by Helen Scott
“Thanks, but these won’t fit. I’ve got some big feet,” he said as he threw the shoes back. “A couple more pairs of socks wouldn’t hurt though.”
Roman fulfilled his request as he tucked the shoes back into the pack. When he straightened, I couldn’t help but voice the worry that had been plaguing me ever since he woke me up and told me that Blake’s wounds were infected.
“There’s no way we’re going to get all the way back to the city on foot and get Blake to a hospital before this becomes too dangerous, is there?”
Roman looked down, his fingers fiddling with the strap of the pack, like he was trying to adjust it or something.
“No,” Micah said, saving Roman from being the bearer of bad news.
“If the guys from the pack didn’t fuck with it, then my car should still be around,” Tate said quietly, making hope bloom in my chest.
“What about your keys?” Micah asked, hope and disappointment warring on his face.
“I have a spare taped in a wheel well for exactly this reason,” he said with a grin.
“You have a spare taped in your wheel well for when you’re out in the woods with your mate fighting a bunch of crazy wolves and trying to get your mate’s other mate to the hospital because his wound from the last fight is infected?” I asked, feeling sassy and also a little slappy from how tired I was.
“Okay, fine, not exactly this situation. I’ve been in random shift situations where I lost my clothes along the way and needed a way to get into my car. So I started doing this as a safety measure,” Tate replied with a sigh.
“How far away is your car?” Roman asked, getting us all back on track.
“Maybe an hour walk?”
“Let’s go then. It’s not like if it’s destroyed, it’ll be a huge detour.” Roman nodded and grabbed the packs he’d been going through.
“You guys go on ahead. I just need a minute,” I said as I did a little shuffle with my legs together, the universal sign for “I have to pee”.
“One of us should wait with you,” Roman said, his eyebrows drawn together as he rubbed his chin.
“I’ll be fine. They’ve stopped attacking us. I just need to take care of some business and then I’ll catch up.” When he still seemed hesitant to leave, I said, “What’s the likelihood of whoever stays behind and I having sex and taking even longer to catch up?”
That made him chuckle, and he finally said, “Fine, but if you need us, scream or something.”
“Deal.” I nodded firmly and stuck my hand out. He shook it while also shaking his head at me in despair. The four of them headed out, and I waited until I was sure they were out of earshot before I said, “You can come out now.”
Slowly, the wolf from before prowled forward. It was the same one I’d seen when I’d been out sleepwalking. His coat was a dark brown and brindled with steel gray and tan. The colors had looked a lot more vibrant and warmer when I’d first seen him standing in the sunlight. Now, in the woods with the shade of the leaves above us, I could hardly even see the gray, just the lighter tan patches.
For some reason, I thought he’d been at the fight we’d just been in, but if that was the case, then wouldn’t he attack me now? I was more than a little confused, but all I had to do was talk to him. If he would shift, that was.
“Are you making sure we leave your territory?” I asked.
He let his jaw hang open and his tongue loll out to the side. I wasn’t sure if that was a yes or if he was making fun of me or something.
“Can you just shift so we can talk about whatever the issue is?”
He closed his mouth, giving me what amount to a glare in wolf form.
“Okay, no shifting. Got it. So you’re following us because you’re curious about us?”
I swear he raised a sassy eyebrow at that, but I wasn’t sure if that was even possible with wolves.
“So you do want to make sure we leave?”
His head tilted to the side, and his mouth opened slightly.
“But that’s only part of it.”
His mouth opened more.
“Is the other part to do with me?”
His tail waved like a flag behind him. Wolves weren’t exactly known for wagging their tails, so that had to mean something.
“You wanted to make sure we were okay before we left?” I tried.
His mouth closed slightly, and his tail stopped moving.
“You wanted to make sure I was okay?”
His mouth opened once more, his tongue lolling out.
“Why do you care what happens to me?”
He just stared at me as though he thought I already knew the answer.
“I can’t stay here forever trying to figure out what you’re doing. I have to catch up with the others or they’ll come looking, and I don’t want us to fight any more.”
The wolf just watched me for a moment, his expression unchanging.
“If you’d shift, we could talk about it,” I said, trying one more time to get him to make this easier than the guessing game it had been until that point. When he just stared at me some more, I threw my hands in the air and said, “I don’t understand. You wanted to make sure I was okay and that we were leaving your territory. Fine. The second part is easy, but the first part? Not so much.”
He dipped his nose and raised it but slightly off to the side. Was that a nod?
“Are you telling me to leave?”
He made a huffing noise before dipping his nose again.
“Okay, well, thanks for making sure I was okay, I guess? I just want you to know we didn’t mean anything by coming on to your territory. We were looking for someone, that’s all, not trying to start a war or anything like that. Please ask your people to keep that in mind before retaliating.”
He huffed again and turned to walk away.
“Thank you,” I said again as I turned to leave as well.
Once I was sure we weren’t being followed anymore, I jogged to catch up to the guys, even though my leg muscles screamed at me in protest. When I saw Micah’s top knot through the trees, I was immediately relieved.
