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Chapter Thirty-Three
Edie
Thenextfewhourswere hectic as my mother and I worked to clean up the shifters.Once I realized they healed faster in our wolf forms, I made them all transform and nap after I’d checked their injuries.The increase in healing time was remarkable.Jasper’s badly bruised ribs had gone from purple to yellow.The cut on Micah’s head had knitted, and he had already joked that it would give him a sexy scar.Dominic’s wounds were more serious, but after a rest he could sit up and join the conversation by the time Flint and Dylan arrived.
Melinda, however, didn’t wake at all.
“So are you saying she’s in a coma?”Flint said, staring down at his mother.We were in another room at Ethan’s clinic.Ethan’s body—or the freakish thing his body had become—was still in the patient room where he’d fallen.
I cleared my throat.I knew how to speak to patients, but it was much harder to stay objective when it was someone I cared about.“I wouldn’t characterize it as a coma, not yet.Right now, I’d say she is in a minimally conscious to comatose state, which is a spectrum.I’m guessing the shift activated the toxin in her body.Last time she tried, she was severely weakened.This time, since she went all the way, she may have done even more damage.”
Micah passed his hand over his face.Dominic in a chair behind him, his arm in a sling and his gaze cast down to the floor.Dylan was at his father’s side, shoulders turned in.
Flint looked at Jasper as if waiting for him to guide the conversation, but Jasper was braced against the wall as if it was the only thing holding him up.“How much damage?”
“I’m still working on that.Her heart and lungs are functioning normally.I haven’t had time to run a full panel but I can tell you that there might be some damage to her kidneys that was caused by the toxin.Ethan was faking the lab results,” I said, my voice shaking.“I let him run all the tests because he has the lab here.I trusted him.”
“She’s comfortable,” my mom put in.“She’s not in any pain.”
Flint closed his eyes, absorbing the words like a blow.“We let him get away with this.”
This was exactly what I feared.As much as I’d grown to like and care for the Moreaus, I’d never stopped worrying that they would blame me if Melinda didn’t recover from her illness.“I should have known,” I said.“I should have suspected Dr.Barnes from the very beginning.It never made sense that her blood tests weren’t showing any abnormalities.I should have run them myself.I could tell that she was deteriorating, but there was no outward cause.I let myself get distracted.I--”
I was looking down at the floor as I listed my sins, so I didn’t realize Flint had moved closer to me until he put his hand on my shoulder.“Edie.I’m not blaming you.You’ve been here a week.We had months to figure this out.If it wasn’t for you, we never would have learned what was causing her illness.She’d probably be lying there dead, instead of sleeping.I’m glad you were here.We’re all grateful to you for everything you’ve done.”
As they all nodded in agreement, I had to try desperately to keep my chin from trembling.“In cases like this, where the coma is caused by a toxin, it’s possible that if the patient can process the toxin, they could recover fully.That’s not a promise,” I said when Micah sucked in a breath.“If she wakes up, I don’t know how long it will take, or what sort of state she’ll be in.”I bit my lip, then took Melinda’s limp hand in mine.“I don’t know if her wolf will survive.”
My mom made a strangled noise.For the past few hours, she’d worked beside me without a single question about what she’d seen.Now it seemed to hit her all at once.“If you’ll excuse me, I need a moment,” she said, and quickly left the room.
I could hear the strain under the politeness.“I know this is a lot of information.I’m going to stay here tonight to monitor her and hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow.”
“I’ll stay,” Dominic said.
“You need rest,” I began, but cut myself off when I saw the look on his face.
“I left her before.Look what happened.I failed to protect her.I’m not leaving her again.”
I exhaled slowly.“We’ll discuss it.For the moment, I’m going to talk to my mother.”
Jasper lifted his face, and my heart thumped when I saw the expression in his stormy eyes.We’d made it.We’d both survived.I’d told myself that I could leave him and go back to Baltimore, but when I’d seen him fall under Ethan’s fists it was as if my mind was going black too.Why would I leave him, when I’d be leaving my heart here?
I found my mother outside the clinic on the main street that ran through the tiny tourist town.The rain had stopped and the sun was out, quickly fading any sign of the storm.Families who had taken shelter in souvenir shops or cafes were now out on the streets, enjoying the way the mountains in the distance shredded the storm clouds with their peaks.The clinic, with its drugstore storefront, looked just as Rockwell-esque as the rest of the town.“They don’t know,” she said.“None of them know.”
I led her to a bench.She’d taken off her blood-soaked jacket but there were stains drying on her black slacks.“I wanted to tell you.”
“All of them—Melinda, Dominic, that nice lady at the desk—they’re all wolf shifters?”She whispered the last two words, as if she couldn’t bear to say them out loud.When I nodded, she steeled herself.“Jasper?”
“Yes.”
“Will your children be shifters?”
“God, Mom, we’re not even officially a couple.We’re not talking about kids.”But since I had thought about it, I added, “I think they would be, if they found their stones.Did you notice that they all wear stones?”
“I did.I thought, ‘oh, how interesting that the men out here wear jewelry.’”She looked suspiciously at a passing couple.“How can you tell if someone is…one of them?”
“Well, those people looked like European tourists to me, so I’m guessing they’re as human as you or me.But I guess that’s the point—you can’t tell.Because they actually aren’t all that different.They have complicated families.They have tempers and soft spots.They fight for what they love,” I said softly.
“They turn into monsters?”
