Hustle. (Book 2)

Chapter 17: New Day

Chris P.O.V.

I yawned from waking up and looked at the waiting room clock.

8:09 a.m.

It was hard to keep my mind straight. I was thinking of Paris and thinking of Lauryn and thinking about both my babies and wishing I could go back just 24 hours.

I couldn't find my phone anywhere and I figured I'd dropped it at the Shack. When someone finally let me borrow their phone, I was such a mess that I kept mixing up Lauryn's numbers and couldn't get it right.

I wanted to just go home and get in bed and snuggle up with my baby, but I couldn't leave when I didn't know the status of my baby.

"The family of Paris Benson?" a nurse with weave down to her butt came out and called. I jumped up and quickly hurried over.

"That'd be me, how is she?" I questioned, more panicky than I meant to come off as.

"And you are?" she asked, looking me up and down, tucking her hair behind her ear. I would've paid more attention to her flirting if I was so worried about my child.

"The child's father."

"Right this way, sir," she instructed, looking down at the ground.

She led me down a long corridor to a room all the way at the end. The curtains were drawn shut and the door was closed.

"Please prepare yourself sir," she said. I was ready. I knew how she looked when I brought her in.

I nodded and she slowly opened the door to the dimly lit room.

My jaw dropped and stomach twisted into knots. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Her face had blown up like a balloon, looking swelled and bruised. Her once tan skin was almost as pale as a ghost. Machines were hooked up everywhere; to her nose, her mouth, her neck, her chest.

"What...what...I mean what happened?" I exclaimed. "She didn't look like this when I brought her here! Did you take the bullet put? What happened?"

"The doctors tried everything they could sir. They operated for 10 hours straight, until 6:00 this morning. The bullet grazed her ascending aorta which caused an aortic dissection to occur. The blood stopped circulating in her body and due to her condition, her brain tissue was affected and ceased to function. She is now comatose and the chances of her waking are very slim."

A tear shed from my eye and I let it fall to the ground. After all the hell this woman put me through, I'd give anything to have her back if it meant that I could see my daughter. "There has to be something more you could do!" I raged.

"We did everything we could, sir. It was a verb difficult operation and we had to attempt to save the baby which was another complication as well."

"What happened to my daughter?" I asked, tears streaming down my face now and my lip quivering.

"No one came to get you? I sincerely apologize. We are very short staff and everyone is moving around the clock--"

"What happened to my daughter?" I demanded again.

"She is in the NICU, sir, although doing much better than we thought. She was quite the fighter. You are gonna have a handful with this little one," she said, chuckling.

"I have a...a daughter?" I asked, cracking a small grin.

"Yes. She was delivered by emergency c-section last night at 10:25 p.m. There was a lot of work to be done on her last night, being two months premature, but I figured by this morning they'd allow you to see her."

"Take me to her now," I pleaded.

I couldn't believe it. My baby girl had made it. My Melody was alive. My Melody Rose Benson was actually here.