(Oliver's POV)

After all the effort I made to rush back here, I can't seem to get my legs to carry me to Camden's room. My mind tries to imagine every form of torture Joseph Foster will inevitably try to inflict on me when he discovers- if he hasn't already- that I allowed his one and only daughter to run head first into the one thing he vowed to protect her from.

And I couldn't even keep her safe.

She's in a coma, in a hospital bed with a bullet wound to her chest because of me. My subconscious keeps circling back to images of him shoving bamboo splints underneath my fingertips like I've seen him do to plenty of others, and quite honestly, that seems to be the most tame. Still, I deserve it.

I notice Freya and the rest of my guards standing around by a row of vending machines down the hall. Definitely not a good sign if Joe kicked them out. Freya mouths an "I'm sorry" to me as I pass by them, unable to contain my miserable expression.

My heavy feet finally make it to her room. The door is almost completely closed, cracked ever so slightly. I stop just outside as I close my eyes and take a deep breath. With a shaky sigh and an even shakier hand, I push the door open, cringing at the loud creak it makes, and step inside the room. I close the door behind me with a gentle push.

Morgan is sitting in my chair by Camden's side, holding her right hand in both of hers, much like I did. Joe stands behind Morgan, both of his hands placed reassuringly on either of her shoulders. Concern for their daughter laces their normally stoic exteriors.

As the door latches behind me, they finally look up. My heart drops to the pit of my stomach as the concern is instantly replaced with pure, unabashed rage.

"You selfish fucking prick," Joe seethe.

He rips his hands off Morgan's shoulders and lunges at me. I stand in place and brace myself for the impact. No point in trying to run. I knew this would happen and a sick part of me wanted it to.

I deserve to be in that hospital bed, not Camden.

He grips the front of my shirt in painfully tight fists and slams me against the door. The impact against my head is enough to make me dizzy, but the blurry vision corrects itself in seconds. The impact of my head against the floor, however, sparks a ringing in my ears.

With each blow, a darkness begins to seep into the corners of my eyes. The blurriness is back full force, there's no shaking it now. I can vaguely hear Morgan shouting at us as he takes turns punching my face and slamming my head against the linoleum, but even that starts to fade into the darkness.

The words become shapeless and meaningless, which I hope is a good sign that this will all be over soon. Of course, I've never been that lucky. On the brink of that sweet release, that numbness I've been begging for since Camden was shot, I'm brought back to the cusp of reality by whatever unlucky doctors and nurses had the misfortune of pulling Joe off of me.

As I begin to regain a little bit of consciousness, I notice that somehow I needed up on the other side of the room. My head had somehow ended up in an awkward position between Camden's bed and the small table beside it.

I muster the rest of my strength to lift myself up on one arm to make sure that Camden and all the equipment attached to her remained undisturbed in the scuffle. A quick glance at the floor in front of me shows a trail of blood from the door to where I'm sitting.

Joe is still trying to escape his captors, his eyes focused entirely on me, as I feel around my head for the source of the bleeding. The back of my head feels dry enough, but there's a large bump forming at the base of my neck there. All the blood was definitely coming from my face.

I touch my fingers to my nostrils. When I pull them back, they're coated in the dark wet liquid I was expecting. My nose is definitely broken, goddammit. I run my tongue along the outside of my teeth and I definitely taste a metallic tang, but fortunately it appears that my teeth are at least all still in place.

I pull myself up slowly using the side of Camden's bed, making sure not to disturb her or her tubes. I'm wobbly on my feet at first and have trouble steadying myself. My vision is still blurry from all the blows to the head, but I manage to stay upright.

Joe seems to have calmed down a little bit. He's still seething at me, but at least he's not struggling against the three men holding him from finishing the job on me.

"You had one fucking job, Pierce! All you had to do was make sure she was safe!" He screams at me.

I don't even have a response for him except a nod. He's absolutely right. It hurts to hear him use my last name like that. I always considered him to be a second father to me, even if he scared the piss out of me, and letting him down felt like absolute shit.

"I swear, I tried to keep her out of it. I did the best that I could, but you know Cam. If she wants something, she won't stop until she gets her way. I never wanted her to get hurt," I manage to choke out.

My voice is shaking, partly because I'm still trying to catch my breath and partly because I'm holding back tears. This is the only instance that I'm grateful that Camden can't see me. I could probably count on one hand the number of times she's seen me moved to tears, and a majority of those most likely occurred under the age of ten. She'd always joke about technology finally being advanced enough that now even robots could cry.

"That's a bullshit answer and you know it," her father continues. "I trusted you. Not your guards. Not your hitmen. You. That stolen cargo could have easily been replaced. None of that should have mattered as much as keeping my daughter safe. You're the only person I trusted with that task and look what fucking happened!"

"I know!" I scream back.

"Can you guys chill the fuck out? I'm trying to sleep here," a beautifully raspy voice says from behind me.