He flinched at her question as the doctor exhaled slowly. But then the two exchanged glances while the orderly’s eyes turned into huge saucers. Something was going on between Jon and the doctor, Eva realized. Like they knew something. Suddenly, she realized that the doctor was in on this too.
“You know,” she said, shocked. “You know about werewolves, don’t you?”
“Jane,” Dr. Martinez said, looking at the orderly who stared back at him in disbelief. He scribbled on a prescription pad. “I think Miss Navarro needs another dose of painkillers.”
Jane nodded and left, leaving the three of them alone. It seemed like the doctor didn’t want to look Eva directly in the eyes.
“Yes,” he answered simply. “It’s because you’re a werewolf.”
“You know about this?” she demanded.
“He’s a werewolf himself,” Jon said. The doctor nodded in agreement, although he seemed almost embarrassed by it. “He’s one of us.”
“Nope,” Eva said, shaking her head. “Nope, not one of us. I’m not one of you.”
She made as if to run, but Jon caught her by the arms and pushed her up against the wall. She struggled a bit, but he restrained her firmly without hurting her.
“You can’t run off,” he told her, his voice dipping into a growl. “You’ll be a danger to yourself and an even bigger one to society. Not only that, you’re the only lead my friends have on the attacks last night.”
He held her with his gaze, pleading with her to hear their case. She finally nodded, and he released her.
“What happened to that friend of yours?” she asked gruffly. “Did they go feral?”
Jon winced at her bad pun. “Kidnapped,” he said simply. “But we don’t know who took her.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said softly. “But I don’t know how I can help.”
“You can,” he insisted.
She blinked furiously and sat down on the edge of the bed. “The last thing I remember is meeting my brother Luis for a cup of coffee. He’s...” She struggled to talk about her brother and his addictions. “He’s always had trouble with drugs and running with the wrong crowd.”
“The wrong crowd?”
“His friends were always on the wrong side of the law,” she explained. “Some ended up dead or in jail. I don’t know why he hung out with them.” She hugged herself thinking about it.
“So you met Luis…?” Jon prompted.
“I was supposed to,” Eva amended. “I don’t remember anything after that. Except waking up here.” Tears started falling down her face. She put her face in her hands and cried.
Jon let out an angry breath. “Fuck,” he muttered and turned away. “Fuck.”
“Jon, if I may have a word with you?” the doctor said, his irritation apparent. He gestured for Jon to step out of the room.
Eva watched them leave, and when the door shut behind her, she curled her knees to her chest and cried.
***
“You can’t keep badgering her like that,” Carlos said angrily. “She’s in a fragile state at the moment, and she doesn’t know what’s happening. There are big changes that are coming her way, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t upset my patient.”
“I’m tired of waiting on her,” Jon gritted. He should have been at his friends’ side, protecting them while they were still in danger. That was his duty. At least he’d have more control over the situation there.
“We’re doing everything on our end,” Carlos said. “Everything.”
Jon sighed and rolled his shoulders as he stepped away from the doctor. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
“We have a brand new werewolf on our hands, and that is a fragile position for anyone to be in,” Carlos said. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“I know,” Jon growled lowly. He’d hit a nerve there. He frowned and turned away, rubbing his face with his hands. There were so many questions and so many problems that they needed to solve and now.
“Look, the best thing we can do at this point is to just let her lead her own recovery,” Carlos said. “She’s nearly fully healed, so there’s no point in keeping her here. It might be good for her to leave the hospital. But you have to promise me that you’ll help with her recovery. Not hinder it.”
Jon grimaced and sat down in the hallway with a huff. “Sure,” he said, throwing his hands up. “I have nothing better to do with my time than babysit a new wolf.”
“Wouldn’t you have preferred that when you were Turned?” Carlos asked.
Yet another nerve struck. Jon sighed and stepped back. Truthfully, yes he would have. But he hadn’t and now he was fine.
“Yes,” he admitted at length.
“We will figure this out,” Carlos said. He gestured to the orderly who was on her way back with Eva’s medication. “I’ll talk to her, but you need to be calm, cool, and collected when she comes out. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Jane,” Carlos ordered, “I need to talk to the patient alone.”
“But…” Jane said as the doctor left the two of them there. She let out an angry puff of breath, leaving Jon by himself.
He bumped his head against the wall trying to gather his thoughts. “Fuck.”
Carlos didn’t know how badly his comments had hurt Jon deep down.
At the age of sixteen, Jon had run away from an abusive family in Arkansas, hitchhiking his way across the US until he wound up in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, between his wheeling and dealing, he was constantly getting into trouble with the various gangs. One night, a deal with a rival gang went wrong. At the time, he thought they were dealing with humans. When he woke up in the hospital days later, three of his friends were dead. Despite, what the doctors had said were extensive wounds, he was already almost completely healed. No one had been able to say what had happened to him.
So, he had gone back out on the streets. He found he was more aggressive and quick to anger than he was before. When an argument broke out, he suddenly Turned into a full werewolf running off what remained of his friends forever. Unable to reconcile what he was, he hitchhiked again, trying to get away from society and himself.
