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“I’m on my way over, too,” Aiden said.
I inhaled and exhaled, trying to keep calm, as I stared down at the transparent liquid left in the syringe, trying to see if I could find any sign of what was in it.
“Aiden, what’s the closest hospital we can get to from here to get emergency help for Joel?” I asked, trying to keep my cool even though that was relatively the most difficult thing for me at the moment.
“There’s a private hospital on Hamilton Street. That’s the quiet street one block away from the dentist’s. The nondescript white building that occupies most of that block is the private hospital. They rarely attend to emergencies, but Caden is calling them to make an exception for you. Has Levi gotten to you? I’ll meet you at the hospital.” Aiden wasn’t the one who answered my question. Mateo was, and even though he sounded calm, I could hear his quickening breath and the rising pitch of his voice as he ran somewhere.
I heard a car start as Aiden asked, “Is Levi there yet or should I come over there?”
“Levi is here. Let’s meet at the hospital.” I said as Levi stuck his head to the car window.
“Mateo, can you ask Caden to send someone to get the attacker for questioning or something? It’s not appropriate to leave him in the car at the hospital.” I said as I unlocked the door for Levi.
“I’ll be there with someone as soon as possible.” Caden’s voice was calm with a quiet assurance that made me nod as I put my phone still on dial in my pocket and got out of the car to help Levi move Joel out of the driver’s seat into the backseat.
I stifled my gasp as the rusty smell of blood filled the car because Joel’s wound started bleeding even more from his side as we moved him to the backseat. I was itching to use a spell to stop his bleeding as I pulled off my jacket and used it to put pressure on his wound. However, I dispelled the idea when I pressed my finger to his pulse and found a steady rhythm that was only slightly elevated, which showed that he was going to be okay. From his pulse, I also determined that whatever was in the syringe wasn’t poisonous to him, or his pulse would have given me a different signal.
The car started as Aiden, Caden, and Mateo asked at the same time: “Aurora!”, “Are you hurt, Aurora?”, “Are you okay, Aurora?”
I added pressure onto the bleeding wound as I assured them, “M’alright.”
The car was silent as Levi started driving into the inner parts of Crawford Town, toward Hamilton Street.
The drive to the private hospital took twelve minutes because Levi drove like a crazy person. When we got to the hospital, we were greeted with a stretcher, two doctors, and two nurses who got to work as soon as they saw us.
They were very efficient in loading Joel onto the stretcher, as one of the doctors asked, “Can I have the syringe containing the substance injected into the patient?”
I returned to the car, leaned in through the window to get the syringe, and handed it over to the doctor with gloved hands.
“Okay, good work. We’ll do our best to treat him, Miss Byrne.” With those words, the doctor walked away hurriedly in the same direction that the two nurses and the other doctor, who had wheeled Joel away, had gone.
Levi patted me on the shoulder and reassured me, “He’s going to be fine.”
I didn’t turn to face him. I just leaned on him, grabbed his hand on my shoulder, and squeezed it.
25
Aurora
It took less than an hour for the doctors to rescue Joel because while his stab wound had been deep, we brought him to the hospital in time. My only concern, which had made me get permission from Alpha Owen to heal him if I needed to, had been the substance of the syringe our attacker had injected into his body.
Thankfully, the syringe’s substance, after preliminary testing in the labs, contained a mixture of Wolfsbane and some unknown poisonous substances that were not lethal to humans. We were waiting to get a report on the exact contents of the syringe before we chose our next step.
I felt awful every time I looked at Joel’s pale face as he lay in his hospital bed. Thankfully, he already regained consciousness after he was pushed out of the operating room, so we were sure he was going to be fine.
Sighing, I stood up, heading straight for the waiting room closest to Joel’s room, nodding once at the pack enforcer that Alpha Owen had sent to watch over Joel.
In the waiting room, I headed straight to the vending machine, sticking in a few of the coins I’d gotten from a nurse and picking the iced tea drink that I was starting to like, even though I didn’t like its taste initially.
Since the waiting room was silent and deserted, I sat down on the chair closest to the window, staring blankly at the panes without even looking at the scenery outside it.
Aiden, Mateo, and Levi had gone to get a confession out of the attacker, and Caden had a meeting with Alpha Owen. Even though I felt a little lonely now, I knew they only left because I asked for some time alone to think.
The strange thing was there were no solid thoughts in my head. Several thoughts were jumping around haphazardly in my head and giving me a headache.
When we spoke to Alpha Owen yesterday about the pack council summons letter, he’d told us I had no choice but to appear because he couldn’t casually veto the decision of two-thirds of the pack council.
So not only were we trying to find a pack observer-hating murderer as well as Angelique’s murderer, but I also had to appear before the Crawford Pack Council next week. Caden, Aiden, Mateo, and Alpha Owen also had their hands full trying to deal with the pack council and the rebellious pack members who were sending appeals to Alpha Owen to throw me, the spy, out of the pack.