“Feeling better?” Roman asked once I sidled up next to him.
I nodded. There was something about my encounters with the wolf that I wanted to keep to myself. At least for now.
“Here,” Tate said from ahead of us.
A silver four-door sedan was parked up on a small ridge of ground, like he’d freaking off-roaded to get there in a car that was most definitely not designed for off roading. All of us stared at the car for a moment. If it didn’t start, if his former pack mates had damaged it somehow, then they had essentially signed Blake’s death warrant. If one of my mates died, I wouldn’t be held accountable for my actions, especially if Jax and any members of his pack were behind it. They would pay in blood and death until I couldn’t breathe because of the scent of blood in the air.
My wolf howled her agreement within my mind. She was more present than she used to be. I could feel her there most of the time now, feel her reactions to things and, to a lesser degree, her wants and desires. I couldn’t help but hope that her presence growing stronger meant that my ability to shift might come back. I didn’t want to cage her any more than she wanted to be caged, but at the time, I’d done what I needed to so I could survive.
Tate making a noise of victory drew me from my thoughts. He held the key up in the air like it was the most valuable thing in the world, and I supposed in a way, right now it was. At least to us. After unlocking the door, he slipped into the driver’s seat. I heard the key scrape as he pushed it into the ignition, and when it turned, we all strained to hear the sound of the engine turning over.
What we got instead was a series of clicks. The engine didn’t even turn over once. My heart squeezed painfully in my chest.
“Don’t panic yet,” he said as he got out of the car and went to the trunk. From there, he pulled out a battery pack, one of those that instantly charges the battery with some attached jumper cab
les. “This happens sometimes.” Tate came around to the front, pausing to pop the hood of the car on the way so he could get at the engine.
Once it was propped up, he attached the cables and pressed a couple buttons before going back to the driver’s seat and turning the key once more. This time the engine struggled, but eventually revved to life, though the chugging sound didn’t make me hopeful about the condition of the car. When this was all over, I’d have to take a look at it.
For now, I was just overflowing with gratitude that we had a vehicle and had a chance of making it to the hospital in time. We tossed a couple of the packs in the trunk and piled into the car, Blake resting across my lap as I sat in the backseat with Micah. Roman took the front passenger seat, and part of me was surprised that he didn’t demand to drive himself.
As Tate pulled out of the area where he’d parked and took us over the rough path he used as gently as possible, though the car bottomed out a couple times, I had hope that this was going to work out. I had to stay positive and tell myself that we would get to the hospital in time for them to fix Blake up. If we didn’t make it, if there was nothing they could do, then I wasn’t sure what I would do. Just the idea of losing him made me almost blind with rage. So I kept telling myself that it was impossible, that he’d survive, because he had to. If he didn’t, then none of us would ever be the same.
16
Nina
The hospital was farther away than I’d hoped, but we made it there in a tense couple of hours. I was just glad someone knew where the closest one was. Tate had been driving like a bat out of hell, and I’d been begging any higher powers that were watching over us that all the cops were currently distracted.
We finally pulled up into the emergency unloading area, and I rushed inside. When I got to the counter, the nurse working there looked at me like I was crazy. It was then that I realized I probably looked like ass and stank, since we’d been living in the woods for the last few days and there weren’t exactly showers posted up all over the place.
I ran my hand over the rat’s nest of my hair and could feel how greasy it was. Forcing an expression onto my face that I hoped relayed urgent and not crazy, I said, “My boyfriend and I were camping and he got hurt. We thought it was okay, but now he’s unconscious.”
She called out something to someone behind her, and a couple nurses came out with a stretcher a few moments later. Quickly, I led them to the car where we were able to get Blake unloaded and placed on the stretcher, while the nurses all gave us some serious side-eye. Not that I could blame them.
As they were walking away, I said, “I have another injured friend as well.”
“I’m fine,” Tate growled from where he was standing, having helped get Blake out of the car and onto the stretcher.
I saw the nurse look over at him and his bloodstained T-shirt and raise an eyebrow. The fabric of his T-shirt had become steadily more sodden with blood as we’d made our way to the hospital, though I thought it was actually starting to clot now, only with the T-shirt there. It was the kind of thing that anyone with any experience could tell would start bleeding all over again as soon as the shirt was removed.
“At least let us disinfect it,” the nurse said.
“Please, Tate. I don’t want you to end up like Blake.” It was a low blow, I knew that, he knew I knew that, and yet he allowed it to work.
“Fine, but I have to move the car first,” he said.
“I’ll move it.” Micah held his hands out for the keys and the nurse that was apparently waiting for Tate just smirked as she watched us manipulate him into being seen.
Tate sighed and handed over his keys before heading toward the nurse, who’d found a wheelchair at some point. “I’m not sitting in that,” he grumbled.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood and have clearly been in a stressful situation. Why don’t you just make it a bit easier on me so you don’t pass out in the hall or something, hm?” the nurse asked. Her tired blue eyes were challenging him, as though she knew exactly what was going to happen and was daring him to look like an idiot for refusing the wheelchair.
