New Moon (Alpha Wolf Academy)

by JJ King

  He turned his head and frowned down at me then shifted his gaze when I tilted my head towards his sister. The frown intensified when he saw her and his hand moved from her arm to her waist for more support.

  Daniella sagged against him with a small mewling sound that was so out of place with her usual snark that I nearly stumbled on the next stair. Instead, I shifted my hold on her good arm and leaned in to support her other side. She was going downhill, and fast.

  My muscles were screaming from her sagging weight, as little as it was, by the time we made it to the nurse’s office. A sign stuck out from the door, like an old-time doctor’s office. Bash shifted his sister into his arms so I could try the door.

  It opened without a sound.

  My head flew up in shocked surprise. Every small victory today had been won through hard work and endless effort. To have this final obstacle just swing open without complaint was beyond belief. I looked up and down the hallway to make sure the coast was clear and whispered, “Get her inside.”

  Bash scooped Daniella into his arms as if she weighed nothing and disappeared into the office.

  Where an armed guard stood leaning against a counter, casually eating an apple.

  “Hey,” he said in a perfectly normal voice. “Just grabbing a snack.” He plucked another from a basket and held it up. “Enough for everyone.” Then, as if he’d just noticed Daniella, he nodded towards her. “What’s up with the rich bitch? Looks like she’s not long for this world. Just dump her and take a load off.”

  Bash’s body stiffened and every nerve in my body screamed to reach out to him to stop whatever he was about to do. A moment later, my arms were full of Daniella and the crunch of fist on bone filled the air along with the scent of blood.

  I pulled Daniella back from the flying fists and grunting males. She was dead weight now and her eyes were white, rolled back in her head. Cursing, I pulled her over to an examining table and managed to get her on top a moment before Bash flew across the room and landed, with a grunt, against the wall. I spun around to see the guard reaching for his weapon, which, I saw now, was in Bash’s hand.

  I stared at it, then up at him, my mind a flurry of questions, the foremost being, would he actually use it? Seconds ticked by as the guard obviously wondered the same thing then, deciding it was worth the chance, lunged across the room with a roar of fury.

  Bash tossed the gun at me and met his opponent mid-air.

  I yelped, terrified for an instant that I’d accidentally shoot someone, then shoved the gun behind me where I could grab it if need be. I watched them grapple for a few seconds more then, convinced Bash could take care of himself, I turned back to Daniella.

  Her skin was turning grey and her breathing was shallow.

  Panic heated my face and made my brain buzz until I was lightheaded and flushed. Trying desperately to ignore the full-fledged brawl happening just feet away from me, I turned to the wall of cabinets and pulled at the first door.

  “Of course it’s locked,” I muttered. My own breathing was coming faster now. It felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on my chest, making it hard to inhale. Part of my brain understood this was just a little panic attack, perfectly normal in the face of what I’d experienced today, but the other part was too busy hyperventilating to fully grasp that.

  I spun around, looking for something sharp, once again, to bust open the cabinets so I could find the damn antidote. There was plenty of broken wood and plastic, but nothing I could use. I closed my eyes and leaned against the exam table.

  Something shifted behind me and I whirled around, afraid Daniella was falling, or seizing, or dead, but it was just the stirrups shifting in their slot.

  Laughter bubbled up in my throat and exploded, which caught Bash’s attention for just a split second. His look of concern distracted him just long enough for the guard to deliver a solid punch to the gut. The breath whooshed out of him and he doubled over.

  My mouth dropped open and the mania that had been threatening disappeared in an instant, replaced by fury. I let loose a bloodcurdling scream and charged.

  The guard looked up at the last second. His eyes went wide and he threw up his arms to protect his head from the metal stirrup descending on him.

  It smashed into his forearms with as much power as I could deliver, cracking bones that split like dry wood and punctured through the skin. Blood spurted from his arms to the floor, the perfect distraction.

  Bash brought the chair down on the man’s head and shoulders and, together, we watched him crumple to the floor.

  Jagged breathes filled the silence. I lowered my still raised metal weapon and glanced over at Bash, who was wiping blood from a split lip. He was battered, bruised, and looked a little raw around the edges, but he was alive.

  I spun around and ran to Daniella. I called for Bash to “lock the door” without looking back to see if he did.

  She was quiet now, her breathing so shallow that I could barely hear it. I pressed my ear to her chest and felt her heart struggle to beat.

  “She’s dying,” I said quietly. I tore the other stirrup out of the table and handed it to Bash. His face, blood red just a moment ago, was pale now. “Help me find the antidote.”

  I wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but there was no time. Daniella’s wound was so much worse than I’d thought. I shoved the metal end of the stirrup into the first cabinet door. It splintered.

  First aid equipment lined the shelves.

  “Bash,” I snapped, needing him to move, to help. He was just standing there, looking at his twin, his eyes endlessly grief stricken and hopeless. “No,” I shoved him, hard, which got his attention for a second. It was all I needed. “She’s not dead, yet. Help me save her.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, a sign of recognition. He grabbed the stirrup from my hands and attacked the first cabinet.

