Chapter 4
Alette
If you think Haunted Health is dusty and spooky on the outside with its towers and spires, the exterior’s got nothing on its ventilation system.
Giant fans threaten to suck me into their lethal blades if I near the exterior walls.
The smell of death and decay sticks to my skin if I venture too low.
The top floor shakes under the weight of the gargoyle security guards perched on the roof.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re teaching them to tap dance.
Otherwise, the vent shafts prove to be a little-lady-superhighway.
If only I could live in the vents forever and say goodbye to pack life.
So much for asking my parents to go to Leader Grant about the wellness camp.
They decided my future while I cried on the outhouse floor.
That’s another thing Haunted Health has over my home—indoor plumbing.
I had a slight tinge from all the excitement, which I was certain would grow into a flare, so I stepped into an empty locker room to relieve myself.
By the time the hospital employee was finished in the shower, I—and the evidence I was there—was flushed away.
With the pack willing to pay the price of my surgeries, you’d think they would spring for indoor plumbing.
I’d even share a bathroom.
But no. They decided I should be carved like a deer carcass and stitched back together into some kind of monster.
Maybe that’s their motivation after all.
If I’m too monstrous for the human world, maybe I’ll quit asking to visit it.
So not fair. Why should a pack leader dictate my life when the pack never includes me?
I’m too different to fit in, but too similar to be an individual. I swear I can’t win.
Gurgle. Oh no, not again. I lucked out with the almost empty locker room.
Why do I rile myself up? How stupid do I have to be to trigger a flare before finding the way out?
If I hid in the landscaping, I could go behind a bush.
Not now. If I poo in the vents, the weres in the building will trace the smell to my soiled underpants.
What’s worse than your pack talking about your pooping?
Your pack tracking you via your poo smell.
Looks like I found a new low.
Go me. Gurgle.
Okay, this isn’t so bad. Here’s my chance to try some of those breathing exercises I saw on the human’s internet. Inhale the calm. Exhale the tightness in my guts. Inhale relief as I visualize my intestines slowing their violent contractions.
Maybe it is bullshit. No, I must commit to making it work!
Instead of running to the nearest toilet, I sit calmly and fold my legs into a cross-legged position.
My hands don’t want to let my belly go, but I force them to relax on my knees.
Touching my third finger to my thumbnails, I close my eyes.
The churning in my belly reduces its acidic sloshing.
I release my thoughts of impending doom.
It’s working! Visualize the sea—flat calm—sun glinting off the surface—listen to the waves.
Would calm seas have waves? I don’t see how.
Then where’s the wave crashing coming from?
What does the middle of the ocean sound like?
I’ve never seen an ocean in real life. The wave sounds were an audio overlay of the videos I used to meditate.
I could tell. Does the middle of the ocean sound the same as the ocean that touches the beach?
What’s the part that touches the beach called?
How can I do this if I have no experience with oceans, beaches, or that middle part?
Why did I pick to visualize something I’ve never seen?
I’m such an idiot. Gurgle.
“Dammit, I ruined it!” I yell out loud.
Pounding from outside the ventilation shaft answers me.
It’s Liam and his goons! Time to run!
The tapping on the ventilation shaft follows me as I race forward.
I take two lefts where I remember passing an incline…
but it’s not there! I must be turned around.
The tapping is closer. I’m going to have to cross a vent soon, where their arms might catch me through the slats.
What if the cover is gone and they can pull me out?
I’ve got to stop panicking, or my guts will burst. Already, my bellybutton feels like a fire is building behind it. Will my intestines explode with it, firing like a tiny cannonball?
Breathe, Alette. They use sound to track you. Stop crying. Keep your feet going. I mean it. Silent crying. Settle down and think.
My shoes are too loud. I stop to remove them.
My socks are slippery, so my movements are slowed by half…
which also makes less noise. There we go.
If I keep my wits, I may escape…or at least find a bathroom to reclaim some of my dignity.
My heart slows its gallop to a slow pounding.
I do a one-eighty turn and shuffle my way through the maze of vents.
Down two floors, a right, a left, not another left—I can’t wander in circles.
The tapping has stopped, so I’ve lost my pursuers.
The alarms silence their deafening screams.
I swallow my panting, so my breathing doesn’t echo off the metal walls.
If they unlock the hospital, there’s a chance I can get free.
But my bowels need a release before anything else.
The urgent pushing against my insides is at odds with my will to run.
Physical activity puts my sphincters to the test. My ulcerative colitis means that my body marks anything that hangs around in my intestines for too long as an illness.
The old food must be evacuated. Right. Now.
“Please help me,” I say between pants as I burst through the air vent in a cloud of dust. I don’t care who is in this room as long as it’s not Liam.
While it was na?ve to think he wouldn’t take my attack personally, I didn’t anticipate him getting this mad.
His face after I bit him will haunt my nightmares. “You’ve got to hide me.”
“The hell we do,” barks the giant beast in the hospital bed.
Every inch of him is covered with silvery hair…
except for his mouth full of fangs. He snarls and growls at me like I’m lunch.
