Chapter 15 #2
He was smiling by the time they made it to the hospital. He could have sat and listened to her stories for years, but they were here. And worse, the moment he put the car in park, her expression sobered, and she touched his arm.
“I need you to explain something to me.” He didn’t respond, but waited patiently for the question. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t going to speak and then she fumbled with her words, unusually embarrassed. “So, um, can you sense…you know by smell or something?”
“Sense what?”
“If someone can…” She waved vaguely at his body. Then she frowned. “If there’s magic there? If they can shift?” Her hand gestured included the two of them. “You said you can feel the magic—”
“Just in a general sense, and it’s everywhere.”
“Right. But not everyone can shift.”
She was asking if he could tell if someone had shifter DNA. It was valid question, and frankly, she was adorable in the way she fumbled, worried that she’d embarrass him or something. So even though he was smiling, he answered as honestly as he could.
“I can usually scent it right before someone changes, if I’m standing close enough. And sometimes it’s really obvious if someone’s a shifter, though that’s not a hundred percent. We were pretty sure with Sammy for the past year, but it wasn’t certain until yesterday.”
“I need to understand the biology of shifters. And I need you to talk to a hybrid girl and her parents.”
His entire body tightened with alarm. “No. No talking to parents. No explaining things. Not my job.”
She arched her brows. “You explained them to me.”
“That was my job. Not anyone else.”
“Didn’t Simon say you’d help me with whatever I need? Isn’t he your boss or something?”
Yes. Simon was both his alpha and his boss. The Griz paid him to do a variety of tasks, but initiating someone into the shifter world was delicate, and not something he ever wanted to do again.
He opened his mouth to argue, but she stopped him with a shake of her head. “There’s no one else.” Then she hopped out of his car and headed for the hospital.
He would have argued further, but they were rapidly surrounded by people.
Whereas he had made a point of driving through the quiet parts of town—Alyssa sent regular updates on any violent outbursts in the city—the hospital was one place where people would come.
Not just because of the Flu, but because of injuries and all the regular reasons people sought medical attention.
So he buttoned his lip as Cecilia seemed to power walk through the huge building.
No one stopped them. She clearly belonged, and he did his best to make it clear he was with her.
And while people eyed him warily—they always did given his size, race, and his big damn scar—no one questioned them.
Pretty soon they were back on the floor where they’d first met what seemed like years ago but was really just yesterday.
They went first to the same lab she’d been in before. Her coworker was awake today instead of drooling on his shirt. He greeted her without looking up from his microscope.
“Get some sleep?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “You?”
“Enough.”
“Any news?”
“Couple DOAs came in. More of the same. Am working them up now.”
“Brittany?”
He sighed and sat back on his stool, his eyes focusing with surprise on Hank. Neither said a word though and he ended up speaking as if Hank wasn’t there.
“Mom just came through the quarantine. She’s been in California visiting relatives.” His expression looked sad. “They’re bringing Brittany to consciousness now. Taking it really slow to see if Mom can help calm her down before she’s fully awake.”
“Good,” Cecilia said as she grabbed a tablet from her workstation and started tapping. “This is Hank. He’s going to help.”
Her coworker flashed him a grin. “Great. How?”
Cecilia waved at him without even looking up as she headed out the door. Hank followed her, thinking that anything he said was likely to get him into more trouble, not less. So he kept his mouth shut as she took him down the hall to what she’d called “the Weird Ward.”
“We talk to Mom and Dad first,” she said in a low voice. “To find out if they’re part of your club.”
“I can’t—”
“Give it a shot, Hank. We’re all clutching at straws.”
Fair enough.
They crossed into Brittany’s room. It was a normal hospital room if you counted a dozen or more machines whirring away as normal.
A pale blond teenage girl lay unmoving, looking like she belonged on the set of Hollywood’s latest teen flick rather than with IVs sticking out of her…
black bear arms. A closer look showed him that beneath artfully arranged blond hair, her ears were furry and rounded.
Definitely a bear. And now that he looked at the silhouette beneath the sheet, he guessed that her hips and legs had bearlike dimensions.
At least some. And then, of course, was the usual hybrid stench.
Not strong, but definitely present beneath all the antiseptic smells.
