by Helen Scott
The scent of bleach made my nose burn, but it was the undercurrent of death that turned my stomach. Why was it that the scent of someone dying never seemed to be able to be cleaned from a place? It had been the same in my old apartment building. There had been a stairwell that I never used because it stank of death.
Phones were ringing, codes were being called out over the PA system, machines were beeping, and the TV in the waiting area was droning on about a couple who were looking for a new house with a ridiculous budget of three million dollars. Who had that much money to throw around? And if that was real and they could actually afford something like that, why weren’t they using more of it to help people in need instead of buying a house with ten bedrooms and eight full bathrooms and its own tennis court when there were only the two of them?
Roman was rubbing circles on my hand with his thumb, but the movement was just amping me up even more instead of relaxing me like he wanted it to. Everything was becoming too much, especially when my mind wouldn’t shut up about that wolf and telling the guys, or worrying about Blake dying. I checked the mate bond once again, and it was there, though it was weaker than normal.
I pushed to my feet, pulling my hand free from Roman’s and said, “I need to take a walk. I’ll be fine. There’s no one here, and even if there was, they wouldn’t try and kidnap me in the middle of a hospital.” Roman opened his mouth to protest, so I raised my hand and continued, “I just need a few moments. Please.”
Reluctantly, he nodded, and I walked away. My feet were speeding up as I went until I was jogging down a corridor that led to the rest of the hospital. When I came to a point where there was no one around and I knew I was alone, I let myself stop.
Every breath seemed to drag at my lungs as I struggled to fill them with air. I bent over, trying to catch my breath, but it wasn’t working. My whole body felt like it was shutting down, and my heart was skipping beats in my chest, and not in the fun way.
“Are you okay?” a voice asked.
I hadn’t even realized that I’d knelt down, but when I opened my eyes next, I was scrunched into a ball against the wall, with my breath sawing in and out of my body like some kind of reed was trapped in my throat.
“I think you’re having a panic attack,” the voice said.
My eyes searched the space in front of me until they landed on a woman’s face. Strange gray eyes locked with my own and anchored me to myself once more.
“Try to focus on breathing slowly. Count in your head,” she said.
My breathing was all I could focus on, mainly the fact that it wasn’t working though.
“Okay, it’s okay. That doesn’t work for everyone. What are five things you can see?” When I didn’t reply she waved her hand at me and said, “Come on. You can do it. Tell me five things that you can see.”
“You. Me. The carpet. The railing. The shitty painting.” Each one came out between me gasping for air.
“Okay, good. Now what are four things you can touch?” She nodded at me expectantly.
“The carpet. My jeans. The wall. The railing.”
“Good! What are three things you can hear?”
“Your voice. The machine at the end of the hallway beeping. The nurse on the PA system.” My breathing was finally starting to calm down. Not a lot, but enough that I didn’t feel like I was suffocating myself.
“Can you tell me two things you can smell?”
Don’t say death. Don’t say death. Don’t say death. “Cleaning products. Your perfume.” A small thrill of victory went through me at not telling this random woman I could smell death.
“One thing you can taste?”
“Uh…water?” I didn’t have anything to taste. The thought made me unreasonably angry.
“That’s okay. We can get you some water. I’ll show you where the vending machine is.” She waited a moment, and when I didn’t move, she asked, “Can you stand up?”
I nodded and began to straighten. All my muscles protested as I made it to a standing position, but eventually, everything seemed to click back into place and I felt more like myself.
“Ready?” she asked.
I nodded and followed behind her as she led me down the main corridor and then to an offshoot with a series of five vending machines, three full of food while two were refrigerated and full of different drinks. The woman, whose pant suit was probably worth more than my entire closet, pulled a small wallet from her pocket and put a five-dollar bill into the drink machine.
“Pick out a couple things,” she said as she stepped to one side.
I selected a bottle of water and another of juice. The mechanical arm came up and selected each bottle before it moved down to the area where it deposited it for me to pick it up. I opened the water right away and drank deeply. The cold, fresh liquid rolled over my tongue and landed in my belly a moment later, spreading it’s cool, life-giving goodness through my body.
“Here’s something to get some food.” The woman handed me a ten-dollar bill this time, and I looked up at her uncertainly.
“Are you sure? You don’t even know me.”
“Trust me. Besides, I think you need it more than I do right now. I mean, do I look like I need a package of those damn snack cakes to you?” she asked as she gestured up and down to her body.
“You look amazing, but if you want the snack cakes, get the snack cakes. We only live once, right?” I replied.
“You’ll be okay,” she said as she turned away and began walking back down the hallway. Kind of a weird thing to say before walking away, but whatever.
“Thank you!” I called out, not wanting to seem ungrateful. She’s just coaxed me through a panic attack and gave me some money for food and water when I had nothing to offer her in return. I was excited to have something other than meat, even if it was just processed food that was full of sugar. I didn’t care. My hungry eyes were already scanning the options in each machine.
“You’re welcome. Just take care of those mates of yours,” she called.
