Chapter 6
Amara walked quietly down the hall at the hospital, her soft-soled shoes making virtually no noise. She hated hospitals; hated everything about them. The bright whites and the pastel colors, the fluorescent lighting, the sickly sterile smell that was supposed to be a cover for the dead and the dying. It was all awful.
Every time she stepped foot in this building—set foot in this wing—she had horrible flashbacks.
She was twelve years old, crying at her father’s bedside as the nurses turned off his life support system and the machines breathed in and out for him one last time, her mom and sister behind her. She felt his lifeless fingers go limp in her hand.
She was fifteen years old, lying flat on her back. This time it was her in the hospital bed, not her father. There were tubes everywhere; in her nose, her throat, her wrists. Her clavicle had been broken, the skin torn open by the wolf’s teeth when he attacked her. She would have a nice, ugly scar. The bone had snapped in two, leaving the flesh shredded on top of it. She could feel the stitches stretch and pull each time she breathed.
She was twenty-three, sitting in the chair across from her grandfather’s bed. The cancer had been eating away at him for the last two years, and his medications had finally stopped working. And then the pain had gotten to be too much. The night before, after telling her one last story about the legendary men who could turn into beasts, he had slipped into a coma. The doctors said he would never wake up.
Over the years, she had been in that same hospital walking those same halls countless times to visit friends and family members that had fallen victim to the wolves. Her best friend, Becca, had been in and out of hospital care since they were teenagers due to complications from the attack; out of the three girls Kal went after that night, Becca had suffered the most. Still, even Zoe had been a patient. The doctors claimed she suffered from PTSD, a side effect of the trauma. Granted, at those times, her injuries were alcohol induced and self-inflicted.
Now she was there for Donny. She didn’t know him that well, but he was a regular at Murphy’s Tavern, and his youngest brother, Carl, had been in her grade at school.
Reaching his room, Amara knocked lightly before pushing open his door. The small space was full. The entire Jones family had taken up residence on the available tables, chairs, and couches the hospital room had to offer.
When she entered, Clarence rose from his seat near the window and rushed to greet her. He wrapped her in a hug, encasing her in the stench of beer, sweat, and cigarettes. Amara felt her stomach turn but forced the feeling to subside. As questionable as his personal hygiene might be, Clarence was a sweet man, and right then, he was worried about his brother.
“Oh, Amara, it’s so nice of you to make it. Donny would have loved to see you. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, you know. He owes you his life. We all do.”
Amara’s eyes widened. “No, no you don’t owe me anything.”
“You saved his life!”
She shifted uncomfortably. It was true that she had chased the wolf off, even shot him with her gun, but she was beginning to feel guilty that she was condemning one wolf clan while siding with another. Hadn’t all the wolves been using her town as if it were a battleground? Strathford was supposed to be Mountain Clan territory, but the Valley Clan had been using its streets and its people to get the biggest reaction from their rivals. Amara’s town, the humans, they were just collateral damage. Hadn’t Neveah’s and Isiah’s reactions proved how little human life actually meant to them? She should be disposed of immediately. Isn’t that what Nova’s own mother had said? How could she claim to have saved Donny’s life when she was sleeping with one of the people who had put his life at risk in the first place? And now, if they brought wolves in from the Falls Clan, there would be even more potential enemies to worry about.
It almost made her worry about Sadie and Kal seem trivial. Almost.
Amara forced a smile. “It was the least I could do, Clarence,” she told him. She didn’t have to make a moral decision right then. No, what she had to do right at that moment was give the Joneses what they really needed, and that was a sense of safety and comfort. “I’m glad he’s safe now. How’s he doing?”
Next to the bed, his mother, Julia, shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was a widower, and the mother of four strong boys. They all lived and worked on their family farm. Julia was a kind woman and friends with Amara’s mother. She’d lost her husband when the boys were little. It didn’t seem right that she should lose another loved one to the same enemy.
Carl rose from the couch. He was a tall man, and burly, with a thick mop of golden brown hair, rounded cheeks, and kind, blue eyes. They’d been friends since they were children. He’d even been her date to the Winter Formal their freshman year in high school. For a while, she thought he’d even leave town to go to college. But then the attacks got more and more frequent, and he’d been too afraid for his family to leave them short-handed on the farm.
Amara reached out a hand and patted his arm. “They said making it through the night was a good sign,” Carl told her quietly, careful not to let his mother overhear. “But since early this morning, there’s been no change. The good thing is that he still has brain activity. They’re hopeful that if his body can heal fast enough, he’ll make a decent recovery.” Carl furrowed a worried brow and lowered his voice. Amara had to lean in to hear him. “But right now, we’ll just be lucky if he makes it another night.
“He’s right torn up, Amara. We’re damn lucky you showed up with that gun when you did.”
Amara stayed another fifteen minutes or so, using her own family as an excuse to get away. She was worried for Donny, and her heart went out to his family, it really did. But if she didn’t get out of that hospital soon, she was going to scream.
When she finally made it out the big double doors at the front of the building, she took in a gigantic gulp of crisp, fresh air. If she never had to step foot in another hospital again, she wouldn’t be all too happy.
Amara dug out her phone and turned on the ringer. Three missed calls and four text messages. She clicked on the little orange icon. All the calls were from Mitch. The texts too.
They called a mandatory Council meeting at ten o’clock that morning. Zoe even said the mayor was going to be there. Everyone wanted to know what happened last night.
Amara, did you get my messages? His text said. Are you going to the council meeting? If you meet me out front, we can go in together.
Seriously, Amara, where are you? The meeting’s about to start.
Fine. I’m going in without you. I’ll save you a seat in the back.
Crap. If there was a Council meeting that morning, she definitely needed to be there. As her grandfather’s heir, she had been asked to take his seat on the Strathford Town Council. She glanced at her watch. It was already 10:15. The hospital was only twelve blocks from City Hall. If she ran, maybe she could slip in without anybody noticing.
Zipping her coat up to her chin against the harsh wind whipping down the street, Amara took one moment to wish she’d been able to down an entire pot of coffee like she did most mornings, and resolved to do her morning run without her caffeine motivation. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it wasn’t her favorite way to start the day. This had definitely not been her best morning.
She was breathing hard and wishing she’d worn a lighter jacket by the time she reached that red brick building that served as their city center. She hadn’t run that hard, fast, and long since high school. What a rush. Still, she should have been there twenty minutes ago and, judging by the amount of people she could see jammed within the room, going in unnoticed would pretty much be impossible.
Amara took a deep breath and opened the door. She’d intended to ease the door shut, but before she could, the metal handle was ripped from her hands by the wind, and slammed shut behind her.