Page 2 of Blinded
I faded in and out of consciousness after that, vaguely aware we were moving, but unable to know where. All I could go by was scent, but in the bear's arms, his scent was overpowering.
Time didn't register. We could have been moving for minutes or days and I wouldn't have been able to tell. I tried to think where we were going, but couldn't. I remembered John saying the name Kurt, but that meant nothing to me. It didn't matter anymore anyway. I was dying. I felt it. The fact that I couldn't shift was proof of how weak I was. It would be only a matter of time before my body gave out.
"I need Cohen," John suddenly yelled.
His scream pulled me from my thoughts, and I realized I smelled other wolves. Many of them. My pulse raced as I realized we must be at the local pack house.
"Fuck, what happened?" a strange voice asked.
"Found them up at Dever's Pond." John seemed to be walking up steps from the way he jostled me.
"Jesus, get him into the med room."
I quit trying to follow the voices and scents. There were too many of them.
"That's Bridger," another wolf said. "I sensed his death two days ago. I'd sent several wolves out to search for him."
John set me down on something hard. I didn't move. My fate was in the hands of the other wolves now, and if I was lucky, they'd put me down and end my pain.
"Cohen, can you help him?" I smelled the scent of an alpha, his power coming over me.
He wasn't my alpha. I was a long way from home. I wondered if anyone would tell my family I'd died here? Surely, Bridger's family would contact mine.
I panted as new pain coursed through me. John had set me down on my leg wrong, and it was twisted beneath me.
"Easy, my name is Cohen. I'm the Terrin Pass Pack doctor. I'm going to do all I can to help you, but it would help if you could shift."
Did he really think I hadn't tried? I had no way of letting him know I couldn't, but he must have taken my stillness to mean it wasn't going to happen. His hands roamed over my wolf's body, and the scent of my own blood seemed to increase.
"Okay, I'm going to try and get some of the bleeding stopped, I'm giving you something for the pain also. Maybe once you've relaxed you can shift."
The pain started to ease quickly, and my breathing calmed. I ignored the hands that poked and prodded me, just glad to be free of the fire that had consumed my body for however long I'd been lying in the dirt.
As the pain faded, I was able to think clearer. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember what happened, how I'd ended up trapped. Bridger and I had been running through the forest. We were headed to the lake to play in the water and catch fish. I remembered Bridger yelping, then something hit me in the hind leg and I'd yelped as well as I fell to the ground. When I'd woken up, I couldn't see or move, and even though I could smell Bridger nearby, I didn't hear him, nor did he respond to my whines.
"What do we have, Cohen?" The alpha was there again.
"Jesus, I don't even know," Cohen responded. "He's been stabbed several times. Several bones are broken, it looks like he was hit with a blunt object repeatedly. I can get the bleeding stopped, and if he can shift, the bones will heal easily, but he hasn't responded to me at all other than when John first set him down, and I think that was only a response to the pain, not a cognitive response."
"What about his eyes?" The alpha's scent got very strong as if he was leaning close.
"Fuck, I can't fix what isn't there." Cohen sighed. "Even shifting won't help. His eyes are gone. I've managed to stop the bleeding there, but honestly, Kurt, whoever did this looks to have forcefully removed both of his eyes."
My pulse raced as I heard what he was saying. I tried to lift my head, but barely managed to move it. I started to pant again, unable to handle the news that my eyes were missing.
"Fuck, guess we know he can hear us," Kurt said.
A hand pressed to my side.
"Listen, if you can hear me, I've tried to contact Bridger's family. Hopefully, we can find out who you are. I don't recognize your scent, so I'm guessing your pack isn't from around Montana. We are going to do everything we can to help you. We'll get you through this."
The thing was, I didn't want to pull through. I wanted to die. If I was faced with living a life blind, I didn't want to live. What kind of life would a wolf have who couldn't see? I'd be like an old, aging wolf that others had to care for. I didn't want that. It wasn't the kind of life I wanted to live.
"Do we know who did this?" Cohen asked.
"Not yet. I've sent wolves with John and Paul to the location. They said they smelled humans in the area, but there was no sign of anyone when they found the wolves. They'd been tied up with barbed wire and left tied to a couple of trees," Kurt informed Cohen.
"They were darted."
