Wraith
The kids were happy to see me.
I keep replaying the visit as I climb the stairs. How they looked at me like I'm a fucking superhero instead of the monster I am.
Don't have time to think about it right now, though.
I have somewhere else to be.
The doors open on the second floor and I slip out, taking in the all-too-familiar sight of the endless white hall, the beeps of monitors already pricking at my brain.
I know this place well.
Last year, I spent eleven days here after a nerve attack so bad I couldn't see straight. Couldn't do anything except lie in a dark room while my face felt like someone was holding a blowtorch to it from the inside.
I thought I was done with this place.
Apparently not.
A nurse at the station looks up from her computer as I approach. Dark hair pulled back, reading glasses perched on her nose. I remember her. She was kind.
She recognizes me instantly.
"Wraith!" She pushes her glasses up, smiling. "Oh my gods, hi! I heard you were visiting the kids today. How are you feeling?"
I give her a thumbs-up.
"Are the nerve flare-ups still bad? You never came back for your follow-up."
I hold my hand out flat and rock it back and forth. So-so.
She tuts. "You big guys are always the worst patients. I swear."
I manage a huff of a laugh. She isn't wrong. I've seen—and heard—Whiskey get a flu shot.
"What's bringing you up here?" she asks me, her eyes already flicking to one of the rooms.
Must be Wade's.
I start signing, but even slowly and fingerspelling, I can tell she isn't fully picking up on what I'm trying to say.
I hold up one finger. Wait.
She watches as I pull a pen from the nurses' station cup and flip over a Post-it note. My handwriting is garbage but I write as carefully as I can.
I NEED TO TALK TO WADE KELLY.
JUST TALK. PROMISE.
DOOR OPEN.
YOU CAN WATCH ME.
Actually. Need to add what always works on me.
PLEASE.
Maria reads it, then looks up at me over her glasses.
"Just talking?"
I nod, trying to smile at her with my eyes.
She looks toward the room again, then sighs. "Okay. Five minutes. And I do mean five." She points her finger at me. "And only because I know firsthand you're a big softie, no matter what anyone says, and you won't get me in trouble."
I sign thank you and smile at her with my eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't mention it. Room 288."
The door to Wade's room is already slightly ajar when I reach it. Through the gap, I hear the low drone of a television.
I push the door open and slip inside, pushing the flat rubber doorstop into place with my boot to keep the door propped open, as promised.
Wade's eyes snap open from his bed.
For a moment, he just looks at me, confused, the way anyone would look at a giant masked shadow filling their hospital room doorway.
Then his brain catches up with his eyes and the color drains out of his face so fast it's almost medical.
"What the fuck?"
He scrambles for the call button on the bed rail, but his strapped arm won't reach and his free hand is tangled in IV tubing.
I stop at the foot of his bed.
He stops scrambling.
We stare at each other.
"You can't be in here," he says. His voice comes out higher than he wants it to. He clears his throat and tries again. "This is harassment. You and those other two fucking freak alphas—"
I go to the whiteboard on the wall beside his bed. There's a marker dangling from a string.
I uncap it.
Wade watches me with wide eyes as I write in jagged letters across the entire whiteboard, everything slanting in different directions because my scarred hands don't grip the marker right and I'm pissed.
IF YOU COME WITHIN 500 MILES OF IVY I WILL KILL YOU
Wade squints at it. His jaw works for a second, the fear still right there behind his eyes, before the mask slides back into place.
"Is that even fucking English?"
I grip the marker tight enough it creaks, then wipe the board clean with my forearm. If he can't read my words, I'll make him fucking see them.
I draw him first.
I'm better at drawing than I am writing. Wade takes shape on the whiteboard in quick, sloppy strokes because I don't give a fuck. His styled hair, with extra swoops. His symmetrical jaw. I make his smile extra wide and make sure all his teeth are intact for this.
I even draw the missing finger.
Then I draw myself next to him. Twice his size. Full monster face.
"Is that supposed to be—" Wade starts.
I uncap the red marker.
Red lines explode across the drawing. Slashing through whiteboard-Wade's body, tearing him apart in violent streaks.
I drag the marker through his arms, his legs, his perfect fucking face, until the stick figure is obliterated beneath a mess of crimson and bits of red marker dust spray across the board.
Wade's mouth slams shut.
There's a pain scale printed on the side of the board, the standard hospital one, a row of faces going from a green smiley at one to a screaming red face at ten, labeled WORST POSSIBLE PAIN.
