Leandre Chapter 20 Healing Hands and Hidden Monsters 257 #3
“Let’s get an x-ray,” I say, my voice dangerously soft as I lead her away from the posturing shifter.
In the sanctity of the radiology room, once the door is shut, I kneel before her. “Elara,” I whisper, my voice low and steady. “This break is not from a fall. This was a defensive injury, wasn’t it?”
Her eyes, wide and glassy with unshed tears, meet mine. She gives the barest, almost imperceptible nod. The fear is almost visible, vice-like around her throat.
Back in the room, I hold the x-ray to the light. No clean break—not from any fall. I make him look at it. The jagged edge. The proof of what he did.
“This is a very specific kind of trauma,” I state, my voice dropping into a colder, more severe register. It is a part of me I thought long buried, the part that once passed judgment on raiding ships. “It is consistent with warding off an attack. Not a fall.”
I point to the other healed injuries that are also visible on the x-ray. “And this isn’t the first time.”
The shifter puffs up, blustering. “Now see here—”
He doesn’t get to finish.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, I close the distance until I am a whisper from his face, my body a living shield between him and Elara.
“You will listen,” I say, the words forged from ice and iron.
My telepathy cuts through his soft and pitiful defenses.
“You will walk out of this clinic. You will go home. You will pack a bag, and you will disappear from this city. If you ever come near her again, if I even scent your cowardice on the wind, the world will forget you ever existed.”
My telepathy, usually a subtle tool for soothing frayed nerves, lashes out. This isn't a suggestion. This is a command. Barbed wire and a thousand years of rage, all wrapped up in the ghost of a sister I couldn't save.
I tear his mind open and let him see. Let him feel what he's dealing with. The dark I carry. The old thing inside me that's been waiting for something like him. I let him feel the yawning chasm of his own mortality, and the ancient thing that stands ready to push him in.
His face goes slack with pure, unadulterated terror. He stumbles back, trips over a stool, and scrambles for the door without a backward glance.
I simply turn back to Elara. The fear is still there, but now it's mingled with a dawning, bewildered hope.
“He will not trouble you again,” I tell her, my voice settling back into its usual gentle baritone. The tone feels like a lie. I am not gentle. I am a monster who just threatened another into submission. But for this girl, I will be the monster she needs.
As I finish casting her wrist, the ghost of Astrid is a palpable weight in the room. Some failures are so absolute that they become a part of your being. You can either let them break you, or you can weaponize them.
Tonight, I chose the latter.
I will not let it be for nothing. Reaching into my wallet, I retrieve two business cards: one is Eamon’s, and the other is my own.
I hand them to her, pointing to the one with Eamon’s information.
“Call this number and tell him I told you to call. Eamon runs a foundation to help get people back on their feet. He’ll see you’re taken care of.
” I want her with someone I personally trust to ensure she doesn’t get lost somewhere in the system.
She thanks me like I'm something good. Like I'm a hero.
I'm not.
I close the exam room door behind her and stand there for a moment, listening to her footsteps fade. Then I lean against the wall and let out tension I didn’t know had been building.
The thought comes then, quiet and familiar: no one would notice if I wasn't here.
The clinic would run. The penthouse would survive. Another doctor would cast wrists and soothe fevers. Another pair of hands would right the lamps and fold the blankets.
I'm here to help. That's fine. That's enough.
I don't deserve more than that.
The lie sits heavy, but I've swallowed worse.
The shift settles into its quietest hours and I retreat to the small office, settling in to handle the favor Forrest asked of me for his employee.
I compile a list of the best trauma specialists I know, contact them about the situation, and instruct them to send all bills to Secured.
With that duty fulfilled, I lose myself in the mundane, necessary tasks of keeping the clinic running, the rhythm of paperwork a welcome, mindless balm.
Eventually, my phone rings. Seeing it’s Kieran, I answer quickly.
“Any updates?” I ask, unwilling to wait.
“Aye, Emerson really knows how tae make the wee shites sing.” I can practically hear the full body shiver from here. “I had no idea that man was so unhinged.”
I roll my eyes. “You definitely knew. We all did. One of his conditions for joining our little family was that he reserves the right to stab anyone who interrupts his tea time.”
He laughs like he’s remembering the fondest of memories before sighing.
"Aye, they were good times. Have you seen the man try tae flirt?
Remember when I tried teaching him and the best compliment he could come up with was 'yer eyes are like ballistics gel'?
" Then he pauses. "Do ye think my wee wisp will be wantin’ a copy of that torture session?
I filmed it just in case. Trying tae figure out if I should wrap the tape and leave it for her, or maybe just have it playing for her on a telly with some chocolate leading the way. "
I reach up and scratch at the skin buried under my beard. “Definitely not. No woman wants videoed torture sessions as a gift.”
I think of the videos I’d like to gift her before shoving the fantasy away.
He sighs. "Ach, so be it. I'm keepin' the tape anyway. It was some of our best work, if I say so myself."
There's a pause. When he speaks again, the playful lilt is gone, replaced by grim certainty. "They confirmed it, brother. It was them. The same lot. They were sent specifically for our Wisp."
The confirmation is a punch to the gut. It’s what we suspected, but hearing it aloud makes it terrifyingly real. Because of us, she stumbled right into their path. If she'd never come to the office, she'd still be a ghost.. Now, she’s a target.
“Understood,” I say, my voice flat. “I will see you at home.”
I end the call. The silence of the clinic office rushes back in, but it’s different now. It’s no longer an escape. It’s just as suffocating as the reality waiting for me at home.
I finish the shift on autopilot. Handoff to the next doctor. Words are exchanged. I'm there for them, I think. Call for the car. Too drained to run home.
I need to feed and sleep. But the pre-warmed bagged blood stashed in my wall safe does nothing for me when I know what's sleeping down the hall. The one who calls to me like a song that’s been stuck in my head since the first time I heard it.
Raven.
There are other options, of course. I've fed from my brothers before, when I had to. But I won't burden them with this.
Now I have to go home. Walk in. Look at her—the woman I swore to keep safe—and pretend I'm not the monster who took something she never offered. All while the real monsters are still hunting her.
Our driver drops me off in the underground garage. I stand there as the door closes, sealing me in with my guilt.
I don’t move. Just stand there in the dark, trying to shove the pieces of my usual mask back together, knowing the whole time that the one person who could destroy me is upstairs and I have to look her in the eyes.
Sighing as I accept my fate, whatever that may be, I reach up and press the elevator call button.