Connected: Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Chapter 16

Abby

It was hours that we sat in the waiting room at the vet’s office, hovering around or staring at the door to the hall, down which Luna was being operated on. Everyone in this room was worried, including the seven Pack-allied wolves that had stayed. It felt like an eternity before Marion and the vet came out.

“She’ll be fine,” Marion said. “Let her sleep. Rashid can care for her from now on.”

“Thank you,” Eli said, coming forward to shake her hand. “If there’s any way we can repay you.”

“Actually,” Marion said, giving a timid smile, “you could get me a cab.” She glanced around at everyone, and I had to struggle not to stare at my feet when her eyes passed over mine. “I’m ready to catch the first flight home.”

“Of course. Wes?”

“On it,” Wes said, pulling out his cell phone.

“Please,” Eli said, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket and handing her a handful of large bills, “take this to pay for your ticket. It’s the least we can do.”

“Thank you,” she grinned. “Really, thank you.” She pulled a syringe and an alcohol pad out of her pocket while Wes called a cab. “Palmer,” she gestured with the syringe, “it’s time.”

“Hell yeah,” he said, plopping down in a seat.

Marion went over to him and broke open the alcohol pad, cleaning a spot of his arm and then injecting him with the antidote. “It’ll take a couple days to kick in,” she said. “But you’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

She smiled at him with such a warmth it made my chest ache. She was nice, and caring, and good, and I’d ruined her life. Tears welled in my eyes, and I was glad that no one in the room seemed to be paying any attention to me, because the last thing I needed to do was explain that I’d killed this woman’s husband. That I’d played a part in her being a captive for months, and worse than all of it, kept her from her son. That’d been left out of her file, but that fact being hidden from me didn’t surprise me. Little would anymore.

But someone in the room was paying attention to me, and Camille’s hand set on my lower back. She’d been so angry about my father having something to do with the lab in the car that I worried she’d be mad at me for a while, but that touch was all comfort. Such intimate, uncharacteristic comfort, and I forced a grateful smile while I struggled to blink the tears from my eyes.

Marion’s cab arrived shortly after, and she waved goodbye and left to get back to her own life. A life I hoped would be happy and unbothered. A new silence fell over the wolves after she was gone, but it wasn’t the same nervous silence as it had been before finding out Luna would be okay. It was a tense silence, and the longer it lasted, the more the wolves finally had time to grow angry.

“It’s time we talk about this,” David said, looking to Eli, who nodded. “We should move on End Mountain. Now, while our numbers are greater.”

Kyla glanced over at me, a world of question and a request for permission in her eyes, and I gave it with the slightest drop of my chin. It was time to tell them the truth, and Kyla said, “It wasn’t End Mountain, not entirely.”

Eli’s brow furrowed as he demanded, “Who?”

“The Council,” she answered.

His upper lip curled as he tried to curb his reaction, but he failed. He turned and sent his fist through the drywall. “The Council has crossed me for the last time!” He faced us again as he shook the dust off his knuckles, his chest heaving with rage. “I temper our nature to be the peaceful alpha they want. I let them act like they own the world, and what do I get? My wolves, kidnapped and poisoned! My daughter, dead! I’m done!”

“Then we attack the office,” David suggested. “They won’t expect it, or this many of us.”

“You can’t attack the office,” I blurted.

David growled as all eyes fell on me at once, most of them far from friendly. “Why’s she even here?” David snapped, taking an aggressive step forward. “We should use her to send a message.”

Camille reached across me to set a hand on my waist, pulling me behind her. “Lay one finger on her, and I’ll show you what the serum did to me.”

“You dare challenge me?” David snarled.

“That wasn’t a challenge,” Camille spat, “it was a promise. She had nothing to do with this. Nobody touches her.”

David bristled, battling the itching of his skin and the urge to rise to Camille’s threat, but I didn’t want them to fight. I didn’t want anyone to fight. “I know you’re upset,” I said to everyone, stepping out from behind Camille. “I know you’re angry.”

“You haven’t seen anger,” Eli muttered.

“Words couldn’t tell you how much I care about Camille and Kyla,” I told him. “They’re a part of this Pack, and I love it as if I were too.”

“But you’re not,” David sneered.

“And I’m here anyway,” I quipped, moving even further forward, so that I was standing in front of Camille. “Letting you look at me like I did this all myself. Letting you imagine all the ways you could try and kill me before Camille or Kyla stepped in. Look at me standing here and tell me you don’t believe I’d give up everything for this Pack.” All he did was glare at me. “My own father did this, and I know that he deserves whatever he has coming, but you can’t attack the Council.”

“I don’t need your permission to attack,” Eli said.

“I know,” I said, trying to ignore the racing of my pulse, the warning that standing up to Eli was the most dangerous thing I’d ever done. “That’s why I’m begging you not to.”

David scoffed. “Just kill her already.”