I circle the screaming red face hard enough the tip of the marker cracks off.
I point at Wade.
Then I hold up both hands, palms facing each other about shoulder-width apart, and bring them together and twist the imaginary Wade in my hands.
Wade's face has gone from pale to gray, sweat beading at his temples. The hand that isn't strapped down is gripping the bed rail so hard it's shaking.
Then his jaw sets.
Because Wade Kelly has never known when to stop. Alphas like Wade can't resist the need to win.
"You know what's funny?" Wade asks, shifting on the bed and wincing. His voice has steadied despite the sour stench of fear leaking through his skin. "I've been lying here thinking about you and Ivy."
I don't move.
"Trying to picture it." He tilts his head against the pillow, studying me with those camera-ready eyes. "You and her. Together. And I just…" He gives a soft laugh. "I can't."
My hands curl at my sides.
"I've had her. I know what she looks like when she's underneath an alpha. I know the sounds she makes. And I'm trying to imagine her making those sounds while looking up at—" He gestures vaguely at my face. "—that. And I don't think she is."
The marker snaps in my hand. Black ink bleeds across my palm.
"I think she closes her eyes," he says quietly. "Doesn't she."
Stop.
"It's okay. When she gets tired of playing house with a bunch of freaks, I'll take her back. I'll clean her up. I always do."
The ringing in my ears drowns out the beep from the heart monitor as the room disappears.
There is nothing except the sound of this man's voice describing Ivy like she belongs to him, and the feral beast in my chest that has been sitting quietly through every insult about me is no longer sitting quietly.
It's standing up, teeth bared.
My vision narrows to a single point. Wade Kelly. Pinned. Immobile. His throat right there above the hospital gown, pale and exposed, and all I can see is his pulse hammering in the hollow of his neck.
I already know what his blood tastes like.
I take a step toward the bed.
Wade's mouth is still running. I can't hear what he's saying anymore. There's a sound in my ears like wind through a canyon, the way it always sounds right before I go away and the feral thing comes forward. The thing that bit him on the ice and didn't want to stop.
My hand closes around the bed rail.
The metal groans.
Wade finally realizes what's happening. His face changes. The smugness cracks like ice over black water and what's underneath is the same animal terror I saw on the ice when my teeth were in his neck.
"Nurse!" he yelps.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
It buzzes again.
And again.
Three short vibrations. It's the pattern I set for just one person.
I stop and the canyon sound fades. The room reassembles itself around me, the beeping monitors and my hand denting the bed rail. Wade is pressed as far back into his pillow as physics allows.
I let go of the rail. The metal is imprinted with the shape of my grip.
Fuck.
I pull out my phone.
IVY
hey
did you get lost?
Whiskey's about to kick off a jello fight and I need you to rescue me from getting covered in green goop
I stare at the screen, her name bringing me back to myself. Because she wouldn't want me to do what I really want to do right now.
The feral beast inside me drifts back to sleep.
WRAITH
on my way
hide if you have to
IVY
hurry, I don't have much time left
I exhale through my nose. It comes out shaky.
My eyes slide back up to Wade.
He's watching me, still pressed into the pillow. His face is completely white and there's sweat wetting the collar of his hospital gown. His free hand is clawing for the call button but his fingers are shaking too badly to find it.
He saw it. The whole thing. The moment I left and the moment I came back and every terrible second in between.
He knows exactly how close that was.
I pocket my phone.
I could sign something, or write something else on his whiteboard or draw another picture. Or pull my mask down and give him one more thing to see when he closes his eyes at night.
But Ivy's waiting for me in the cafeteria.
And he's not worth another second away from her.
I swipe my forearm across the whiteboard to clear the evidence and walk to the door.
"Fine."
Wade's voice is strained now.
I stop but don't turn around.
"Keep her." He swallows so hard he makes a choking sound.
"I don't… I don't want her anymore. Not after this.
Not after she made a fucking spectacle of herself with—with you people.
Going on TV and crying about—" His voice cracks.
He clears his throat viciously. "She was nothing when I found her.
You understand that? Nothing. No money, no family other than her stupid fucking bitch of a mother, no one who gave a shit.
I made her. And this is—crawling into bed with a pack of—"
He's rambling. The words are falling out of him faster than he can organize them, and underneath the venom I can hear the terror.
Not even just of me.
Of the fact that he has lost control of this situation so completely that he is lying in a hospital bed bargaining with what almost killed him, and I won't even look at him.
