Hunted By The Others (23 page)

I woke up. Which was both a pleasant and an unpleasant shock all on its own.

The low droning beeps, bluish-white curtain around the bed, and tubes strapped to my arms, nose, and chest told me more than the fuzzy, dreamlike quality of my thoughts and vision that I was in a hospital. Every part of me ached abominably, but it was distant, like I was feeling everything through a curtain of cloth gauze.

I tried thinking back on what happened, how I got here. No such luck. The last thing I remembered was breaking the focus and passing out. Everything after that was just…empty. Blank.

Blinking my eyes to clear my vision, I turned my head to the side and found it in me somewhere to dredge up a smile at the sight of Sara seated at my bedside, her eyes closed as she leaned against the metal rail, head pillowed on her arm. She must have fallen asleep waiting for me to wake up. It was good to see she was alive and, aside from a bandage I could see winding around her other arm, unharmed.

“You’re awake,” came a surprised voice from behind the curtain. Chaz carefully brushed it aside, sidling around it to stand on the other side of the bed.

I nodded and tried to smile, my voice coming out no stronger than a faint whisper. “For what it’s worth, yeah.”

He smiled back at me, gently taking my right hand in both of his own. The left was tightly bandaged up and I could only see the tips of my fingers. Must’ve done more damage to it than I’d thought when I destroyed the focus. I lifted the bandaged hand to examine it, took a deep breath to sigh, then decided that was a bad idea and immediately expelled it.

“How long have I been out?”

“Your family was here. Visiting hours ended twenty minutes ago, but we snuck back in.” Chaz said, not meeting my gaze. I stared hard at him until he finally capitulated, squirming like a kid caught playing hooky. The doctors probably told him he shouldn’t tell me anything about the injuries to keep me from being worried. “We were all here yesterday, and the day before, too. You’ve been out for four days.” So much for that.

I closed my eyes, fighting back the sudden sting of tears. We won. We came out alive, on top. Chaz was apparently okay. There wasn’t even the hint of a scar to show where he’d been bitten or scratched during all that fighting. Chaz took the tears the wrong way, concern making his face fall as he reached up one hand to gently brush his fingers over my cheek. “Don’t cry, please don’t. Everything’s okay now, the focus is gone and so is the holder.”

I couldn’t help it. Despite the pain it caused, the tightness in my chest, I started laughing. The soft, wheezy quality and the sharp pain made it hard to keep it up, but I did it anyway. Chaz looked shocked, even as I covered his fingers on my cheek with my bandaged hand. Tears spilling down, I laughed, and it felt good. Apparently it was enough to jar Sara, who lifted her head and blinked blearily at me before her eyes widened.

“We’re alive. We won.”

“You did. I owe you for that,” came a new, unfamiliar voice, deep and rough with the hint of a smoker’s husk behind the twang of a New Jersey accent. A man I didn’t recognize was hanging back by the curtain. Chaz glanced over his shoulder, a wary look, but Sara didn’t seem afraid.

He came forward to stand near the foot of the bed, keeping some distance between himself and Chaz while still keeping me from having to strain my neck to see him. He was tall, half a head taller than Chaz, with short black hair that had a touch of white threading through here and there, warm brown eyes showing little laugh lines at the corners, and skin burned dark by years in the sun. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, along with a long-sleeved flannel shirt to cover his lean, muscled arms, and had a touch of stubble on his strong jaw. He looked like a forty-something construction foreman, and had the same air of casual strength, command, and lingering musk scent as Chaz did.

“The Moonwalker tribe owes you, girl. You saved them, me, from a nasty fate.”

“You’re Rohrik Donovan?” I asked after a moment, having to concentrate harder than expected to dredge the name up, absently wiping the tears off my cheeks. Man, whatever the doc had me pumped up on was making me slow.

He nodded and exchanged a look with Chaz, who didn’t seem all that pleased that he was here. “I just came by to see how you were doing. Also, to let you know that you can call on any of the Moonwalkers when you’re in need. We’ll help you any way we can.”

“Thanks,” I said, though as much as I meant it, I was praying I would never be desperate enough to turn to a pack of werewolves for help again.