When I looked up in surprise, she was gone. Poof, just like that. I looked down at the money in my hand and the drinks at my feet. They were still there, so it had been real, but what the fuck had just happened?
17
Nina
As I stood there trying to decide between snack cakes, candy bars, and cheesy puffs that were supposed to be superhot, I felt someone behind me. My internal alarms immediately went off.
I tried to casually glance over my shoulder, but whoever it was had chosen a spot where I’d have to turn around to see them, so I did just that. Whatever warning system was ingrained in my body hadn’t gone off when the woman was helping me earlier, so I knew it wasn’t her, but I did know that whoever it was…they were a threat.
The same gasoline-like scent filled my nose as soon as I turned and disturbed the air. I knew this guy was with Jax’s pack. How the hell had they found me? Did I have a tracker on me somewhere or something?
I braced, shifting my feet into a fighting stance and loosening my muscles, relaxing my knees so that I was ready to move when the attack came. Only it didn’t come.
He was scrawny, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t strong. Sometimes, it was the skinny guys that you had to watch out for, since they were wiry and fast. He looked like that was how he would fight—quick jabs before darting out of the way again. He was clearly trying to make himself look bulkier, more imposing, with his clothing choices. Baggy, fashionably ripped jeans hid skinny legs, and his oversized button-up shirt covered at least a T-shirt, possibly more. None of it made him look threatening though. He looked more like a college kid at a party his parents were throwing, where he was expected to dress nicely but wore his jeans as a gesture of rebellion. Or maybe I’d watched too much TV in all my time alone.
The guy raised his hands in surrender and even had a white paper napkin that he waved, making it flutter prettily from the forced movement. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, his voice low and growly. He eyed
me up and down as though he was trying to figure out what the big deal was. Well, me too, dude. Me too.
“I’ve come to offer you a deal.” His voice may have been strong and sure, but everything else about him screamed beta. We didn’t often use wolf terms in pack culture other than alpha, but there was an inherent understanding that anyone who wasn’t alpha was beta. There were also myths of other types of wolves, but those hadn’t been seen in generations, so no one really believed in them anymore.
This guy was the most beta of betas though. Beta didn’t mean weak or subservient, those kinds of characteristics were reserved for the women, the bitches, but it did mean that he didn’t exude that compelling energy, that raw magic that came with being an alpha. Alphas had people obeying them because that’s what the person wanted to do. The desire to please an alpha was buried deep within our wolfish hearts and was almost impossible to resist if used correctly.
I had no desire to please this guy. “Jax has nothing I want,” I replied before he could get the rest of his spiel out.
“You’re wrong. You came here with four mates, correct?” My stomach twisted and knotted as tension filtered through my body. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? When he didn’t carry on, I nodded. After an excruciatingly long pause, he said, “There are now only three in the hospital. If I don’t return soon, then there will only be two. Jax wanted to have a little chat with Blake after he almost burned the woods down.”
“You took one of my mates? You took Blake?” I demanded, my voice dropping to a growl as my anger surged forward. My vision was almost tinting red with the amount of rage I was feeling.
He had the fucking audacity to nod. Did he not realize how close I was to tearing him apart with my bare hands? He hardly seemed to care as he looked down at his fingernails, picking at some imaginary piece of dirt that was there, while I, still caked in blood and mud from my earlier fight, was actually filthy. How could he not see how preposterous this situation was? How was he still loyal to someone like Jax?
“I’m going to kill you,” I said, a sudden calm overtaking me as my vision narrowed in on the man across from me. My gaze traveled over him, assessing points of weakness, areas where I could cause the most damage other than the obvious. His dark eyes met mine as he studied me right back. He didn’t brace for my attack though, because he knew I couldn’t kill him. Not really. Not now. At least not without risking the other members of Jax’s pack taking one of my other mates. And they all knew that I’d be unwilling to take that risk. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a promise for the future though.
He wasn’t thinking that far ahead as he said, “Do that, and a second mate will be taken. Jax is being generous with you right now.” His words were like a cold splash of water to the face.
“Fine. What is Jax’s offer?” I bit the words out as I tried to rein in my anger.
“You come and talk with Jax, and he’ll let you have your lover boy back. He says he has the information you’re looking for and can answer your questions. He says he knows your true purpose in life.” The guy sounded confused, and probably was, since he had no idea what his message meant.
I did though.
I knew exactly what Jax was getting at.
“And if I say no?” I asked, needing to know what the plan was. What lines he was and wasn’t willing to cross for his alpha. They may have taken Blake, but there was no way he’d gone far, not yet.
“Then they’ll kill lover boy.”
I had to fight the urge to tear his head from his body. After taking a few calming breaths while I tried to think of a way out, I said, “I need to think about it.”
“He thought you might say that. You have twenty-four hours. I’ll meet you back here at this time tomorrow for your response.”
I nodded, unable to say anything else. The wolf walked away with a cocky swagger that almost made me lose it. He wadded the napkin he’d waved to make me stand down and tossed it in a trash can at the end of the hall, like he was going for a three-point shot on the basketball court. When it made it into the can, he grinned to himself before turning to me and smirking. Finally, he took off down the hallway.
