Chapter 2: The Heart Attack

Davina's POV: 

My blood ran cold. "What? But... I just received a call. Someone said he had a heart attack and asked for me." My voice rose slightly, the sterile calm of the reception area suddenly feeling suffocating.

The nurse shook her head gently. "I understand you're concerned, but hospital staff hasn't made any calls regarding Mr. Wilson this morning, other than routine updates to his emergency contact. Can you give me your name?"

"Davina Wilson, I'm his daughter" I said with a trembling voice.

She turned her attention back to her monitor and started punching some buutons on her keyboard. She stopped and looked bac at me. "Ms. Wilson, you are not Mr. Wilson's emergancy contact and we never contacted you."

"But... who else would call me?" The question hung in the air, heavy with a dawning unease. If it wasn't the hospital, who knew he was here? And why would they lie about a heart attack, only to say he asked for me? A shiver, colder than the air conditioning, ran down my spine. The simple narrative I had constructed in my frantic rush was beginning to unravel, replaced by a gnawing feeling that something was terribly wrong.

The nurse, after confirming my identity with a hesitant glance, directed me down a sterile corridor, the rhythmic beeping of medical equipment a stark soundtrack to my rising unease. Room 312. The numbers seemed to mock me, a destination I was both desperate and terrified to reach.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door. The room was dimly lit, the blinds partially drawn against the harsh L.A sun. The air hung heavy with the scent of antiseptic and something else… something metallic and faintly sickening. My eyes struggled to adjust, and then I saw him.

Lying in the narrow hospital bed, he was a shadow of the man I vaguely remembered. His face was a grotesque tapestry of purple and blue bruises, his lip swollen and split. A bandage was wrapped clumsily around his forehead, stained with angry red. This wasn't a heart attack. This was… violence. My stomach lurched, a wave of nausea washing over me. Who had done this to him?

A low groan escaped his lips, and his eyelids fluttered open. His eyes, clouded and unfocused at first, widened with shock as they landed on me. The recognition that flickered across his battered face wasn't one of relief or affection. It was… something akin to fear.

"Davina?" His voice was a raspy whisper, barely audible above the beeping of the monitor beside his bed.

Before I could speak, before I could even process the horrifying reality of his condition, his expression hardened. The fear morphed into anger, sharp and immediate.

"What are you doing here?" he rasped, his voice gaining a surprising edge despite his injuries. "Who told you I was here?"

"I... I got a call," I stammered, my own shock warring with the hurt of his immediate hostility. "They said you had a heart attack... that you asked for me."

"A call?" His voice was thick with disbelief, laced with a raw anger that seemed to fuel him despite his battered state. "Who the hell would call you? I haven't spoken to you in years, Davina. Years!" Each word was a painful rasp, yet the venom behind them was unmistakable.

My heart twisted. His injuries were horrific, but his rejection stung even more. "I don't know," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, trying to keep the tremor at bay. "It was an anonymous call. They just said... they said you were in trouble, that you wanted to see me." My gaze flickered over his bruised face, the split lip, the swollen eye. Trouble was an understatement.

He scoffed, a harsh, rattling sound. "Trouble? My own damn fault, no doubt. But I sure as hell didn't ask for you to come crawling back into my life." His eyes, the only patch of skin not bruised, burned with a cold fury I hadn't seen since the screaming matches that had punctuated my childhood before the divorce.

"What happened to you?" I said trying to ignore his harsh words.

"It's none of your business. And whatever's happening here..." He trailed off, a flicker of something unreadable – fear? – crossing his expression before it was quickly masked by anger.

"But... Dad..." The word felt foreign on my tongue, a relic from a past that felt increasingly like a fabrication. "You're hurt. I just... I wanted to know if you were okay." A pathetic offering, I knew, given the years of silence.

"It was okay when you weren't darkening my doorstep. It was okay thirteen years ago when you and your sister..." He stopped abruptly, his breath catching in his throat. His eyes darted around the room, a sudden paranoia replacing the anger.

Thirteen years ago. The divorce. The silence. What was he about to say? My mind raced, trying to grasp the unspoken words hanging heavy in the air.

"Just go, Davina," he repeated, his voice now laced with a desperate urgency. "Leave. Forget you ever got this call. Forget you ever saw me like this. Just... go." He gestured weakly towards the door with a trembling hand, his eyes pleading now, but not for comfort. For me to leave.

Tears pricked at my eyes, a confusing mix of hurt, bewilderment, and a dawning sense of wrongness. This wasn't the reunion I hadn't even dared to imagine. This was hostile, fearful. Something was terribly wrong here, far beyond a simple heart attack.

"But I don't understand," I whispered, taking a hesitant step closer. "Who would have called me?"

"It doesn't matter!" he snapped, his voice rising again, strained with pain. "Just get out! Before..." He cut himself off, his gaze flicking nervously towards the shadows in the corner of the room "...before things get worse." His final words hung in the air, a chilling premonition that sent a shiver down my spine. 

Without another word I retreated from the room, my eyes couldn't keep my tears anymore. I knew, with a sickening certainty, that whatever had landed my father in this hospital bed was far from over, and my unexpected arrival had just thrown another volatile element into the mix.

 

Narrator's POV:

Unseen in the dim recesses of the room, tucked into the shadows behind the drawn curtains, a figure shifted almost imperceptibly. Andrea watched, his eyes narrowed, his ears straining to catch every harsh, disbelieving word exchanged between father and daughter. The moment Davina left the curtains were drawn back. Andrea emerged from the shadows coming face to face with Malcolm. His face became white and tried to reach for the emergancy button. Andrea was quick in knocing it away his reach and putting his hands tighthly around his neck.

"Well, well, look who's been lying" Andrea said with his voiced laced with danger and amusement at the same time.