Chapter 8 #2
“I’ll be back!” Alison said, as she ran toward the door, excited to have been able to help.
“Take one of the side by sides!” Jack yelled.
“Yes, sir!” Alison called back right before the door slammed behind her.
“Is she safe going alone?” Feral asked.
“She is. This mountain is safe on a normal day. We’re on high alert so it’s even safer.”
“Still. I want her watched. Valid!” Feral barked out.
“On it!” Valid said, running from the room in an effort to catch up with Alison.
“Now what?” Savage asked.
“Now I stand here applying pressure to the wound until they get back with the soldering iron and we pray it works,” Feral said.
Rance looked over at Gwen lying beside him, pale, helpless. He lifted his hand just enough to curl around her fingers. “It’s going to be alright,” he whispered.
“Alison, is that her name?” Feral asked.
“The girl that went after the soldering iron? Yeah. She’ll be right back. She knows exactly what she’s looking for. She’s one of our employees that uses the soldering iron every day at work.”
Feral nodded.
“You alright, my buddy?” Frenzy asked.
“I’m trying to be alright,” Rance said.
“Want to go to Missouri and kick the shit out of the Pride that fucked with your girl’s Pride?”
“Hell, yeah!” Rance said.
“Thought you might,” Frenzy said.
“S’im?” a little boy could be heard asking, the sound of a smile coloring his voice.
“Yes! We’re going to swim!” Findley said.
“Cweam?” another asked.
“Cweam? You want more ice cream?” Brinnley asked.
Both little boys clapped and laughed.
“Mommy cweam?” one of them asked.
“Mommy’s taking a nap, baby. But we’ll give her some ice cream when she wakes up, okay?” Findley said.
“Mommy s’im?” the other boy asked.
“When she wakes up she’ll swim. But we’re going to swim right now!”
Both boys clapped and laughed.
“Don’t let them see this,” Jack said, looking from Draven to the stairs.
Draven moved into place to keep the boys from seeing their mother lying on the table.
Steve moved to stand beside Draven, and Savage and some of his SOT Team did the same, with some of them even standing behind Draven and Steve to make it harder for the kids to manage to see anything.
Findley led the way with one boy on her hip, Brinnley followed with the second on her hip.
“You alright?” Draven asked as Brinnley passed him.
She glanced his way and nodded with tears in her eyes.
“You sure?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
She nodded again. “This just feels so right,” she said, indicating the child in her arms.
Draven smiled at her and watched her as she followed her sister outside.
“We’re coming swimming!” Findley announced as they stepped outside.
“Everything alright in there?” Vance asked.
“I don’t know, we ran by quickly,” Findley said, keeping her voice singsongy as she answered.
“You ready?” she asked the boy she held.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” he started chanting.
Findley didn’t stop, she just went straight down the steps and into the pool, shorts and all, instead of stripping out of her clothes to the swim suit she wore underneath.
Brinnley followed her.
Three came over and knelt by the side of the pool Findley was closest to. “Everything okay with the boys?”
“Yeah. They had no idea anything was wrong. Bathroom up there is a mess, and there’s a trail from their bedroom to the door right there,” she said, inclining her head toward the patio.
“I’ll go take care of that,” Three said. “You alright out here if I go in for a few minutes?”
“I’m fine, my love,” she said.
Three leaned over the side and kissed her quickly.
“No!” the child she held said, hitting Three on the forehead as he tried to push Three away from Findley.
They laughed. “I think you have some competition,” Findley said.
“Little man is brave!” Three said, grinning at the child.
Findley watched as Three spoke to Vance and then the two of them went inside, presumably to clean up the blood trail and the blood in Gwen’s bathroom.
She did a quick take around the backyard and found Bonnie moving among the females of Gwen’s Pride, smiling and assuring them that everything was under control, and she noticed the extra males that had come to hang out.
She wasn’t fooled, though, she knew they were there for their calming effect.
Males meant security to most female shifters — especially these after what they’d been through.
If anyone attacked, they’d handle it and the females knew it.
Titus caught her eye across the yard and winked at her. “Looks good on you,” he called out.
“What looks good?” she asked.
“The kid. You and Three should have one of your own.”
“We have a ways to go before we get to that point!” she said laughing.
“But I’m loving playing with this one.” She tickled the baby, then started bouncing in the water as she moved through the shallow end of the pool, getting squeals and laughter in response as the boy she held had the best time, completely unaware that his mother was in serious condition in the house he and his brother had just been rushed out of.
~~~
Vance and Three were on their hands and knees on the carpet in the hallway upstairs scrubbing at the blood stains that tracked Gwen’s path from her bedroom to the back door.
A door opened, but no one came out of the bedroom.
Vance looked up.
“What are you doing?” Niko asked.
“Getting blood stains out of the carpet,” Vance answered.
Niko walked over and squatted down beside Three and Vance and looked down critically at the spots they were just smearing rather than getting up. “I don’t think you’re making that better.”
Three sat back and glared at Niko. “You want to do it?”
“No. Why are there blood droplets on the carpet?”
“Because Gwen just about bled to death and the Variant are working on her on the dining room table, and we’re trying to get the blood up so none of her people or her sons will notice them when they come in later,” Three snapped.
“They don’t know she’s hurt?” Niko asked, as he stood up.
“Yes, they do. She passed out on the patio outside. Lost too much blood. They all are aware, except her kids, and the kids in the pool outside. They saw it too, but their mothers are downplaying it,” Three said.
“They’re all pretty upset, though. I mean, they hike all the fucking way here, then their Reigna, the only thing they have left of their Pride drops,” Vance said.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” Niko said, turning away from them and heading toward the stairs. “Use hydrogen peroxide! It’ll break down the proteins in the blood and take it right out,” he called before he jogged down the stairs.
Three and Vance looked at each other. “I’ll go find some Hydrogen Peroxide,” Vance said.