Drey POV
She hated me now; my eyes turned red, but there was nothing I could do as she slipped past me.
I realized there was something I could do: look for the person behind this and drag him in front of her.
My wolf remained silent, not even his usual teasing, and I could sense his mood.
Bringing out my phone, I dialed the beta. "Anita, did you send people to kill Becky?" I roared as soon as the call went through.
"Alpha, what are you talking about?" she asked.
"So are you saying you know nothing about this? If I find out, I'm going to expel you from the pack" I added ending the call.
I knew she didn't like Becky, but it seems she had no idea about this.
I should have been at the hospital. I should have been the one standing at her side. Instead, I was left standing in this building, the smell of blood lingering, my heart hurting at the fact I had been a bit too late.
I gritted my jaw so tight it hurt. Some masked man had stepped in front of her, taken a bullet, and bled for her. He'd reached her before I could, made himself look like a savior while I looked like a villain.
Stepping out of the house as police had arrived, I would rather not visit the dreary human cell. I took one last look and decided it was time I went hunting. I've been too forgiving…
- - -
Becky POV
My hands clutched my mother's hand. I silently prayed for God not to take this from me. I was tired.
The ambulance doors flew open before it had even stopped moving. The air cold evening was beginning to set in, carrying the smell of rain and blood. Hands grabbed at my shoulders, guiding me down as paramedics rolled my mother out of the ambulance.
I could see her pale face, lips trembling with every breath like it was the last, my heart drumming fast. The oxygen mask made me feel suffocated.
"BP dropping move, move!" someone shouted.
Everyone parted, letting the stretcher roll in, but I ran alongside the bed. We hit the sliding doors of the emergency ward, and I could hear every footstep, and some breathed their last.
Someone tried to pull me back, but I clung to the stretcher like my life depended on it until a nurse pried my fingers loose.
"Stay here, miss; you can't go into the operating room," she said.
"No, I can't leave my mum," I shouted, tears threatening to fall.
"Becky, calm down." The masked man held my hand as his stretcher was being pushed inside.
My eyes darted to this man with a bullet wound on his shoulder who could still talk.
"Let her come to my ward," he said to a nurse. "I can take pain, and she needs to be with someone at the moment."
I was so glad I needed distraction because all I could see were tiles stained with blood and the lifeless body of Nurse Sarah.
I followed the stretcher into the ward with my eyes restless. "She's in good hands," he murmured, his voice low enough only I could hear. "You need to breathe."
I wanted to snap at him, ask why he was here, why he'd thrown himself into the line of fire, but the words stuck in my throat. The sight of the stitches being pulled through his flesh made my stomach turn.
"You…you didn't have to…" I began.
"Yes, I did," he cut in, eyes flicking to mine. "Whoever sent those men wasn't going to stop at that."
The nurse tied off the last stitch and pressed a bandage over his wound. "You're lucky it didn't go deeper," she muttered before moving away.
Silence settled between us. I had questions, but I wasn't ready to ask. Somewhere down the hall a monitor beeped steadily. A doctor's voice called for type O blood. I wrapped my arms around myself, staring at the closed double doors that had swallowed my mother.
In the back of my mind, Drey's name pulsed like a wound. He didn't come to the hospital. Maybe if my powers had not seized, I could have clawed at him.
part of me still saw his face when I'd screamed at him, and for the first time a tiny cloud of doubt slid in. Had I been wrong?
The masked man shifted, wincing. "They'll keep her alive," he said quietly. "Stay strong for her."
I didn't answer. I sat down on the hard chair opposite him, fingers trembling in my lap, the sterile smell of the hospital pressing in.
The doors swung open.
A doctor in scrubs stepped out, snapping off her gloves."You're her daughter?" she asked.
I stumbled to my feet. "Yes. Please, is she…?"
The doctor hesitated for a heartbeat. "She's alive."
"We managed to stop the bleeding, but she lost a great deal of blood before she reached us. She's in a coma. We don't know yet when or if she'll wake up."
My world seems to crash. "A coma?" My voice cracked.
"She's stable for now," the doctor added quickly. "Her vitals are holding, but the next 48 hours are critical. Talk to her if you can when we move her to the ICU. Occasionally it helps."
I gripped the edge of the chair to steady myself. The words "alive" and "coma" circled each other in my head like knives. "Can I see her?"
"Not yet. She's being moved to intensive care. We'll let you know as soon as it's possible." The doctor gave my arm a quick squeeze before walking out.
The masked man tried to stand up with the stitch groaning. He held my hand. "She's a fighter; don't give up." For a long moment we just sat there, two strangers tied together by blood and violence. Hope flickered weakly in my chest, but hate more. Someone had done this to her. Someone had to pay.
"Do you want revenge, Becky?"
I blinked at him. "What?"
"Revenge," he repeated. "On whoever did this. On the people who think they can tear your life apart and walk away."
Deep down he was right, but my powers were not stable. How could I get revenge this way?
"Come back with me to Atlas City," he said. "I can have a jet ready tonight. My base has surgeons and specialists who will treat your mother better than any public hospital can. She'll get every chance there is."
My eyes flickered, remembering how he threatened me with blacky. "What do you stand to gain from this?"
"I need your power, Becky; you're one werewolf I need to discover, he muttered.
My eyes widened in shock. "You want to use me as an experiment?"
He held my gaze, unflinching. "I need you. Because you have power, instinct. Call it what you want. I've been looking for this. Help me, and I'll help you. Your mother will live, and you'll have the means to make whoever did this pay."
- - -
In a warehouse, the other man who fled was tied, kneeling in front of the scarred man. "Boss, please," he pleaded.
But the scared man turned a deaf ear, grabbing his gun. "I have no use. For failures," as gunshot rang, blood spilled.
Laughter erupted as Gabriel moved towards the scarred man. "Boss," he said quietly, "what should we do? That idiot's starting to like the girl. He even took a bullet for her."
"We've always wanted a weakness for the other one too. Since he refused to work with me years back, I promised to feed his head to the vultures."
- - -
In Atlas City, Alpha Villa…
"We must tell the elders the Alpha has fallen in love with a human, and now she needs to be sacrificed so the pack doesn't start dying," beta Anita told her confidant.
"We have to make it look real. Some pack members will have to die…"