Dressed In Black

Hope

"Are you kidding me!" I shouted as I rushed over. I dragged Danny over toward the wall and sat him up, making sure that he was breathing. "Get me a towel for him and get one for your hand, you're bleeding." My tone was a little harsher than I had intended, but I was fucking fuming. Zak solemnly nodded in response and went off to the kitchen.

"Here." He handed me the towel.

"Thank you." When I was finished wiping Danny's face and sat down to monitor him, I turned to Zak. I rubbed my hand over my face.

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I needed to protect you from this fucking psychopath who bust into the house, and that protection just happened to manifest as a punch. Damn good one too."

"It's not that I don't appreciate that, but you need to think things through a little bit more clearly."

"What do you mean, Allison?" His voice rose in volume, booming out and echoing through the foyer. I held up a hand.

"Calm down, I'm the angry one here! What I mean is that I'm sure there were other ways to solve this, and punching him makes a lot of shit really difficult for us. We have too many secrets, and he knows all of them. Trust me, I wanted to give him a punch or two at the door, but I knew it wasn't going to bode well for us." I got up off of the floor and retrieved a bag of ice, when Danny woke, he was probably going to need it. When I returned, he was stirring, reaching his hand up to his mouth. I tossed the bag of ice at him.

"What the fuck." Danny wiped his mouth of blood, looking from me to Zak and spitting in his direction. He picked up the ice and held it to his jaw.

Until the punch, this was my fight. But now it was between the two men staring each other down in the foyer-- one dizzy and bleeding, the other with a busted hand, and me left to deal with the mess.

"Come on you fucking children." I spat, helping Danny get up and motioning to Zak to follow. First thing was first: before we hashed anything out, both of them needed medical attention.

"Alli-" Danny hesitated.

"Shut up." I cut him off, helping him into the back seat of my car and slamming the door.

Zak was silent as he got in the passenger's side, holding his hand with a towel around it. He knew not to mess with me when I was so livid. I was angry at my ex, first and foremost for busting into my house with whatever his intentions were, but still some was directed at my fiance as well.

The car ride to the hospital was silent, me white knuckling the steering wheel the whole way there. I had a tongue made of fire and if anyone tried to say a damn thing to me, they were getting burned.

____

Zak got his hand sterilized and wrapped, and was expected to be fine. Danny on the other hand had to go for a CAT scan to see if he had a concussion from hitting the floor. Aside from that, he only had a busted lip and a bruise, more than likely. The only thing I could do while all three of us waited for the results, with the two men I was sitting between clenching their jaws to keep from saying something I'd make them regret, was pray that the results came back negative.

I leaned over and whispered in Zak's ear-- asking him to give me a moment alone with Daniel. At first he disagreed, refusing to leave. I took his uninjured hand.

"I'm going to be fine. I love you and I'll be out in a minute." I kissed his cheek and assured him that I'd be out soon, pointing him toward the door. He begrudgingly stood and walked out, but not before shooting a death glare at my ex. I pointed again, more forcefully, and shut the door.