Jackson says as he steps up to the rest of us, "Fuck, Bos! What the hell happened?"

Looking down at her, my eyes fill with tears as different scenarios play out in my head, "I don't know." I tell him, my voice so quiet that I can't be sure that he heard me.

As the ambulance pulls into the lot, everyone backs away from Aspen except for me. I can't bring myself to pull away from her. Instead, I reach out and grasp ahold of her hand, holding it tightly as I watch two paramedics get out of the front and make their way towards the back. Stepping back out each of them at one end of a stretcher, they begin making their way over to us.

"Sir, we need you to back up just a bit so that we can get a look at her." One of the men say as they stop next to Aspen on the opposite side from where I'm at.

Stepping back, I’m barely holding it together as I watch them load her onto the stretcher, "Bos," Lincoln says, before wrapping his arms around me in a hug that I didn’t even know that I needed. But, as soon as his arms are around me, I lose it. Soon, two more sets of arms are wrapped around me.

"I can't lose her." I tell them, the thought of not having her beside me more than I can stand to think about.

"Let's just get to the hospital and see if we can find out what's going on first, okay?" Jackson says, pulling back to look over my shoulder towards the ambulance, "looks like their almost ready to go."

"Can one of you drive?" I ask, using my palms to wipe my eyes before wiping the moisture on the front of my jeans.

Lincoln reaches his hand out for my keys, "I got ya, man." I nod to him my thanks and pull my keys from my font right pocket and hand them to him.

The four of us jumped into the truck and pull from the lot, following after the ambulance as they head towards the hospital.

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"Where is she?" A woman's voice cries as she pushes through the doors of the Emergency Room, "Where's Aspen? She asks, frantically looking all around the waiting room, stopping and coming towards the four of us when she spots us, with Dad hot on her heels.

"What happened?" Dad asks, pulling me into a hug before stepping back and then doing the same to the other three.

"We were at dinner; Aspen and I had stepped outside and one of the girls that we went to school with started saying some ugly things that upset her." I tell him, glancing over at my brothers and the redheaded girl who showed up shortly after we did, "she took off running and next thing I know she's being hit by a car..."As I relay the events that led up to us being here, my voice thickens, and tears form in my eyes once more.

"I am *so* sorry about Whitney, I cannot apologize enough." Cheyenne says, guilt written all over her face.

Dal steps away from us and makes his way over to her and wraps his arms around her. "You have no reason to feel guilty. You aren't the one to blame here, your cousin in." He tells her, just loud enough for me to be able to hear but not loud enough for the whole waiting room to be able to hear.

"I still wish I could have stopped her," she whispers, her voice catching on a hiccupping sob, "Whitney can be such a bitch sometimes!"

"Just sometimes?" Jackson asks, with a raised eyebrow, "I've known her my whole life and I can't recall a time, other than maybe—nope, even when we were in preschool, she was a bitch."

"I don't know what happened her, her parents are the nicest people you will ever meet." Cheyenne says, shaking her head, clearly frustrated with her cousin.

"How are you her cousin again? Because—and I'm not judging or trying to be rude, in the least—but, you guys look absolutely nothing alike." Lincoln says, butting into the conversation, clearly trying to distract himself from what may or may not be happening with Aspen.

"No offense taken, she's beautiful and I'm—I look like Annie." As she says the last part, she plops down in one of the plastic chairs, then crosses her arms over her chest in obvious irritation, "I'm adopted. Her mom's sister adopted me when I was a baby."

"That would make sense," Dal nods, is face scrunched up in consideration of something, "Annie?" he asks, giving her a look like *have you looked in a mirror?*

"Yeah, the little orphan girl. Seems fitting, right? Red hair, freckles. We were both orphans," she shrugs, obviously not fishing for compliments, she seems to truly not see how beautiful she really is. She seems to have caught Dal' attention. I haven't seen him give a girl this much attention since Sarah broke his heart.

"Hold on, back up!" Lincoln says, butting in, "Fucking Annie? Hell no, girl!" he says, shaking his head in disbelief, "You look more like that chick from that Shadowhunter’s show. What's her name?" he snaps his fingers, as if that will magically make the actresses name come to him.

"Katherine." I tell him, inserting myself into their conversation, gladly welcoming the distraction from what may be going on behind the Emergency Room doors, "Katherine McNamara."

"Family of Aspen Clark." A voice says, drawing us out of our conversation. I turn around, finding a young woman standing outside of the ER doors, glancing around at the different families littering the room.

"I'm Aspen's mom, “Ashlynn tells her, rushing to stand up and make her way over to the doctor. The four of us boys also make our way over to the doctor, coming to a stop next to Dad who is at Ashlynn's back, his hands on her shoulders for support.

"Physically, Aspen suffered from a broken arm, during the accident. However, she is in a coma. She suffered a TBI, causing swelling in Aspen’s brain, that we are currently trying to get under control. If we can't get it under control with the fluid IV's we will reevaluate our best route to take to relieve the swelling." She stops speaking for a moment, taking a deep breath before continuing, "Right now, Aspen is in critical but stable condition. However, due to her brain injury, her condition could change at the drop of a hat."

"When—" Ashlynn begins to say, but breaks off as begins to sob, "will she wake up?"

"Only time will tell. I'm sorry, I wish I had better news but with injuries like this, it can be very touch and go for a while." She says, "But Aspen is a fighter. As long as she is willing to fight, we will fight for her."

"Doctor Monroe, you are needed in OR two," a female voice says over the intercom, "Doctor Monroe, you are needed in OR two."

"I'm sorry, I must go. A nurse will be out shortly to take you to see her." Doctor Monroe says, turning around to head back through the ER doors but then stops and turns back towards us, "Oh, I almost forgot, the baby is fine, but we are monitoring both of their conditions very closely."

"Baby?" All six of us say at the same time.