He sat in the chair with a scowl on his face as she began to push him back into the emergency room. Roman and I followed, intending to go to the rooms with them, but the nurse stopped us at the big double doors before the patient area.
“You’ll have to wait out here until we’ve done an assessment and gotten him stable.”
I nodded, having expected something like that, and went over to one of the chairs in the waiting area. The cream faux leather was cracked along the edges and where peoples’ legs had stretched the fabric. At least the frame seemed solid. I sat down and started to bite my nails, an old habit from when I was a teenager that I thought I’d kicked. Apparently, it had just been waiting for the right stressful moment to rear its ugly head again. I yanked my hand away from my mouth and stuffed it under my leg, noticing just how dirty my clothes were for the first time.
Fighting in the woods would do that, I guessed.
Roman sat next to me, and a few quiet minutes later, Micah sat on my other side. The hospital we’d found ourselves at wasn’t near any major areas of the city, so it was pretty quiet. I’d honestly been surprised that they’d taken the guys right in. Part of me had expected to wait to be seen with an unconscious Blake just propped up against me.
Thankfully, that hadn’t happened, and now it was just Roman and Micah propping themselves up against me and the wall. I knew they were protecting me even now, watching the doors, making sure no one got too close. I appreciated it, truly. I was already stressed enough since I had no idea what was going on with Blake or Tate, and I didn’t want to even think about anything else.
Exhaustion was radiating through my limbs, and I knew we’d had too little food and too little sleep, while simultaneously having to be on guard at all times. It was tiring, and if I was tired, then Roman and Micah had to be as well.
“If you guys want to nap, go ahead. Even if Jax’s people find us here, they won’t do anything while there are witnesses. They certainly won’t be able to take me,” I said quietly.
“I’m fine,” Micah said with a huff, though his voice told a different story.
I watched him for a second, and I could practically see sleep taking him over as he rested his head back against the wall that had almost a stucco appearance and didn’t look comfortable at all. All I could think about was the little bumps from the textured surface that were probably stabbing him in the head. He was so tired that he didn’t seem to care one way or another, though maybe he was just demonstrating how hardheaded he could be.
Roman sat next to me, awake and watchful, as I alternated between biting my fingernails and bouncing my leg up and down, when I realized I was biting said fingernails and pulled them away once again. It was a vicious cycle, one that I knew Roman saw and probably found somewhat amusing.
“Everything’s going to be okay, you know that, right?” Roman asked eventually.
I whipped my head toward him, anger flaring through me like a wildfire. In a furious whisper, I demanded, “How can you possibly know that? Don’t treat me like a child. I may be younger than you, but I’ve experienced plenty. There are enough shitty things that have happened in my life that I know things aren’t always okay. Of all people, I expect you to tell me the truth.”
Roman held his hands up in surrender, apparently not expecting the fervor with which I responded. It was only when I turned away once more that he said, “You’re right—I have no idea what’s going to happen. All I know is that I need to stay positive, because my mind becomes a very dark place when I let the negative thoughts take over. I guess I just wanted us both to try to stay hopeful.”
I took a deep breath and pushed it out forcefully, trying to send some of my pent-up emotions with it so I didn’t take them out on Roman, since he was the only conscious one there. After a full minute of just breathing and trying to calm my spinning mind, I said, “I understand that, but I pref
er to be pragmatic. I don’t want illusions or exaggerations, just reality. Dealing with possibilities that don’t exist is something I try to avoid, but I also have to acknowledge that there are outcomes that I wouldn’t like.
“Blake could have permanent damage from this, he could die, those are all possibilities, just like he could survive and be fine is a possibility as well. None of that is guaranteed though. I don’t want to feel like something is set in stone when it’s not. My escape from my pack was supposed to be flawless, everything was set up, there was no reason to think something would go wrong, and yet it did. My brother was shot. Executed. Everything that could go wrong did, all because of one person’s decision. I can’t let myself be caught unprepared like that again. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with something coming out of the blue like that. Not right now.”
“I understand,” Roman said quietly. He reached over and wrapped one of his hands around one of mine, twining his fingers through my own.
The steady warmth of his hand helped me relax a little. I couldn’t help but feel as though I should be telling him about my encounter with the wolf in the woods. Well, both encounters I supposed, since it was the same wolf. Yet I couldn’t get the words to go past my lips. Everything in me was at war, my tension, my thoughts, my emotions, they all seemed to be battling themselves and one another.
I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease some of the tension that was building there. Sitting still felt like an impossible task, but every time I shifted in my seat, the faux leather creaked underneath me, or maybe it was the wood frame of the chair. I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like the chair was tattling on me every time and made my heart leap in my chest.
Part of me wanted to distract myself from the whole situation and drag Roman or Micah into the bathroom for a quickie, but that wasn’t a good coping mechanism, even if it was an entertaining one. The longer we sat there, the more aware of my surroundings I became. It wasn’t just the chair anymore, everything felt like it was closing in around me.