Chapter Eighteen
Dex
Three days.
Three ridiculously long days.
That is how long it took me to dig up the courage to knock on Otto’s door.
To my credit, I tried to contact Otto in those three days.
I initially texted him while we drove at a snail’s pace down the dark mountain road but there was no response.
Stan tried to reassure me that it probably wasn’t personal; after all, Otto might still be somewhere on the mountain and unlikely to stop and shift to check his texts.
Reluctantly agreeing, I stuffed my phone in my pocket and tried to think of anything else.
When I got home, I forced myself to leave my phone to charge while I crawled into bed to sleep. I woke stiff, cranky, and out of sorts from messing up my sleep schedule and annoyed when I found the text message still on delivered.
I dawdled while I brewed a cup of tea and decided that a turkey and avocado sandwich would make a perfectly acceptable late brunch meal.
With my food prepared, eaten, and the dishes cleaned, the text still didn’t show read, so I decided to take a leap and call Otto instead.
After all, it was always possible that Otto hadn’t heard the text alert. Wasn’t it?
My call went directly to voicemail.
You’ve reached Otto. I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Beep!
Uggh.
“Otto, hey. It’s me, Dex. I was hoping we could talk, so could you call me back?”
Three hours later, I tried again. No ringing, just straight to voicemail. I left another message, this time including my phone number on the offhand chance Otto couldn’t find it.
Really? The voice in my head whispered. Then why didn’t he just show up? Did he forget where you live, too?
At dinner time, I forced myself to again put my phone in the living room while I ran a warm bath and crawled into bed.
On day number two, I made myself limit my calls to only one and when there was no response, I did my best to shake it off and settled in to find a show to binge.
On the third day, I was tempted to give up.
After all, even if Otto had lost my number, my internal voice was right that he absolutely knew where I lived.
I waited until early evening to try again, and my self-pity quickly turned to concern when instead of the usual beep, a recorded voice informed me that the voicemail was full and the call disconnected.
Otto not calling me back I got, but just ignoring his voicemail? No. He wouldn’t do that.
Would he?
I stared at my phone for a long minute, unable to convince myself that it was simply a case of me having pushed him away and losing my friend.
Ordering a ride, I was standing on the curb anxiously tapping my foot when the blue Toyota Corolla pulled up.
I stumbled when I jumped out as the car pulled into the driveway at Otto’s, ignoring the driver yelling something about waiting for the car to stop completely.
The sun was setting but the house was completely dark. The security gate was open and, when I tested the knob on the front door, my heart sank. It was unlocked.
“Otto?” My voice waivered when I called out but then the smell hit me. Booze, vomit, and rotting food, all blended into a stomach-turning fog that filled the room. Saying it smelled like a circus cage stuffed with animals would have been understating it.
I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose in a vain attempt to escape the stench and shuffled further into the living room.
Glass tinkled when I kicked and tripped over empty bottles on the floor as I groped along the wall for the switch to the overhead light.
The sudden blaze when I found it temporarily blinded me but when my eyes adjusted, I screamed.
Otto lay naked in the center of the living room floor, dried blood caked on the left side of his face and vomit dried on his chest and the carpet beside him. Next to his left hand was a mostly empty tequila bottle. Clutched in his right was the sheet of ultrasound photos I lost weeks before.
My hands were shaking as I pulled my phone out, dialing while I stepped over the liquor bottles littering the floor and shoved a bowl of rotting food out of the way to kneel beside my Alpha to check for a pulse.
“Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?”
~*~
Otto
“Nothing more to do but wait, love.”
The strange voice seemed to be speaking in a very slow cadence like it was being mechanically adjusted.
It was also dull and muffled like it came out of a speaker under water.
It wasn’t a voice I recognized, and I couldn’t think of any reason someone would be at my house, but when I tried to ask who was speaking, no sound came out.
That was the first sign that all was not as it should be but as I tried to suss out what was going on, it wasn’t the only one.
My eyes were closed and I couldn’t open them. I also couldn’t feel any of my limbs or tell where I was. It was almost as if I was in a dream state but my consciousness was floating around eavesdropping on people around me.
“He’s going to be okay, right?” That voice I knew. Dexter. The Omega I’d crushed on since we were teenagers. Why did he sound so sad? “Otto can’t die. Not now.” The alarming words were followed by a stifled whimper.
He thought I might die?
“The doctors have done all they can for now,” another voice I recognized. One of Dexter’s fathers, Clark, said gently. “Otto is going to have to fight but the odds are good. He has good shifter genes and a strong heart.”
There was a sniffle and then Dex’s sad voice again. “But it’s poison, Dad. That’s one of the things we can’t always heal from.”
“I know, kiddo,” Clark murmured. “All we can do is hope and be here for him. The doctors think that he might be able to hear if we talk to him.”
I desperately wanted to agree, to nod, to do anything to let them know I could hear them, that I was there with them.
Another sniffle. “Yeah, I don’t think he wants to hear from me.” A sigh. “He might recover faster if I’m not here.”
Poison? What were they talking about? I was sick and in a hospital but why? How did I get poisoned? And why would Dex think I didn’t want him around me?
All my cloudy mind could remember was running through the woods in bear form but not where or why I was running at night. Then there were flashes of bright lights and nothing else before these quiet voices slipped in through my dream-like state.
“I don’t believe that,” Clark’s voice was still gentle but firm. “Not for a minute. I don’t know exactly what happened between you boys, but Otto cares about you.”
Something happened between me and Dex? When? What? What the hell was going on? My frustration at being unable to remember or communicate increased and a chime sounded, the high-pitched noise making my brain hurt worse.
“What’s that alarm?” Dex sounded panicked.
“I’ll get a nurse,” Clark didn’t sound much better.
“No need,” the same oddly slow voice from a minute earlier said. “I’m back.” The voice grew louder, and I assumed it was because they -she? I thought it might be a female but couldn’t be sure- were getting closer to me. “That’s odd. His heart rate spiked.”
“Is that bad?” Dex was barely whispering.
“I can’t be sure,” the slow voice said. “Both his heart rate and his pulse are a little higher than we would expect but not at a dangerous level. It could mean a few different things. I’ll call for the doctor and have him take a look.”
Clark and the slow voice exchanged a few more words before I heard what sounded like footsteps followed by the click of a door opening and then closing.
“Dad? It says on google that an increase in heart rate could mean he’s waking up. Do you think he can hear us?”
Yes! I was shouting in my mind. I can hear you!
“I don’t know, son. Maybe you should try talking to him. If he is, maybe he’ll try harder to wake up.”
I was mentally holding my breath, waiting for Dex to come closer to me when there was another sigh.
“I think I better go, instead, Dad.” Dex sounded completely deflated. “Honestly, I’m not sure that I’m not the reason he’s here in the first place so I think it’s better if I leave.”
“Dexter, kiddo, the doctors already said they think it was an accident and not a suicide attempt.”
Suicide? What the hell happened to me?
“I know but we had a fight, and I think it’s for the best if I’m not here.” His voice hitched. “Um, will the hospital tell us if anything happens? He doesn’t have anyone since his parents are gone.”
“I don’t know, kiddo,” Clark said with a sigh. “We’re not family but we can ask. That’s all we can do.”
More footstep sounds and the door noise again followed by a lonely silence that was only broken by the beeping of the hospital equipment.