Both Camille and Kyla mentally pleaded with me to get behind them and stop exposing myself, but as terrified as I was, I didn’t want to show it. “The Council is flawed,” I said, “and corrupt, and I know that it needs to be fixed, but it’s also necessary. There are good people there. People who do what they’re supposed to do and keep the rest of our world in balance. Without the Council, it’s only a matter of time until everything is thrown into chaos, and that’ll expose all of us.” David stood there with his jaw working back and forth while Eli considered what I was saying. “Please, Eli, let me fix this. Give me a chance to figure it out from the inside, so the Council remains intact, and I swear you’ll have justice. Please.”

He stared at me for a long, tense minute, taking in my plea and weighing it against his outrage. I knew what his answer was before he said it, and my shoulders slumped with defeat. “No,” he said. “They should’ve thought of this before they attacked the Pack. We’ve survived without the Council, we’ll do it again.”

“Eli,” Kyla said, taking a hasty step forward. “I need a word.”

The vague idea that was still forming in her mind made my heart sink. “Kyla,” I whispered, “no.”

“Speak,” Eli commanded.

“You don’t want me to say this here,” Kyla said, ignoring my protest.

A frustrated growl rumbled in his chest, but he saw the seriousness on Kyla’s face, because he paced from the waiting room to outside. David followed, and Kyla instructed me to come because she knew Camille would too, and she didn’t want to leave me alone. The door closed behind us, and what Kyla was about to say already had me so on edge I was weak.

“Give Abby a chance,” Kyla said simply.

Eli warned through clenched teeth, “My patience is thin, Kyla.”

“Give Abby a chance,” she said again, taking a deep breath so she could finish confidently, “or I’m making a formal challenge.”

Camille’s stomach dropped, her face going pale as she released a slew of panicked mental profanities. Eli just stared at Kyla in shock, and I braced myself for the fight that would come when he finally recovered.

But David was the first react, and he stomped forward furiously. “You disloyal fuc-”

Eli stopped his gait with a hand on his chest, his eyes never leaving Kyla as his mind worked a mile a minute. He realized why Kyla didn’t say this in front of everyone else, because if she’d challenged his position as alpha in front of the rest of the Pack, then he’d have no choice but to accept it or look weak. But he also knew everything Kyla did, every reason why accepting that challenge was the last thing he wanted to do.

If he was honest with himself, he acknowledged how skilled and fierce Kyla had become, and he wasn’t beyond-a-doubt sure he’d win that fight. But what he was sure of was that the Pack wouldn’t survive it. Camille would lay down her life for Kyla, and Luna would do the same for either them. If Eli killed them, then Camille’s whole family would be up in arms, regardless of the reason. And then there was a Palmer. A wildcard, as far as loyalties went, but Eli was willing to bet Palmer would fight for Camille, and every wolf fought was a potential wolf dead.

This was why mutts weren’t allowed to form Packs, and I understood now why they dealt with it so severely. One power struggle could leave the entire Pack crippled, and had Kyla truly wanted to be alpha, there was nothing stopping her from making a solid push for it.

When Eli finally finished processing the position he’d been put in, he snarled his rage. It was such a powerful sound that Camille cringed, but Kyla stood her ground. His eyes passed over me, and he let one more growl leave his throat before turning for the door. But he stopped in front of me and said, “If I ever see your father, I will kill him.”

I nodded, and he disappeared inside, David trailing him in after passing a final glare at each of us. “I can’t believe you did that,” I breathed.

Kyla smiled as easily as she could even though, now that it was over, her heart was finally racing. “You were right about the Council,” she said. “Save it.”

“I will,” I assured her. “I’ll try.” I wrapped my arms around her neck and pulled her into a tight hug. “I know what you just risked. Thank you.” She hugged me back, and we both looked over at Camille when she let me go. Camille hadn’t moved, and she was still frozen in the same spot, staring at where Eli had been standing. “…Are you okay?”

“I’m…” she murmured, swallowing hard and then clearing her throat. “I am both extremely appalled, and very, very turned on.” She finally moved and came over, only to grab Kyla by the face and give her a hard, deep kiss. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I’m sorry,” Kyla said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay,” Camille said. “I just…” She inhaled a deep breath, letting it out in one fast puff. “Shit.”

I breathed a relieved huff of laughter, but then the door opened again, and all the wolves filtered out. “We’re leaving,” Eli announced as everyone except for Palmer piled into the SUVs. Eli stood at my side while everyone got into the vehicles, his presence heavy and intimidating. Once they were in, he looked down at me, his voice quiet and angry. “I was just forced to put the lives of my entire Pack in your hands,” he said. “Don’t fail. You don’t want to know an alpha’s rage.” Without another word, he walked away and got into a SUV.

“Do you want me to stay?” Palmer asked. 

“Will you be at the Pack house?” Camille asked. “When we get back?”

He shrugged. “Not like I have anything better to do.”

“We’ll see you there,” she told him. He turned to head to a vehicle. “Palmer?” He stopped and turned back to face us. “I didn’t get to thank you for saving me. You saved Luna, too.”

“What are friends for, right?” He gave a small smile. “See you.”

The vehicles and the rest of the Pack left, and I followed Camille and Kyla back inside to where Rashid was waiting. “Come with me,” he said, and he led us into the hall beyond the waiting room, to an office at the end of it. There was a desk on the far side, and the cushions of the couch against the left wall had been removed and a fold-up bed pulled out of it. “I sleep here sometimes, when I need to keep an eye on patients. You’re welcome to stay. I’ll be in looking after Luna.”