  I found the medicine in the third one. Bottles lined the shelves, all labeled, all neatly arranged. I stared at them, waiting for one that was labeled “Silver antidote” to jump out at me, but when it didn’t, when all I saw was medical mumbo-jumbo, I slammed my fists into the counter and wept.

  “What? It’s not there?” Bash practically pushed me out of the way to look.

  “I don’t know,” I said on a sob. “I have no idea what any of these medications are.”

  He turned to stare at me. “You said the nurse had an antidote.”

  I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and frowned. “She has to, but I don’t know which one it is and if we give her something random…” I trailed off and looked at Daniella.

  “We’ll kill her,” Bash finished what I didn’t want to say. He closed his eyes and let his head drop as if it were too heavy to be held up. For a moment, we just stood there, gutted, and hopeless.

  A sound so small a human may not have heard escaped Daniella’s pale blue lips and snapped up both out of our misery. Bash raced to his sister’s side but I stayed and looked again at the bottles. It was here, one of the bottles could save her.

  And any of the others could damn her.

  She was dying anyway, I argued, trying to use reason in an unreasonable situation. My head swam with counter arguments until I could barely see straight. I was smart, smart enough, maybe I could process of elimination my way through this problem. Gritting my teeth, I reached for the first bottle and read the label.

  Feverfew.

  No, I put the bottle down on the countertop. My mom suffered from the occasional headache and had a big bottle of feverfew in the medicine cabinet. I grabbed another.

  Aconite.

  That one rang a bell. I searched my memory for meaning and came up empty. Frustration gripped me hard. Somewhere in my brain, I knew the answer but it kept slipping away the harder I tried to grab it. With a growl, I put it on the counter, too.

  The counter filled with discarded bottles, dwindling down the choices.

  Argyria sanitatem.

  My palms went damp. I’d
always loved the origins of words and had made a study of many over the years. I’d looked up the Latin for words, the French, and the German.

  Argyria. Argent. Silver.

  Sanitatem. Santé. Health.

  “This is it,” I said quietly and turned with the bottle in my hands. “This is it.” I gave Bash a shaky smile and held it out.

  “Are you sure?”

  The hope in his voice was heartbreaking. I wanted to shout “no” and wrench it away, but Daniella was out of time. I watched her chest struggle to rise. Bash’s fingers grasped the bottle and took it from my hand.

  “How much should I give her?” His voice quivered as unscrewed the top.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  He lifted the bottle to Daniella’s lips, his hands shaking wildly, then froze when I hissed, “Stop!”

  Bash turned his head and I saw terror in his eyes.

  “What if it needs to be intravenous?” I swallowed hard, then nodded sharply and turned back to the first cabinet I’d opened and grabbed a hypodermic needle.

  I’d never administered one before, but I’d seen the process often enough. Old Ones, I’d watched enough Grey’s Anatomy to be a surgeon by now.

  Bash held out the bottle and I slipped the needle inside, withdrawing a full five milliliters of the liquid. Holding it up, I squirted a tiny bit, to get rid of air bubbles my brain told me, then walked like a terrified first year to the exam bed.

  Daniella looked near death. I eyed her, wondering where to inject the antidote so it could work the quickest. I grabbed the fabric of her shirt and tugged, ripping it a bit so I could see her wound, and gasped.

  Violent, angry lines of silver fanned out from the bullet hole, spreading in a straight line towards her heart.

  Bash moaned and lowered his forehead to his twin’s and I stopped analyzing everything from a million different angles.

  I lifted the needle and plunged it into Daniella’s chest.

  Chapter 21

  No one spoke. No one breathed. We just waited until Daniella’s chest rose once more, then we both let out shaky breaths.

  “What do we do now?” Bash straightened and reached a hand out to me without even looking, just as he had with Daniella.

  I just looked at it for a moment, hanging there, waiting for me to fill it, then slipped my hand, palm to palm into his. The connection made every tight muscle in my body sag in relief.

  After a moment, he turned and looked down at me, his eyes endless pools of grief. “How long should it take?”

  I shook my head and whispered, “I don’t know,” then squeezed his hand and lifted it to my lips.

  Time seemed to stand still in the silence. I counted the rise and fall of Daniella’s chest, watching to see if the rhythm changed, grew stronger, or weakened. When minutes passed, according to the clock on the wall, and she didn’t die, hope blossomed.

  “She’s strong,” I whispered, feeling as though we were in a church. Death was too close.

  Bash nodded slowly, never taking his gaze off his sister. “She’s stubborn as hell.” He gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more mulish than my big sister.”

  “Big sister?” I asked, confusion twisting my face.

  He chuckled. “By three minutes and seven seconds. And she’s never let me live it down.” His fingers clenched.

  I turned to him, needing to do something more than just stand there, useless, and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Look at me,” I urged.

  He tore his gaze from Daniella and looked deep into my eyes.

  “You need to be the stubborn one, now.” I lifted a hand to brush an escaped tear from his cheek. “You need to be the strong one, for her.” I waited a minute for his mouth to thin and his eyes to sharpen. “Can you do that?”

  He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them and nodded. “Thank you.”