"Tell her—" He swallows. "Tell her I don't want her back. Tell her I said that. She's damaged goods now. I wouldn't take her if she—"
I keep walking.
His voice follows me into the hallway, getting louder and more unraveled with every word because he's frantic that he's being ignored.
It's just noise.
Just noise from a small, pathetic man who will spend the rest of his life telling himself he chose whatever the rest of his life looks like.
Maria glances up from her station as I pass. She doesn't say anything. Just watches me go with a knowing look.
I give her a quick wave.
I push through the stairwell door and take the stairs down to the first floor. My jaw is on fire, the gaiter pressing against tissue that can't take the pressure anymore. Every step sends a jolt through the damaged nerves.
But I barely feel it.
The cafeteria corridor is louder than I expected. As I round the corner, I spot a cluster of patients and visitors heading the same direction. Some in wheelchairs, a few on crutches, several in hospital gowns with IV poles rolling alongside them.
A woman on crutches spots me and stops.
"Oh!" She grabs the arm of the man walking beside her. "That's Wraith. From the Ghosts."
Her companion cranes his neck. "Holy shit. It is."
A kid in a hospital gown darts out from behind a wheelchair and skids to a stop in front of me, eyes the size of hockey pucks.
"Are you real?" he asks.
I squat down so I'm eye level with him and nod.
"Can I get a high five?"
I hold my scarred hand up.
He slaps it with everything he has.
"DUDE!" he shouts to someone behind him. "I JUST HIGH-FIVED WRAITH!"
Another kid appears. Then a third, this one in a wheelchair pushed by a grinning parent.
"Are the other Ghosts here too?"
I nod and point toward the cafeteria.
Another jumps and down. "Is Silver Ghost here?"
I nod again, and the kid lets out a shriek that could shatter glass.
"Can we walk with you?" the first kid asks, looking up at me.
I'm confused as fuck about why none of them seem to be afraid of me, but I nod.
By the time I reach the cafeteria, I'm traveling with an entourage.
Three kids physically attached to me—one on each arm, one riding my back like a koala because I picked her up when her parent said it was okay, and she hasn't let go since—and a rolling convoy of wheelchairs, crutches, and IV poles.
Ivy is already waiting in the front of the cafeteria doors, arms folded and her face pinched with worry. She's talking to Valek, who seems to be reassuring her, and her eyes go wide as she takes in the parade behind me.
"What the—"
The kid on my back tightens her grip on my collar and kicks her legs.
"Forward!" she commands.
I obey, because apparently I take orders from a six-year-old now.
The cafeteria doors swing open and my army charges through like a tiny, screaming invasion force.
The girl on my back releases her death grip on my collar and slides down my arm. I catch her before she hits the floor and set her on her feet, and she's gone before I can blink, sprinting toward the roped-off section where Whiskey is already striking a pose.
"SILVER GHOST!" three of them scream in unison.
Whiskey drops into a fighting stance, cape billowing behind him from the cafeteria's overhead vent. "Citizens! You've been rescued!"
"From what?" one kid asks.
"From boredom!"
A warm hand slips into mine.
Ivy.
"You're really good with them," she says softly, looking up at me. "But I have a feeling you weren't just visiting other patients when you disappeared."
I shake my head. I won't lie to her.
Needed to talk to someone, I sign hesitantly.
She raises an eyebrow. "Valek thought you were talking to Wade."
Don't know what to say to that. I rub the back of my head, avoiding eye contact with her.
"Did you just talk to him, or…?"
Threatened him, I admit, making a pinching gesture between my thumb and forefinger. Just a little. With… art.
"Is that why there's ink all over your palm?"
I drop my hand to my side.
"Alphas," she sighs, rolling her eyes and leaning against my arm as the rest of the pack entertains the patients. "For the record, I'm not mad. I just wish you'd taken a picture so I could see what you drew for him."
I blow a puff of air through my nose. I'll redraw it for you at home.
She grins up at me. "We should go in, too, huh? I wasn't completely joking about Whiskey's jello fight."
We should.
But I need a second.
Because the overhead lights make her eyes even brighter, and for a moment, I forget we're standing in a hospital cafeteria.
All I see is her.
I lift her hand to my masked face and press her knuckles against the spot where my mouth would be.
Her breath catches in her throat. Then she stretches up on her tiptoes, gripping my shirt for balance, and presses her lips to the center of my gaiter.
"My favorite feral alpha," she whispers against the fabric.
It hurts.
Even this slight pressure feels like fire.
But I close my eyes and return the kiss, as much as I can.