The Game Plan (Neighbor from Hell #5)(82)

The message had come through crystal clear. His father had washed his hands of him. Nothing could have been clearer than the moment he woke up and found his father standing in his doorway, watching him with a detached expression. Then his father had turned his back on him and walked away while he’d laid there in that f*cking bed struggling not to scream from the pain. That had been the worst f*cking moment of his life and now…

He couldn’t stop.

He just couldn’t and God, how he wanted to stop swinging his arms, but he couldn’t. There was just too much pain and he couldn’t stop. So, when he felt his brothers grab him and pull him away from his father, he was unbelievably grateful. But as they pulled him back and took him to the ground that gratitude turned to pure agony.

*-*-*-*

“Breathe, Danny,” he said, trying not to lose it as he watched Danny struggle to breathe through the pain.

“Dad?” Darrin said, putting everything into that one word as he looked up from Danny, pleading with him to make his brother okay with one look, a look he recognized all too well.

“He’s going to be fine,” he said firmly, absently wiping away the blood trickling down his chin on the back of his arm as he looked his son over.

“Hold still, man,” Reese said, taking his brother’s hand in his. “Just hold still.”

“Call for an ambulance,” Aidan said calmly, but his hands shook as he grabbed Danny’s shirt and pulled it up. Ethan pushed his son’s hands away and examined Danny’s stomach. When his fingers moved over his scar and Danny screamed, long and loud, he tried not to panic.

Please watch over my son, he chanted in his head, the same prayer he’d said every day for the past eleven years. Please watch over my son, Please watch over my son, Please watch over my son…..

“Lucifer, go get Jodi and meet us at the hospital,” he said, trying to remain calm as he watched the first signs of bruising and swelling spread around Danny’s scar, a clear sign that his son was going to need one more surgery that he might not make it through.

Oh, God……

“Someone call Mom,” Aidan said hollowly as he looked up and met his gaze.

“What’s wrong with him?” Darrin demanded, taking Danny’s other hand in his. The fact that Danny didn’t try to pull his hands away and tell his brothers that he was fine told them everything that they needed to know.

“It was an accident,” Reese said, staring down at his brother, shaking his head in disbelief. “God, it was an accident.”

“It’s okay,” he told his sons in his most soothing tone, the one that he saved for frightened parents that were forced to stand around helplessly while their kids suffered.

“He shouldn’t have hit you,” Darrin bit out evenly, sounding pissed even as he gave Danny’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

“I had it coming,” he told his son, because they all knew that he had that coming and more for what he’d done to Danny.

“T-Tinkerbelle,” Danny whispered weakly.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Kenzie asked as she walked in the room only to stop when she spotted Danny on the floor. “Danny?” she said, rushing to his side. “Oh my God, Danny!” she said, trying to take Danny’s hand away from Reese, but he wasn’t letting him go.

“He’s going to be fine,” Aidan said, forcing a small reassuring smile as he took his sister’s hand and gently pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “He’s going to be fine.”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Danny said weakly seconds before he finally, passed out and all hell broke loose.

*-*-*-*

“How long will he be in surgery?” Duncan asked.

Aidan looked up to see if his father was going to answer, but the look on his father’s face had him answering. “We don’t know.”

“He’ll be fine,” their mother said, nodding at her own words even as she released a shuddering breath while she sat there, holding their father’s hand tightly.

“We broke his back,” Reese said hollowly, looking as close to crying as he’d ever seen any his brothers come and the fact that Darrin’s expression matched his twin’s terrified him.

None of the men in his family had cried when Danny had been shipped back to them, bandaged and in a coma with a poor prognosis. They hadn’t cried as they’d waited surgery after surgery to find out if their brother would survive. They hadn’t cried when his brother had gone through hell and back to learn how to walk again, but today they were all struggling not to lose it.

For the past couple of years they’d all treated Danny with kid gloves, careful not to hug him too tightly, put too much into their punches or headlocks, always pulling back, too terrified of what could happen if they didn’t and today….

Today they’d seen him finally react to their father and gave him the beating that even he had to admit that his father had coming, and they’d reacted. They’d all grabbed onto him without thought. They’d grabbed him by his arms, his legs and he’d grabbed Danny around the waist and they’d yanked him back, stumbled and tripped, bringing Danny down to the ground in an awkward pile. He’d heard the snap and he’d swear until his dying day that he’d even been able to feel it as it happened.

“Has anyone heard from Lucifer?” Duncan asked, tightening his arm around Kenzie, who’d been quietly crying since the doctor came out and confirmed that Danny had broken his back.