“Are you the little demonic sprite behind the hunt? You’re lucky they turned off the alarms, or I’d turn you in for quiet. Maybe I still will for spite—”
“Serik, stop it,” snaps a human woman. At least I think she’s a human. Her black hair swishes at her waist as her facial piercings sparkle under the fluorescent lights. “Forgive his rudeness, he’s grouchy after having his balls snipped.”
“In the name of love,” Serik grouses.
“You want to do this in front of a stranger? Let’s go.
We should be mobile ordering our winter supplies since we missed the fall harvest, but you’d rather fight.
We have to think about Gleb and Hannah, too.
We don’t have a baby seat in my car, since we came here to avoid having babies!
I’m too fucking tired to argue with you,” she shouts. “It’s over—”
“Yep, I won,” he says with a fangy smile that makes my blood run cold. He stretches far enough to hang his feet over the end of the massive bed while folding his arms over his head. How can she goad such a beast?
“You’d think they enlarged his balls, the way his ego tells the story—”
“You love’em, Kaitlyn.”
“Are you a priestess?” I ask. Because if she is, I’d love to pick her brain on spells for colitis. Anything to banish my pain while still keeping my insides intact.
“No, I’m an accountant,” she says with an eye roll. “I’m here to settle a score with my mate…the man-baby with fifty pounds of ice on his junk.”
“It hurts,” he whines.
“I don’t mean to intrude. Can I use your bathroom?” I ask as I scurry to their adjoining bathroom. I flick on the fan, wishing it were louder. Good thing my hosts are too busy arguing to hear me disrespect their toilet.
“I told you I was fine with IUDs—”
“I’m not letting someone play with my pleasure box! When you agreed to become my mate, your cunt became my playground. I refuse to let some prick—”
“He’s a doctor like the doctor who snipped you! Should I be jealous of Dr. Stein?”
“You saw the doctor who operated on me. Ugly SOB, without a minute to learn my name, let alone the desire to fondle my goods—”
“Then he could have inserted another IUD—”
“Not into my mate,” came the roar from the opposite side of the wall. The tiles rattle inside the shower, as if threatening to jump off the wall to run for cover.
Geez, I sure can pick a hiding place, can’t I?
First, I’m dodging life-sized killer fans, and now, I’m trapped in the bathroom of a pissy Chuchunya.
Listening to their problems does calm the roiling in my guts.
As long as he’s yelling at her, my stupid body thinks I'm safe. She seems to be handling him just fine, too. Priestess or accountant, she’s stronger than the fiercest werewolf women I’ve met.
“How do you think I got an IUD in the first place?”
“Your past, before our mating chase, is your own. What happens to you while in my care is—”
“Barbaric, stupid, chauvinistic—”
“Protective, supportive, compassionate—”
“Possessive!”
“Hell yeah, I’m possessive. You’re the best thing to happen to me, babe.
The thought of another touching you makes me feral.
You know that. I love you too much to have someone else steal you.
Before you, I wandered the tundra with an empty heart…
certain that I’d never find someone who could stand me long enough to fall in love. You’re my miracle.”
“And you’re mine,” she says in a much sweeter tone. “Thank you for mangling your balls for me. I’m sorry, I don’t want babies.”
“I don’t care about babies—you know that—I just want you to myself.”
When gross kissy noises deepen into moans, my heart rate accelerates.
They must have forgotten I’m in here, despite my frequent flushes.
Living in the pack, public sex—not involving me, ever—is a normal occurrence.
The closer to the full moon, the fewer places to hide from the constant rutting.
Even the feral growls and grunts in the next room wouldn’t phase me if a human wasn’t one of the participants.
I can count on my fingers the number of humans I’ve met…
and none of them were having sex with a monster.
If I got caught peeking, I’d die of embarrassment.
The hot water scalds my fingers as I wash my hands at the speed of light.
Oh, how I would love to stay and use their shower!
They seem busy. Would they care…or even notice?
The scent of hospital soap would make fantastic camouflage…
but that would mean surrendering my clothes.
The chuchunya’s gowns are massive… I could tie one between my legs to make the backless gown into a cute romper…
“Oh yes, spank me, Serik!”
I turn on the shower full blast to cover my giggles.
They have definitely forgotten about me.
As I step under the spray, the couple grunt and scream with reckless abandon.
Someday I’ll have someone to make me scream like that…
but I won’t find him in the werepack. My type is decidedly human, which is kinda a blessing since the shifters my age have no interest in me.
They see me as weak and sickly—a total turn-off.
Maybe someday, I’ll have a male like Serik…
okay, maybe a less fuzzy version of Serik.
He will see my delicate body and quiet demeanor and fall head over heels in love.
I won’t be the virgin hiding in the bathroom, but the confident lady who is mistaken for a priestess, like Kaitlyn.
One thing’s for sure, I’m more likely to meet my Mr. Right in Haunted Health than in the pack.
He could be in one of these rooms, wishing for me to find him.
A girl can dream…