Harmless(29)

The girl was ruthless.

Yet Roan still loved his little sister. He hated to see what the drugs had done to her. Hated who she'd become because of them. More than once, he'd considered telling her to figure her shit out on her own, that he was done. However, he'd never had the balls to come out and say it. It was bad enough that their sister, Eva, had written Cassie off. Eva had said that she did not want Cassie anywhere near her family, and by moving to Ohio, she'd made a point to ensure she never could be.

"What's going on?" he asked, glancing at the machines she was hooked up to.

"I came in because of my back problems. I'm in a lot of pain. I was hoping they could figure out what's wrong with me."

He knew the bullshit was simply because there were nurses around. She didn't have back pain.

"How'd you get here?"

"Cab."

Roan didn't buy it for a minute. "How'd you pay the cab driver?"

"Fuck you, Roan."

More than likely, some fuckup she hung out with had dumped her at the hospital. Hell, the type of people she hung around with probably would've dumped her a couple of blocks away and told her to walk. But Cassie never bothered to tell him the truth. Roan heard every single lie for what it was.

"I knew I needed help. No one seems to know what's wrong, but it hurts. I hurt all the time." Cassie was laying it on thick because there was a nurse currently reviewing one of the machines by the head of the bed.

"They did some x-rays and some other tests," Cassie continued. "I thought they'd let me go with some meds by now, but then they asked if I had any family who could come up here to be with me."

Roan frowned. That definitely didn't sound like status quo for this situation. Glancing at the nurse, he saw that she was trying to make eye contact with him. When she nodded toward the glass door, he told Cassie he'd be right back and followed the older woman into the hall.




 

 

"Are you Cassie's brother?"

Roan nodded.

"Your sister came in here earlier complaining of back pain. We've seen her in here before, a couple of years ago, for the same thing." She peered back at the door. "It's evident from her condition that … "

Roan didn't say anything, not sure what the woman was getting at.

"We believe your sister's addicted to prescription pain pills."

Among other things, Roan thought. "And you had her call me here, why?"

"The doctor would like to speak with you. I'm going to page her and let her know you're here."

Now he felt like he was under scrutiny. "So, I'm here for a reason? Something other than my sister's an addict and because she doesn't want help, there's little anyone can or will do to help us out? Because if the good doc wants to have a chat to let me know that my family should probably stage an intervention and get her some help, she can save her breath. I've heard it a million times. And we've done it twice that many times."

The woman's eyes softened, and Roan hoped she no longer thought his sister was living on the streets, strung out and ignored by her family. A lot of people assumed that, but it wasn't the truth. Shit. Roan was practically paying her bills to ensure she had a place to live. The only thing more he could actually do would be to move in with her.

Heaven help him. He did not want to do that. Ever.

"Let me page the doctor. You really are going to want to hear what she has to say."

Great.

He glanced over at the room where Cassie was still sitting, and he had to wonder what could possibly be bad enough that the doctor would call a family member down in the middle of the night. He understood if they wanted someone to pick her up, but this didn't seem as though he'd been summoned as her personal taxi.

Knowing he wasn't going to get out of this conversation with the doctor, Roan nodded at the nurse, then turned to go back in with his sister.

Might as well get this over with.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Roan wished he'd never been woken up.

"She's what?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

While trying to avoid an all-out brawl with Cassie, Roan had been patiently waiting for the doctor to stop by. The nurse had informed him that she would be there as soon as she could. At four o'clock in the fucking morning, Roan wasn't sure what was keeping the woman away so long, but he'd been doing his best imitation of a good guy and drawing on every ounce of patience he possessed.

Only now, his patience had dissipated when the doctor told him that his twenty-nine-year-old, heroin-addicted sister was pregnant. 

Fucking pregnant.

He peered over at her. Cassie had managed to fall into a fitful sleep after her last tantrum.

"We need to do an ultrasound to see how far along she is, but by my estimation, she's probably in her fourth month. Maybe further along if the baby's small."