My mind raced. Could I follow him? Would that lead me to Blake? Doubtful. If they were smart enough to take him as leverage, then they’d be smart enough not to go directly back to him.
How was I going to get us out of this mess? If we hadn’t come to the hospital, then Blake would have died in the woods, I had no doubt about that. At the same time, if we hadn’t come to the hospital, then I wouldn’t be in this predicament, Jax wouldn’t have leverage over me. How was I going to break it to the others that Blake was gone? I knew they would help me get him back, but the question was how.
18
Nina
I grabbed the candy bars that I’d selected from the vending machine and headed back to Roman and Micah. The plastic wrappers crinkled in my hand as I carried them back down the hallway to the ER waiting room. The clammy sensation of my panicky sweat against the plastic wasn’t exactly my favorite. My other hand was filled with the bottle of juice I’d picked out earlier, and the remains of the bottle of water was tucked in my elbow. I honestly wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone, since I had no idea how long I’d been trapped in that panic attack. If that woman hadn’t shown up and helped me out, then I might still be curled up against the wall somewhere.
Now I needed to get back though and tell them what was going on. We needed to come up with a plan and fast if we were going to get Blake back. I had no idea how much treatment he’d even received before they took him.
As I rounded the corner of the hallway, I saw Roman and Micah standing and talking to the doctor. Roman looked over and me and waved me over.
“Sorry, I was getting snacks,” I said by way of an excuse.
The doctor, an older man with thinning hair and a bald patch on the back of his head, looked unimpressed to say the least. He glanced down at the food in my hand, and I could tell he wanted to make some kind of snarky comment, especially as he gave me a quick once-over. “As I was saying,” he began, looking down his nose at me. “Your, uh, friends are still being treated. Obviously, they both had severe injuries. Mr. Humphries is going to need a fair amount of treatment. The infection has already progressed quite far, so he’s been admitted to the hospital and is going to be under continuous care until we get this under control. We’ll be lucky if he survives the night. Mr. Roque has been stitched up and most of the injuries have been seen to, but we’ve admitted him to the hospital as well so that we can keep an eye on them overnight. Given how bad your other friend’s infection is and, no offense, the state of all of you, I thought it best to make sure there are no signs of infection before he leaves.”
The doctor was lying to our faces. Rage flowed through me, making me clench the candy bars tighter in my hand until the wrappers popped and the chocolate and other sugary goodness was squeezing out each side of my hand. The bottle in my other hand wasn’t fairing much better, the plastic creaking and bending under my hold. Micah was there, taking all of it off me though.
I could tell from the concerned look that Roman gave me that he could sense the emotion coming off me in waves, though he probably didn’t need the mate bond to be able to tell I was angry at that point. “What kind of treatment is Blake—I mean, Mr. Humphries, undergoing?” I asked pointedly.
“We’ve given him some fluids, since he was extremely dehydrated. He’s also on medications to help fight the infection, some to raise his blood pressure, painkillers, and until his blood sugar stabilizes, he’s on insulin as well.” The doctor seemed uninterested in explaining what was going on or why he was on so many medications. I had no idea that an infection could do things like lower blood pressure or blood sugar. Him telling me seemed like a formality that he wanted to get out of the way as soon as possible.
“Your other friend should be able to have visitors soon, we’re just transferring him from the ER to the hospital now. Once that’s done, you c
an go and see him.” The doctor turned and walked away without saying another word.
The heavy tan doors that locked automatically to keep people out of the patient area opened for him as he pressed a button, and I just watched as he kept walking away until the doors clicked shut once more. As soon as they did, the tears that had been building in my throat overflowed.
“Uh, Roman…” Micah said from behind me.
Hands gently turned me away from the doors and into a masculine chest. Roman’s dark, spicy scent washed over me, and I wanted to burrow into it and never come out. My mates were the only thing that was right in this world right now, and one of them was gone.
Sobs racked my body as all of the tension and emotion from the last however many days we’d been on the run erupted out of me. My whole body shook from the force of them, and I was sure if my face weren’t buried in Roman’s shirt, then there probably would’ve been snot bubbles forming on my nose, that was how hard I was crying.
With every breath I took, I felt like daggers were piercing my heart. The scent of bleach and death coated my tongue as I tried to get myself under control, but that just made it worse. Everything was overwhelming me, and I felt like I was on the edge of another panic attack.
“I need air,” I gasped out between sobs.
The two of them walked me outside, more like prison guards than lovers. I couldn’t bring myself to care though. They were worried, I was breaking down, and everything was a mess.
I was starting to hiccup as the sobs slowed, but it was making me nauseous, and before I knew it, I was rushing to the flower bed and puking up all the water I’d guzzled earlier. It burned on the way up, and my entire body felt empty by the time I was done retching.
It was only once my awareness was creeping in that I realized someone was rubbing circles on my back and holding my hair out of my face. It was a thoughtfulness that I appreciated. I could think of much worse things than having a little stomach acid on me, besides, I was already covered in dirt, blood, and some snot from my earlier crying session. My body felt drained, and my mind felt like it was full of static.