Then, in the mountains of Colorado, he came across two older wolves. Before, his very eyes, they transformed into an older man and woman—Mark and Gemma’s parents, although Jon didn’t know that at the time. They took him in and showed him everything he needed to know about being a werewolf. If it hadn’t been for them, Jon didn’t know where he would be now. He was eternally grateful to them for their help, which was why he never wanted to fail Mark or Gemma.
He owed everything to the Branfords.
But he couldn’t help them if he was busy watching a fledgling wolf. Not only that, the full moon was a few days away, meaning that she was very close to transforming for the first time, which was always a terrifying experience. Hopefully, if he kept her metabolism satisfied, he could delay it until then and keep her human and focused on remembering what had happened.
But it was all too much happening too fast.
“Fuck,” he muttered again.
A few minutes later, Carlos emerged from the room with Eva in tow. She had showered, her dark, curly hair still wet, and she was wearing a secondhand sweater and jeans that fit her petite body loosely that a volunteer had picked up at the local Goodwill.
“So, Jon will be watching over you,” Carlos was saying.
“Goody,” Eva said sarcastically, although her eyes met Jon’s, stopping both of them in their tracks. “Can’t wait.”
“He’ll take good care of you,” Carlos added, glaring at Jon.
Jon quickly stood up and dusted off his jeans. “Let’s start over again,” he said. “I’m Jonathan Chase.” He held out his hand while she eyed him suspiciously.
“And I can’t contact anyone?” she asked, turning her attention back to Carlos, leaving Jon hanging.
Carlos shook his head. “Just for now,” he said. “Not until we find out who did this
to you. They’d be in danger just like you.”
“So this is some sort of werewolf protection program?” she asked sarcastically.
“Something like that,” Jon offered. He hoped she believed them. But it sounded ridiculous even to him.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”
“All right,” he said hopefully. “Let’s start with dinner.”
***
Eva watched Jon as he dug into his burger. She usually liked big, juicy burgers, but watching him eat only made her feel more nauseous.
“You have to eat,” he said between mouthfuls. “You have to keep up your strength.”
She looked down at her burger. The one thing that she noticed—if this whole thing with werewolves was true and she was still open to the possibility that she was on drugs—was that her senses were off the charts. She could see the fibers in Jon’s shirt. She could hear the whistle of air passing through someone’s nose across the loud restaurant. And she could smell that the ground beef used to make her burger had been a few days past its “best by” date.
Jon pushed her plate forward. “Eat,” he ordered. “You’re a wolf now. You eat a lot or else you’ll get hangry. And we don’t have time for that.”
“That’s assuming you’re telling me the truth.” But even as she said it, she believed him, at least on some level.
He eyed her. “I’m telling the truth. You need to keep your wits about you.”
Grudgingly, she picked up her burger and began to bite into it. That was when she realized that her taste was off too. Just like all the rest of her senses had gone haywire.
“So,” Jon said. “You said you were meeting your brother.”
“Yes,” Eva said. “I was trying to do a bit of an intervention. He’s been...lost for a while.” She frowned into her burger, thinking about her younger brother. He had been dealing drugs out on the strip. He’d even gone to jail a few times. Several times before, she had tried to help him, but it was like trying to move a wall. Luis didn’t want her help.
“Eat,” Jon ordered again. “Or else we’re going to have to deal with something very bad.”
Eva frowned and sucked on her milkshake. Even chocolate tasted wrong.
“And you didn’t meet him?” he asked.
“We’ve already covered that,” Eva sighed. He was really getting on her nerves.
“I’m trying to figure out where something could have gone wrong for you,” Jon said. He scooped up his fries and used them as a shovel for the ketchup. “Do you think your brother could have arranged something? To get you out of the way?”
“No,” she said quietly. Eva felt sick at the very thought, almost offended by the question.
No, Luis was her brother. He would never do something like that. Would he? She thought about all of the times she had tried helping him, from their childhood to their present lives. Luis was a drug dealer while she was an associate lawyer. He’d hinted at it in the past that he was jealous of where she was in her life, and she’d even tried pulling him up with her.
Luis where are you? she wondered. She blinked, feeling the tears in her eyes. She wiped them with the back of her hand. What had become of him? What was going to become of her?
“Eat,” Jon ordered, sounding impatient.
“I’m not hungry!” she cried. She threw her burger on the plate in disgust. “Can’t you see that I don’t feel like eating?”
Suddenly the world was spinning around her. She convulsed once, and retched whatever was in her stomach on the floor. She collapsed on the ground.
“Shit!” she dimly heard Jon say. “Shit, it’s not supposed to happen so fast!” For once, he seemed frazzled.
She felt his hands on her shoulders, beckoning her to stand up and leave the restaurant.
“Sir, is she all right?” she heard their waiter ask.
“Just a bit sick,” Jon said. A pause, then, “Keep the change.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and led her out of the diner, making a beeline for the alley right next door. He hauled her between the two dumpsters and out of sight.