  I shook my head and opened my mouth to say “don’t mention it,” but he stopped me.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, shaking me gently. “We’ve gone through Hell today, all of us, and you’re still hanging on. We hid in a shed,” Bash pointed to his sister then himself. “But you fought your way across campus to save a man that pisses you off.” He tilted his head and lowered his lips to a fraction of an inch from mine. “You’re amazing.”

  His lips brushed mine so softly it felt like a whisper of a dream. I accepted his warmth with a sigh and sank into him, giving what he so obviously needed and taking what my soul craved.

  Comfort and understanding.

  He moved to press a kiss against my forehead then tucked me into his arms and just held on. Together, we turned, watched, and waited.

  “Look,” I whispered the word as I tugged at Bash’s shirt and pointed to his sister’s chest. The silver threads of poison were drawing back, away from her heart, and, as we watched and grinned at one another, she took a deep, steadying breath.

  I let go of Bash as he moved to her, pulling up the only chair that hadn’t been smashed to sit by her side. It was a sweet sight, one that had a lump forming in my throat. I turned away as tears filled my eyes, not for them, but for me, and the loved ones I’d almost lost today. Or, rather, they’d almost lost me.

  The weight of it sunk in and I reached out a hand to the wall to support my suddenly shaky legs. I’d been surrounded by death today. I’d walked through it and I’d refused to let myself feel it, not really, until now.

  I grabbed my chest and shuddered. All the emotions I’d been packing down for hours threatened to bubble up and take me under, but I couldn’t let them. It would paralyze me and we weren’t done.

  I refocused my mind and pictured Xavier as I’d left him. With Daniella getting worse so quickly, I couldn’t help but think it was already too late for him, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that assumption was wrong.

  Daniella had succumbed quickly because the infection had been so close to her heart. Xavier’s wound was a lot further away from his heart, so there was a chance…

  I’d hold onto that chance with everything I had and it would get me through.

  “Daniella?” Bash’s soft question caught my attention and I turned to see her long dark lashes flutter a few times. I crossed the room and laid a hand on Bash’s arm, and squeezed.

  Her lips parted and a soft exhalation slipped past them. The tip of her tongue touched her dry lips.

  “I’ll get her some water,” I said, leaving his side to fill one of the little paper cups by the water cooler.

  Bash put his arm behind his sister’s back and shifted her gently until he was able to slide behind her and brace her on his lap. Slowly, I poured small amounts of water into her mouth until she whispered, “Thank you,” and opened her eyes.

  I stared into them, barely recognizing the emerald eyes that had watched me with such contempt. There was a softness, a weakness that made me a little uncomfortable to tell the truth, and confusion that made me feel for her.

  “We got you the antidote in time,” I said softly, lowering the cup. “But it was close, so it’ll probably take you a while to start feeling better.”

  “Xavier,” the words came out raspy and rough. Daniella’s gaze stayed locked on mine and her hand, weak and quavering, reached for mine.

  I took it and felt the effort she put into the squeeze.

  “Go,” she whispered, then turned her head to look up at Bash. “Help him,” she urged then closed her eyes for a moment.

  Bash looked up at me and, in his eyes, I saw a storm of confusion and guilt. He wanted to stay with her, wanted to go with me, and didn’t know what to do.

  I reached for his hand. “You can stay.”

  He down at his sister, his heart, the literal other half of him. I watched the play of emotions on his face and my heart filled for him.

  “She’s safe here and getting better.” He looked up at me and, this time, there was a firm set to his brows and a determination in his eyes. “Let’s go sav
e Xavier.”

  Daniella’s eyes opened again as Bash shifted and laid her down on the bed. “Be safe,” she whispered, lifting her hand for him to take. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Bash’s voice broke but he choked back the tears that I could see welling in his eyes. “Don’t try to leave, okay? I’ll come back for you. Just stay here and stay safe.”

  She nodded slowly, letting her eyes flutter shut a few times, then her breathing shifted and she was asleep.

  I straightened my uniform. While Bash pulled himself together, I found an empty bottle that I filled halfway with the antidote, and put it and a few needles into the cargo pockets on my legs, thinking they’d be the safest place on my body. I figured I’d leave some behind in case Daniella needed another dose or someone else showed up needing it.

  As I put the bottle and needle on the table next to Daniella, something flickered in my memory. I frowned at the array of bottles I’d left on the counter and wandered over to sort through them again. There was something there that was niggling at my brain and I wanted to find out why.

  I pulled bottle after bottle, putting the discarded ones back on the shelf, until I was left with just one.

  Aconite.

  I’d heard that word before, or read it somewhere, and I knew it was important. I reached for my phone to Google it out of habit and gritted my teeth when I remembered that wasn’t an option.

  There had to be a medical dictionary here, though, I reasoned. Seemed like a pretty logical addition to any nurse’s office. I scanned the room, frowning when I didn’t see a bookshelf. I turned to the cabinets. I hadn’t run across any books when we’d been searching for the antidote, but I also hadn’t been looking for one, and I hadn’t checked the lower cabinets.

  “What are you looking for?” Bash asked, coming out of the attached bathroom.

  “A medical dictionary,” I said, looking for the stirrup, so I could start smashing cabinet doors again.