Page 40 of Wolf Bane
A commotion drew his attention to the door.I seized the moment, kicking at his ankle, but it was weak.So weak he didn’t even glance down and instead moved closer to the door, scowling.
“Good lord,” he muttered.“Man’s like a rash on my ass.”He gave me a push back with his foot against my ribs, opening the door just wide enough to slip out.“Don’t go nowhere.”He grinned.“We’re not done negotiatin’.”
ChapterTen
There had been a handful of times in my life where I felt certain death was imminent.Admittedly, most of them had been in the twelve or fourteen months leading up to me sitting in a filthy storage closet with a massive open wound and what felt like a concussion, but I was putting that particular moment at the top of the list.
The bite (tear, rip, gash, awfulness) on my arm was already healing thanks to the were genes being active.Garrow had managed, in his mania to create a perfect, powerful line of weres, to give my asthmatic, clumsy ass accelerated healing.So yeah, I was kind of like an X-Man.A weak, sluggishly bleeding, probably dying X-Man.
Just my luck I’d be one of the crappy ones that only got a single series run in the eighties.
So long as I wasn’t one of the Summers.Those assholes really ruined the vibe.
The thought made me laugh, a sound too loopy and too loud at the same time, throbbing in my skull until I my eyes stung with pain.
“Fuck my life,” I muttered.“Fuck all of it.”The blood in my mouth was thick, sharp with metal and bile.I leaned forward and let it drip onto my chest, the stink of it filling my sinuses.It’s all blood, isn’t it?All of it for the past year.For longer than that.Since Cleverly decided to sell a little boy to be experimented on.All I am is a bag of blood and genetic experiments.
The scrape of furniture on dirty linoleum, raised voices, and something metal clattering all bounced around in my head, ricocheting off one another until it became a knot.No, worse than a knot, I thought with some frantic giggles bubbling up.Soup.My brain is soup today.A shift made my arm throb, the gauze pulling on dried blood and hair.
A tiny part of my brain that had managed not to get rattled to kingdom come was fidgeting though.Look at how fast you’re healing and you’re not even a full werewolf.Why isn’t Zero healing so fast?What about the others?What about Justin?Why is he still sick and you’re not?
Justin… I wondered, the thought flitting past like a particularly manic moth, how much of Justin’s illness was driven by poor self-care.Not that he was typically a gross person, but depression, anxiety… it could fuck you up in all sorts of ways.Make you not want to eat.Make you not want to take care of yourself.Which, in turn, could exacerbate an illness which would otherwise have just passed on after a day or two.
But he took those painkillers, just like Zero.Just like some of the others.
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…
I shook myself mentally, stretching my injured arm out to eye the bandage.It was mottled with dried and drying blood, the smell cloying.Gingerly, I peeled the gauze and tape away, hissing as some of the newly formed scab came with it.The wound, which had been gaping and raw just hours before was still ugly but nowhere near as gruesome.A wide margin of puckering scar tissue outlined the gash, the exposed tissue underneath looking two weeks healed instead of fresh and wet.Still, I knew, I should get it cleaned out better or risk some gnarly scaring when my body healed over and around any debris, making little scarred encapsulations—I'd seen those on Ethan, on Tyler, on Waltrip.Hell, I even had a nasty scar or two.Everyone things healing fast is a cool superhero thing but it's a pain in the ass, medically.I sighed, giving the wound a gentle press, blood welling up from the tear.The thought of suturing myself made me woozy, almost made me forget my train of thought.
Healing faster than a human.Didn’t get sick like the others… Is it because I’m not entirely were?No, Justin is sick though, if that’s what’s making him sick.But not Mal.Mal and I are from the same cohort.
Same dosage.Same experiments.
Awareness trickled in.Mal and I were fine even though he’d been around Mariska pretty much 24-7, and I’d been seeing sick humans and weres the entire time.We weren’t affected like others were.Ethan wasn’t sick.Tyler, who’d been taking care of Justin the whole time, was fine.
What’s different?Why are we okay and the others aren’t?
Head ringing, I slowly pushed to my feet.I needed to pace but was hesitant to try, just in case the dizziness knocked me on my ass.Instead, I propped myself against the wall, letting my circulation tingle and sting along my tired limbs.They took something.Everyone sick took something.An injection, an oral med… What did Robards take?And why did it affect him?He’s fully human.
The Clemens family… Her bite made him sick.Or… wait… I gave in, pushing away from the wall and pacing two shaky steps forward before I had to pivot back.Wash, rinse, repeat as my brain sluggishly churned.Too many puzzle pieces, I thought, and not enough of them were edges.
Monk and Hood.Wolfbane.God save me from clever naming conventions with these people…
Why were we the ones that were okay?But not Justin?Not Mariska?
Robards…
Zero, the others here… The dead weres in the other small communities.
Fuck, I needed to talk to Ethan.To Tyler.Waltrip would be a good third choice, I decided, if he ever stopped skulking around.
The shouting outside was getting closer.It wasn’t a fight, not like I’d first thought.It was more like an argument.
A distraction, I realized hopefully.
Giving the door handle a jiggle, it popped open, exposing a sliver of the empty corridor.Slowly, I let myself out into the corridor.Even if I’d wanted to go fast, it’d have been impossible for more than a yard or two.I took a few steps before the world felt steady, or at least steady enough for me to move with purpose instead of caution.My pockets were empty—my phone, the bits of paper and change I’d had in my pockets after returning home earlier gone who knows where.So, my only option was to let myself out, get out and… What?I paused mid-step.Walk home?Where the fuck is La Chance Parish from home?Several hours at the bare minimum.That’s if the parish was on the river, across from home.
The fight—argument, whatever—was moving.Things clattering, more voices joining.Someone coughing now, a panickedwait, wait, wait.Running feet.