“I’m…uhh…I’m sorry about hitting you. Back there. The pack has taken up a collection to help defray any medical bills,” he said, his gaze creeping off me to stare at the ceiling. My, was that a touch of red in his cheeks? He was embarrassed for hurting me. So much for being the Big Bad Wolf.

It hurt a little less when I laughed this time. Eventually he managed to look back at me, relief creeping into his features. It was good to see.

“I’ll be in touch.” He lowered his head and gave me a little salute, nodding to Sara and Chaz before leaving. Chaz watched him go, and I could feel his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around mine. Mr. Sensitive today.

Sara spoke up next. “How do you feel?”

“Like warmed-over shit.” I grinned at her to soften the words. Even that hurt. “I’ll be okay, I think. As long as I don’t have to fight any more Weres or vamps or insane sorcerers, my day is made.”

Arnold cleared his throat from the door, carrying a bunch of coffee cups. Unfortunately, none for me. I guess he hadn’t thought I’d be awake when he got back. “Hey, good to see you with your eyes open. Was that Rohrik Donovan who just walked out?”

I nodded, closing my eyes when the movement made my vision blur and head spin.

Arnold walked up to the bedside, carefully handing cups of coffee to Sara and Chaz before taking a sip of his own. I was pleased to note Bob’s tiny triangular head poking out from under Arnold’s shirt collar, whiskers twitching. Good to see the little furball survived.

Sara reached out to offer me some of her coffee, but I shook my head, figuring it would probably be better to stay away from caffeine while on whatever it was they were feeding me through the tube in my arm.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to do anything in time. To keep you safe.” Arnold sounded bitter, though part of me wondered whether it was for the focus or me. “I couldn’t cast anything that might have helped with all those Weres in the way. It was all I could do just to keep Bob with you.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, wondering if it was my imagination or if my voice really was slurring the way I thought it was. It was getting harder to keep my eyes open.

Just then, a nurse strode in, though I was barely able to rouse myself enough to look over and see. “She’s awake? All right, you three, let’s give her some rest. You can all come back tomorrow.”

I waved halfheartedly, smiling in amusement at their protests at being given the boot. I’d see them all when I woke up. Tomorrow.

After a month and a half in the hospital, the doctors finally decided that I’d healed enough that I wasn’t likely to start that nasty internal bleeding again and could go home. They were probably just getting sick and tired of my parents alternately threatening to kill me the minute I was well enough to withstand a beating and thanking God and everybody that I was alive. It was embarrassing as hell that my mom kept fluctuating between weeping with relief and berating the hell out of me for messing with Others, both loudly enough to disturb patients across the hall. I swear, I felt like an errant teenager again with all the new rules and restrictions they imposed on me, and I even had to promise my mom that when I was released from the hospital, I’d go to church with her for confession.

It helped my morale immeasurably that Chaz, Arnold, and Sara kept sneaking in after hours to see me every night.

Sara kept on top of things—paying my bills, answering e-mails, watering plants—while I was in the hospital. I owed her big-time. Though I had saved her life back in that room, she saved mine by making sure my rent and car payment were sent in on time.

There was also a spike in phone calls and e-mails requesting my services after the news media reported on the ultimate showdown above
La Petite Boisson
. Arnold brought me the paper one night to show me my picture next to Royce’s on the front page. I asked him, politely I thought, to burn it.

I had insurance, but it didn’t exactly cover Were or magic attacks. There weren’t any clauses in my crappy HMO that covered being beaten to shit by a werewolf.

So Rohrik Donovan and the rest of the Moonwalkers made good on their promise and helped pay off the sky-high medical bills. A couple of them also showed up to thank me in person, including a bookish, balding gentleman named Mark Roberts. It was odd seeing what he looked like as a man, but he seemed pleased to meet me and was kind enough to offer me a cut-rate deal on my bookkeeping and taxes.

Most of the rest of them sent me flowers. My hospital room looked and smelled like a goddamn florist shop. Even Janine stopped by at one point with a “Get Well Soon” card and a mumbled thanks and apology. I’m happy to report that she’s warmed up to me quite a bit since I saved her sister’s life.

