Chapter 11

I groaned as I sat down on the couch in the teacher's lounge.

"Are you okay, John?" Mary Jo asked.

"My ribs hurt like hell," I said through my teeth.

"Let me see them, John," Mr. Hughes said, concerned.

Jesse and Bobby helped me remove my jacket while Mary Jo unbuttoned my shirt.

"Oh, my God," Mary Jo said when the last button came undone. My right side was a nasty shade of purple.

"Mr. Anthony, go get Mr. Jefferson," Mr. Hughes said as he reached for the phone.

My ribs were only bruised. Tracey arrived just as the doctor had finished bandaging them up. He told me to go home and rest. Tracey wanted to listen to what the doctor had said and take me straight home.

"Trace, I hurt like hell, and there is nothing more that I'd like than to go home," I said tiredly, "but do you mind if we see how Missy is doing first? I know I didn't hurt her, but I am the one who took her to the dance, and she was trying to defend me when she got hurt."

Tracey looked set to argue, but her face softened when she saw my concern. "I'm sorry, John. I didn't even think about Missy," she said. "Of course we should go see her, but only for a few minutes. You do need to get home and rest. I think we need to call the lawyer again, although that's probably going to have to wait till tomorrow, or even Monday." She touched a hand to my cheek. "We also need to talk about how to keep you alive till graduation," she said, her smile taking away some of the rebuke in the words. "Come on, let's go find Missy."

One of the nurses told us how to find Missy's room. We just had to continue down the corridor, turn right and go to the fourth room on the left past the Nurse's Station. Tracey stopped and put her hand on my arm as we approached the end of the corridor. I started to ask her why she stopped, but she put her finger to my lips and pointed at the nurse's station.

Missy's stepfather, Charles Langley was on his cell phone and was carrying on a loud conversation with someone.

"Damn it! You really screwed up this time, meat head. We had this all planned out. All you had to do was date Missy until the Prom, and get her pregnant. Everything else would have fallen in our laps. The company would finally be back in the right hands."

"No! Robinson was of no consequence! If you and your hot heads hadn't gone off half cocked, Missy would still be your girlfriend. Now I have to work something else out."

"No, you idiot, just marrying Annabelle didn't get me a damned thing. Her fucking first husband screwed that. His will and the prenup made sure we couldn't get the company back that easily."

"Don't 'cousin' me you jackass!. You got yourself in this legal mess. Relative or not, I can't afford to get you out of it. I don't have the funds."

"Now you want to listen to me? Okay, well we need to lay low for a while, especially you. This will eventually blow over and then we can try something else."

"Look, I've got to go, Junior. I need to go play the concerned parent to that bitch, Missy, and see if I can't try to fix the mess you've created."

Langley hung up as he turned and saw us. We turned the corner and walked past him as if we'd heard nothing.

"Just where do you think you are going, Robinson? You stay away from my daughter. This is all your fault," Langley shouted as he walked swiftly after us.

"Go find your girl, John. I'll take care of this asshole," Tracey whispered and then turned back to Langley.

I kept on going, ignoring the commotion behind me. I knocked softly on the door and then opened it.

Missy was lying on the hospital bed. She was pale and her eyes were closed. Her mother smoothed an errant hair out of her face and then turned to see who had come in the room.

"How is she, Mrs. Langley?" I asked quietly.