Heavenly Virtues

Part 27

Within a few hours, Ashley's Granda, Ma, and Da were all in the boys' room, desperately waiting for an update on the beloved girl. The joy of Cody's death was quick and short-lived as it was overshadowed by the girls' unstable condition. When the doctors came into the boys' room, the look on his face was less than promising, putting the whole group on edge.

"McGinty?" The doctor asked, looking over his clip board. Her Ma nodded furiously. "Oh God, please. Is my baby okay?" The doctor dropped the papers back into place on the clip board and nodded. "The good news is she's stable." Sighs of relief were heard around the room before the doctor cut in again. "Ashley suffered a skull fracture, we think from some sort of blunt force trauma to the back of her head. She needed minimal intervention. We don't think she'll need surgery just yet. The trauma caused a small brain bleed that we are monitoring and hope will correct itself on its own.

Murphy's anger got the best of him and he flung his hand up at the doctor, immediately feeling the sharp pain in his side as his ribs screamed in protest at the sudden movement, stealing his breath away. When Murphy caught his breath, he looked sternly at the doctor. "Wha do ye mean ye HOPE it'll correct itself?" The doctor tilted his head. "If it doesn't stop well have to go in and stop it, she'll need brain surgery."

The room fell tense again. "I'm afraid that's not all. We had to preform surgery on her eye socket, Ashley had an pretty severe orbital fracture. We fixed that, prognosis is good, should be pretty well healed in a week." The room stayed quiet as they could tell there was more.

"There are also some obvious signs of some sort of sexual assault." A faint gasp was heard from her mother before the tears came. Murphys face contorted as more tears fell. Rocco, Connor, her Da, and Granda all kept hard faces, disturbed at the possibility of things he could've done to the girl. "There are test we can do to confirm-"

It was Connors turn to interject. "So do 'em!" He yelled, but the doctor merely shook his head. "I'm afraid we can't do those tests, the kit, without her consent and to my knowledge, her attacker is dead?" He paused waiting for the nods around the room that came. "That kit is usually only used when we need to collect evidence for a prosecution." The room fell silent. "Kit?" Rocco weakly asked from the far side of the room.

Her ma turned to him with a shaky voice and tears in her eyes. "A rape kit. Ta.... collect evidence. DNA." She choked on the acronym, sobs over taking her body again. The doctor nodded and gave Ashley's Ma time to gather herself. When she didn't, he continued. "The bad news is-" Ashley's Da scoffed and looked at the doctor aghast "that wasn't the bad news?" The doctors lips tightened and his brows furrowed.

"I'm afraid Ashley hasn't woken up yet. With a brain injury like this it's hard to gage. The brain will take however long it needs to recover so unfortunately, there is no estimated time for when she'll wake up." The room fell silent again.

"If." All heads turned to Ashley's Da. "SHAWN! HOW COULD YE SAY THA!" Her Ma shouted looking horrified. He turned to her Ma and gripped her hands. "Eileen, did you not hear the man?" He shook his head with furrowed brows "The lord, he brought her back to us last time. This time... he might not."

The boys were stunned, how could he have such little faith? Their girl was strong, their lord was just, and he would bring her back to THEM. He had brought her into their life for a reason, what reason would he have to rip her from them? To show them the evil of the world? To push them to do something about it? None of it made sense.

The doctor broke the boys shared stream of consciousness when he spoke. "I'm afraid that is a possibility. Things look okay now, but with brain injuries you can never be sure." Her Granda stood and walked the doctor out knowing the group couldn't stand anymore. "Thank ye." He nodded as he closed the door behind the doctor.