“My money’s on Peter, the father,” Cecilia murmured as she turned to greet the parents. Mom was holding her daughter’s hand and surreptitiously wiping away tears. Dad stood back a step, his expression stoic, but anyone with eyes could see the pain burning underneath.
“You’d be wrong,” Hank whispered back. Shifters held pain differently than full humans.
This man was large and broad, built for football, though he was obviously aging.
Broad shoulders, straight spine, probably had some military experience in his background.
But his gaze remained trained on his child.
Shifters—especially those in pain—couldn’t resist scanning the environment for threats.
Even if their body was tall, they tended to stand in defensible positions in a room.
Tucked into a corner or braced near an exit.
It was rarely conscious, but a trained observer noticed.
Brittany’s father stood with his back to the door and his gaze never wavered.
He was completely and wholly there for his wife and child.
And when Mom looked up at Cecilia and Hank, he wrapped her in his arm and provided comfort in the way men do: with a touch, but no sound.
Shifters were more likely to nuzzle and murmur.
A purr or a whisper. Some sort of sound that soothed the animal inside even as it was meant to comfort someone else.
The dad was not a shifter. But the mom, on the other hand, did all those things.
She placed her back to the wall, she scanned everyone and everything.
And when she cried—tiny little drops leaking steadily out of her eyes—she whimpered slightly and cleared her throat.
“Hello, Mrs. Randolph. I’m Dr. Cecilia Lu.
I’m so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. ”
“Call me Abby—” Her voice cut off as she cleared her throat again.
Trying to help, the father grabbed Brittany’s untouched pitcher of water and poured her a glass.
Hank’s nose twitched. It was hard to isolate scents in this place.
Between the antiseptic smells, the various scents of terrified people, and of course the hybrid defensive stink, catching the stray waft of tainted water would usually be beyond him.
But he was hyperalert in here, his animal side also watching for danger, and that scent was a big one.
“Don’t drink that!” he snapped just as the mother pressed the cup to her lips.
She gaped and drew back, her eyes wide as she stared at him.
“Smell it. Can’t you smell it?”
She sniffed carefully, her brows drawn together in a frown. The dad did the same, inhaling cautiously over the pitcher.
“I don’t smell anything,” he said.
Hank crossed over and took the pitcher out of the father’s hand. Yup, the taint was there, strong and nauseating. He set it aside with a heavy thump. Meanwhile, the mom was frowning over her glass.
“This is Hank,” Cecilia said, her voice soothing in the awkward silence. “He’s here to help. He thinks the Detroit Flu is carried in the water.”
“Do you smell it?” he pressed the mother.
She set down her glass slowly. “Maybe.” She looked at him, and her eyes narrowed. Then her gaze hopped to her daughter, to the clawed hands and the furred arms.
“You know,” Hank said quietly. “Or you guess, at least.” His gaze moved to the father. “Is he blind?” The term wasn’t universal among shifters, but it was common enough in Detroit.
“What?” Mr. Randolph said. “What is he talking about?”
It took two tries for his wife to answer, but she managed it. “Yes. He’s…blind.”
“And you? Who taught you?”
“My mother. I…um…I never…”
She’d never shifted.
Mr. Randolph stepped forward. “I’m not blind. What—” He stopped when his wife grabbed his hand.
“It’s slang, honey,” she said, her voice still cracking with strain.
Meanwhile, Hank kept pressing. “What about your siblings? Brother, sister—”
“My brother did it once. We aren’t…we don’t…” She shook her head. “It’s never been a big thing for us.”
He looked at Brittany. “It is now.”
She swallowed, fear tightening her features as she took a half step backward toward the corner.
Her gaze roved the room, and she clutched her free hand to her chest, her fingers curled into claws.
Her husband turned to her, and she tucked tighter into his arms as she made tiny, almost inaudible whimpering sounds.
Hank sighed. She was definitely half-shifter and her daughter, therefore, had enough DNA to activate, at least partially.
Which made her a hybrid, although they already knew that.
But he needed more information if he was going to help. “What clan are you?”
It took Abby a moment to answer. She was busy breathing her husband’s scent and squaring her mind for what was ahead, but eventually she straightened and looked back at Hank. “Black bear. From the Grand Rapids area.”