Royce, thankfully, never showed up at the hospital. He did send a bouquet of white roses with a card bearing a picture of a sunrise or sunset on the front. I recognized his, or perhaps a secretary’s, neat penmanship from the note he’d left me a lifetime or two ago when I first met him at his office.

Inconveniences. Right.

When the doctors finally got around to answering all my questions, I almost wished they hadn’t. Apparently I’d needed emergency surgery to fix my rib cage, pull bits of shattered bone out of one of my lungs, and some other nasty stuff that should have, but somehow miraculously didn’t, kill me. Arnold told me it was a mix of the belt and his interference, via Bob, that had kept me alive. I’m thinking it was mostly the belt.

A mysterious benefactor anonymously paid the rest of my hospital bills. I haven’t been able to figure out whether it was The Circle or Royce. Either way, it doesn’t bear thinking about. If it was The Circle, it means they still want something from me. If it was Royce—that’s the part that really doesn’t bear thinking about.

A couple of days after I woke up, the police came to my hospital bed and took my statement about Veronica and Allison’s deaths and the mess they found above Royce’s restaurant. Turns out that sometime between Sunday and Monday, Mr. and Mrs. Borowsky had also been found murdered in their own home. No, I didn’t know anything about that. Yes, the circumstances—bodies found in a circle burned into the floor and suffering a mix of vampire and Were bites—sounded like David and Anastasia’s handiwork.

The police had taken statements from Royce, Arnold, Chaz, Sara, and a whole shitload of Weres at the time of the incident. Apparently, during the scuffle, a diner in the restaurant had called the cops when a stray bullet shattered his soup bowl and embedded itself in the table. Never mind the screaming or howling coming from above everyone’s heads.

That’s what saved my life, because an ambulance came with the cops to treat some guy who had a heart attack from the excitement of running for his life out of the fine establishment with the rest of the diners.

The police never found out which Were worked with Anastasia to kill Veronica Wright or Allison Darling. The bodies of David Borowsky and Anastasia Alderov? Never found. Presumed dead. Heh. So no charges were filed, probably because the cops couldn’t figure out who the hell to arrest, and it was hard to keep a whole pack of werewolves, particularly during the full moon, enclosed in a jail cell. Plus, I imagine it must have been awkward taking the statements of a few dozen naked people who were bone tired from fighting for their lives, staying up all night, and going from furry to human in the course of a few hours.

So after a month and a half of going stir-crazy between physical therapy sessions and daytime soap operas, Chaz picked me up at the hospital and took me home. We swung by a grocery store so I could restock my fridge. My parents promised to drop my car off in a day or two. Everything was going back to normal.

Chaz helped me take everything upstairs, including the belt, holster, and body armor. Normally the hospital personnel just cut the clothes off you when they’re trying to reach your vitals to save your life, but in this case they were too damned hard to cut. So I still had most of my ass-kicking outfit. Alas, the trench coat did not make it. They also sliced through, rather than take off, the gun holsters. The charm necklace never came off and was tucked safely beneath my T-shirt.

By the time everything was put away, it was almost eight and I was a bit sore and exhausted, but pleasantly so. I kicked Chaz out with the promise that he could come by the next night, and we’d watch some movies. For now, I just wanted to get some rest.

I puttered around a little, refamiliarizing myself with my home. All my plants were still alive. I had a ton of e-mail, mostly get well wishes, a few inquiries from journalists and the usual spam. The place was just as I’d left it; even the dirty clothes I’d forgotten to toss in the hamper were still lying on the bathroom tile. Damien’s gift was still sitting in the back of my hall closet, untouched. Apparently nobody had busted in while I was gone. Everything was as it should be.

Except for the note I found on the bedside table. The neat block letters read:

I crumpled the note and threw it in the trash before I slid into bed, gingerly touching the new scars on my stomach. They didn’t hurt anymore but I’d never be able to wear a bikini again. Not really wanting to look at the scars and too tired to deal with the rest, I kicked off my sneakers, left my jeans and T-shirt on, and lay staring at the amber bars of light from the streetlamps reflecting through my blinds.

The White Hats could find someone else to play their games. I was done dealing with supernaturals. Except for Chaz, of course. And Arnold. And the Moonwalker tribe. Oh, hell, you know what I mean.