Elliot let out a soft grunt, nosing me. Trying to ask if I was okay.
I tried to make a reassuring sound, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I succeeded before I passed out.
16
Elliot Crane
They let me leave you a note for when you woke up.
I love you.
E.
I staredat the piece of paper, clearly torn from a nurse’s or doctor’s personal notepad, the top decorated with a series of little dancing colorful birds. Cockatoos or budgies or something.Dance like no one’s watching, read the caption underneath the little line of birds.
I had no idea where my phone was. In my car, maybe, with the pants I’d taken off when I’d shifted and stupidly tried to take on my father in order to protect Elliot.
At least the fact that he’d written me a note—although I couldn’t help but notice that his handwriting was shakier than usual—meant that he was probably in better shape than I’d been in when I was brought here. I’d figured out fairly quickly that I was in a hospital, given that there is something ubiquitous about the way hospitals, look, feel, and smell. I’d nearly panicked atfirst, thinking for a split second that I was back in St. Cyprian’s and the last year had all been some sort of hallucination. But then I realized that was ridiculous and I must have been brought here after having had the shit clawed and bitten out of me by shifted members of the Community—including my father.
Here, as it turns out, was the James Blair Arcane wing of Augusta Health Hospital. The same hospital where Noah had been taken when he’d first transformed. If the room was any indication, they’d updated it quite a bit in the last sixteen years.
The important thing was that I was alive.
And Elliot was alive. I hoped that he was okay.
I was assuming Hart was also alive, although I was under no illusions that he’d probably needed treatment, too.
The nurse who had come in when the machines hooked up to me had alerted them I was conscious had assured me that Elliot would come back to see me in the morning, then asked if I felt up to talking to the police. Then she’d handed me the note and told me not to worry too much and left me to wait.
The police, as it turned out, was the FBI in the person of Rajesh Parikh.
“How are you feeling?” the tiger shifter asked as he pulled up a molded plastic chair.
“Like shit,” I answered honestly. “The nurse says that I’ll have to have surgery on my knee once I’m recovered enough.” I grimaced. “Not looking forward to that.”
Raj made an appropriately sympathetic face. “Sorry to hear it,” he replied. “Are you otherwise okay?”
I almost shrugged, then stopped myself. “Nothing I won’t recover from,” I replied. Bruised and cracked ribs, lacerations and bite wounds that had required a total of fifteen stitches, which really wasn’t that bad, considering the fact that I’d tried to fight off five wolves. As a wolf, but still.
I frowned. “Do you know how I ended up human again?” I asked him. I’d definitely still been a wolf when I’d passed out.
“You sort-of came to at one point after the EMTs arrived, and Elliot somehow convinced you to shift back so they could treat you as a human instead of as a wolf.” He shrugged. “Not surprised you don’t remember—you were pretty out of it.”
“Elliot’s okay?” I asked, not bothering to hide the worry in my voice.
“A little battered, but they let him go back to the hotel last night.”
I tried to sit up, alarmed, and immediately regretted it, hissing in pain.
“Take it easy,” Raj cautioned me. “Don’t pull your stitches.” He grimaced. “I really don’t recommend it.”
I nodded, still wincing. “Did someone go with him?” I asked.
“Yeah, me. And Drew Shao took over for me this morning when he drove in from Richmond.” Raj offered me an understanding smile. “Don’t worry—we’re not going to let anything happen to him.”
I nodded again, trying to slow my pulse. Elliot was okay. “How’s Hart?” I asked, then.
Raj grimaced. “They’ll let him go today or tomorrow, I think they said,” he replied. “He needed more stitches than you, and they were a bit worried about blood loss, but, thankfully, nothing vital got hit.”