“What’s happening?” she asked. She was hyperventilating. She held a hand out in front of her face, seeing her fingers elongate.
This can’t be happening! her mind screamed. This isn’t real.
“You’re transforming, Eva,” he told her.
“But the moon…?” she said. It was dark outside, but she didn’t think it was a full moon.
“We’re three days away from a full moon,” Jon told her. He cursed under his breath, blaming himself. “That’s close enough for your werewolf nature to want to shift. I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would affect you that much. They say that the worse your bite is, the more unpredictable your first transformation. So just breathe, Eva, breathe.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was racing. She felt other bones fall into different, unfamiliar places, her skin itching as hair sprouted across her body. The arms on the sweater split, as her shoulders bulked up.
This was not right. This was so not right.
“What’s happening?” she screamed. “What’s hap—” Her mouth transformed suddenly, and she could no longer form the words. She screamed inside her mind, echoing even louder than she could believe it to be.
“Shhhh...” Jon told her, his eyes the only thing that was steady in this crazy world. “This will pass and as soon as you go through your first full transformation, it will be easy. I promise you Eva. But you have to be calm.”
No, she responded in another voice, this time in another language. She had no idea how she knew it. No, I don’t want this! I don’t want this.
After what felt like centuries, her bones and tendons clicked into place, and she knew that she was a full werewolf, whatever that meant. She couldn’t see herself—she didn’t want to see herself.
“Now you can pull it back,” Jon instructed.
She could feel something like a leash that led to the more restrained side of her nature, the part of her that was still human. She clung to that like a life raft.
“Easy Eva,” Jon said.
She felt the reversal, pulling her back into the form that she knew much better. She was heaving, trying to get a grasp on it. The fur on her face retreated while her snout flattened and became her normal human mouth. She could see Jon through human eyes again.
He sighed in relief. “Now, you’ll be able to control it better. I promise,” he said.
She grabbed him by the waist and pulled him to her, burying her face into his chest. “I didn’t think it was real!” she cried. “I thought you were joking or something. I...” Her voice trailed off while she considered it. “I don’t want this.”
He was initially stiff at the intimate contact between them, but slowly, she felt him relax and melt into her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, cradling her like a child.
“Shhhh...” he whispered. “It’s going to be all right, Eva.”
But she kept crying, and like her werewolf nature, she couldn’t control it.
***
Back in her room at the Paris Hotel, Gemma kept pacing to the point where her feet were hurting. She kept replaying the events of the Council meeting in her head, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
“Gemma, calm down,” Mark reminded her in his big-brotherly way. “You freaking out is not good for the baby. And it’s not going to find Annie any faster.” He was sitting on the bed while Bernie played with their daughter Alba. Adam sat near the window, watching his mate pace. He knew better than to intervene when she was like this.
“I just can’t figure it out,” Gemma said. She combed her dark hair with her hands. “Why is there no trail? Why did they do this?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Adam said, although his voice was thick with concern. “We always do.”
But there will be one time when they don’t. And Gemma didn’t want this to be that time.
A knock made all four of them stop.
<
br /> Mark got up from the bed and walked towards the door. “Who is it?” he asked cautiously. He peered through the peephole.
“Delivery for Gemma Branford,” came the answer.
Mark pulled back and looked at them. “It looks like one of the bellboys,” he said. “And I don’t smell a wolf.”
Even still, Gemma could feel a sense of dread of whatever was behind that door. She crossed her arms across her breasts, swallowing back nervousness.
Mark opened the door and the pleasant bellboy wished them a good day and handed Mark a box that was about the size of a lunchbox. Perplexed, Mark took the box, thanked the bellboy and closed the door.
“There’s a note,” he said slowly, although the dread on his face was apparent, “but there’s no sender.”
Gemma’s “wolf radar” was going off the charts. “Give it to me,” she said in a hoarse voice.
Mark passed over the box, wrapped in a wine-red wrapping paper. Gemma took it and sat on the bed. She took off the note at the top. In bold letters, it read, Lost your right-hand-girl, Gemma?
The pit in her stomach kept sinking further and further.
“I don’t think—” Adam started.
“I’m opening it,” Gemma snapped. She closed her eyes, gathering her courage and lifted the lid. The scent of Febreze reached her nose and she coughed. Whoever packaged the box was trying to cover up a smell. She opened her eyes again and only saw the top of a rubber lid. With shaking hands, she reached into the box and pulled out a Tupperware tin. Something was inside the clear plastic.
She cried out in horror and dropped the box. “Oh my God!” she yelled. “Oh my God!” Her stomach turned over, threatening to throw up whatever was left in there. She clutched at her mouth and ran to the bathroom.
“Gemma!” Adam yelled behind her.
From the room, she heard Mark yell out in horror as he too recognized what it was. “What the fuck?” Bernie shrieked.
The room was spinning around Gemma, but she had to face it. She came back out, and stared warily at the offending box. Nestled inside it was a right hand. A female right hand. Gemma didn’t have to guess to know whose it was.
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