“Can I see her?” Camille asked.

“She’s still asleep,” he said, “but sure.”

They got out the door of the office before realizing I wasn’t coming. “I’m just…” I gestured toward the bed and then sat on the edge of it. “I’ll wait.”

They nodded and let me linger while they went to see Luna, and I was glad they didn’t ask why, because I didn’t know how to say that I couldn’t bring myself to look at her yet. Didn’t know how to say that I felt partially responsible. So I sat there, staring at the door while the reality of the day finally started catching up to me. I felt so many things it was hard to feel anything, and every thought and regret and betrayal sped through my mind so quickly I couldn’t pick out a single one. I didn’t want to pick out a single one, didn’t want to acknowledge every specific way my world had been shaken, because the moment I slowed under the weight of everything, it’d crush me.

I stared at the same spot for several eternal minutes until Camille and Kyla came back, but I was so lost in my thoughts and my numbness that I didn’t even look at them. I knew they were standing there, watching me, thinking about what to say or do because they could tell I wasn’t okay, but I couldn’t move. A few more seconds passed before they came over and sat down on either side of me.

“How’re you holding up?” Kyla asked.

All I could do was shrug. But even though my unblinking gaze didn’t move, I felt the sting of moisture start in my sinuses. My parents betrayed me, David wanted to kill me, the rest of the Pack wouldn’t mind seeing me as dead as they wanted the Council, and I was sitting between the only two people in the world that I felt safe with. Camille had threatened the future leader of the Pack, and Kyla had been willing to challenge the alpha. For me. They’d been ready to give everything. And the safety I felt with them would be my undoing, because that moisture built until tears flooded my eyes.

“What do you need?” Camille asked.

My bottom lip quivered as I struggled to hold it together, but I was losing composure fast. “I don’t know,” I whimpered. “I don’t…” I reached up to wipe at a fallen tear, but several more followed. “I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want to go home and I don’t want to be alone.”

“You don’t have to,” Kyla said gently, her hand setting on my back as she leaned her head against mine. “Stay here. With us.”

I looked from her to Camille, and Camille nodded, and the dam shattered. I broke down in sobs, the full weight of my complete heartbreak finally bearing down me. It was an emotional turmoil I’d never felt in my life. An emotional turmoil so severe it was agonizing, and I fell back and curled up on my side as tears streamed from my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I cried, my chest heaving as I sobbed so hard it was a fight to breathe. “Camille, I’m so sorry.”

I was sorry that my father had done this, that I’d trusted him when I’d known deep down how much he hated them. I was sorry that my stupidity had cost them things they’d never get back. Camille’s wolf state was permanently altered. It didn’t matter that Kyla gave her control back, because the rage was still there, and it always would be. She tried so hard to fight the darkness in her, and now she couldn’t escape it. She’d be taunted with it every time she Phased. Every time she existed as half of who she was.

And Luna would never be the same. She wanted to be a cop. She wanted to do good and make a difference while being the badass that she was and now she might not get to. Luna loved being a wolf. She loved the runs, the hunts. She loved to fight. But my father’s hatred had cost her a limb in a world that constantly put her in danger. Would she ever feel safe again? Would she ever feel strong?

But maybe if I’d seen it. Maybe if I’d stopped wanting so desperately to give my father the benefit of the doubt. If I’d stopped hoping he’d ever be the man I wanted to look up to, or if I’d stopped wishing he’d love me for who I was instead of who he wanted me to be. Maybe then I could’ve stopped it in time, and spared Camille from having to face emotions she already struggled to control, and saved Luna from the pain and heartbreak I knew she’d experience.

"I'm so sorry," I sobbed.

"It’s okay,” Camille said softly, and she laid down too, turning onto her side to face me as she reached out. “Come here. It’s okay.” I didn’t hesitate to scoot into her, and she was never affectionate, so when she cradled the back of my head in her hand to hold me, so I could bury my face against her collarbones, I cried even more. My shoulders shook as I wrapped my arms around her waist, clinging to her while she stroked my hair. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

Kyla laid down behind me a second later, pressing the entire front of her against me and wrapping an arm around my torso. She held me tight and nuzzled her face into the back of my neck, saying, “We’re here.”

I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. So hard I took gasping, blubbering breaths as my body trembled, but they held me tight and let me break down. Let me mourn that my life, like Camille and Luna’s, would never be the same. Let me mourn that I’d been manipulated into kidnapping and hurting an innocent woman. That my father wasn’t just the prejudiced man I thought he was, but was abusing his power and hurting people. People I loved. People who felt more like family to me than my own family had in years, but who were part of a Pack that hated me and everything I stood for.

I tried so hard to be good. To be better than my father. But it was finally clear that I’d never escape the darkness of his shadow as long as he sat in the highest seat of the Council. And so I’d fight. For Camille and Kyla, and for everything I believed the Council should be. I’d go back, and I’d hide in my father’s shadow until I could shine a light on every transgression that would bring the Council to its knees. And then I’d fix it. No matter the cost to me. I’d fix it.