Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines) (36 page)

Laura’s gaze was fixed on the dripping blood. “I was too late. He pulled you into the wall. I didn’t save you.”

Roy heard running footsteps. Miguel appeared at the door. He took one look at the wall and sat down in the doorway with a thud, clutching his ruined cheek and rocking back and forth. None of the hostages had moved from the floor. Roy didn’t think Laura had heard a single word he’d said.

Combat stress reaction
, Roy thought.

They needed someone to take charge, get them out of the room with the corpse and the hand and the waterfall of blood, and give them tasks to focus their minds on something other than the horror they’d just gone through. Roy was the only person who was capable of that right now, and he was in no shape to take command. He couldn’t even sit up.

Then he realized that he had the perfect job for them all.

“I’m hurt,” Roy said. His voice was still slurred, making him wonder again how badly wounded he was. He tried again, over-articulating to make sure he was understood. “I’m hurt. I need to get to the hospital room. Laura! Miguel! Help me up.”

To Roy’s relief, the order got Laura moving, though she looked as if she was in a trance. She put her right arm around his waist, lifted his left arm over her shoulder, and grabbed his left wrist with her left hand, exactly as he’d taught her and as he’d learned in boot camp.

Miguel got up, hurried over, and looked nervously at Roy’s bloody right side.

“Don’t worry about that,” Roy said. “Just get me on my feet. Laura, tell him how.”

“Put your left arm around his waist…” Laura began reciting.

It hurt when Miguel touched his wounds, but nowhere near as badly as Roy had expected. He hoped that didn’t mean he was already in shock.

Laura was again staring at the wall. “I ordered him to die, and he did.”

“Laura, put that out of your mind,” Roy said. “Can you feel my wrist? What’s it feel like?”

He couldn’t tell if her grip tightened or not. His body felt far away and numb.

“Strong,” she said.

Her voice echoed strangely, as if the sound waves were bouncing back and forth inside his ears. His vision was clouding over, he couldn’t feel the floor beneath him, and even Laura’s lemon-juice scent was barely perceptible.

Roy spoke quickly. “Focus, Laura. The pack needs you.
I
need you. I’m going to black out any second now.”

He felt Laura’s chest move against his as she took a deep breath. “I’ve got you, Roy. You rest. I’ll take over.” More loudly, she said, “Keisha, Russell, help Nicolette! Miguel, stand on the count of three! One, two—”

***

Roy opened his eyes to golden firelight and the smell of blood and antiseptic. He lay on a hospital bed, with Laura holding his hand and Keisha bent over him, taping a bandage to his shoulder.

“How bad—” Roy broke off, feeling some tube or wire wrapped around his face. He reached for it.

Laura caught his hand. “Keisha’s giving you oxygen. You’re not badly hurt. A little skin got torn off, that’s all.” She gave him a watery smile. “Like road rash.”

Roy felt dizzy and weak, and road rash didn’t do more than sting. He was hooked up to an IV, too. He glanced over at his right side, half-expecting to find a ruin, but all he saw were a few bloody patches that did look like he’d crashed his bike.

“Then what’s wrong with me?” Roy still had to work to articulate his words.

“Gregor’s power,” Keisha said, beginning to clean the raw area on his hip. It was strange to hear her sounding so calm, when he recognized her voice as the woman who had begged for her friend’s life. “It disrupted your nervous system. However, based on Miguel’s experience, it resolves itself quickly and there won’t be any permanent damage.”

“How long is quickly?”

Keisha taped on a bandage. “An hour or so.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Maybe twenty minutes.” Laura said sounded shaken, but not in the state of shock she’d been in before. “Keisha looked you over, put you on oxygen and an IV, and took care of Nicolette.”

“Gunshot wound to the deltoid vs. a few minor avulsions,” Keisha explained. “Easy triage, given my previous experience with the effects of Gregor’s power on a living person.”

Adding to Roy’s disorientation, he couldn’t perceive Laura’s presence other than by looking at her. “I can’t feel the pack sense. Laura, can you?”

Laura nodded, glancing worriedly at Keisha. “Roy and I are a pack. He could feel it before.”

“That happened to Miguel too,” Keisha said. “It’s like the loss of coordination and the respiratory depression. Trust me, it’ll wear off.”

For the first time since Gregor had touched him, Roy truly believed, rather than just crossing his fingers and hoping, that he was going to live. He squeezed Laura’s hand, and felt the warmth and pressure of her answering squeeze. “Thanks for number six.”

This time she understood him. “I swear, if you ever make it seven…”

“I might take it easy after this,” Roy said, trying to smile reassuringly. “I’ll pretend I’m retired.”

Keisha applied a final bandage to Roy’s arm. “There. You’re done.”

Roy looked around the room, getting a wider view. It was lit by candles and two hurricane lanterns. Nicolette was sitting up in another bed, her arm in a sling. She was flanked by Russell and Miguel, all three of them staring blankly at the wall. Keisha had seemed to have taken refuge in her role as a doctor, which was an excellent idea as far as Roy was concerned, but now that she’d finished with him and Nicolette, her eyes had taken on a familiar shell-shocked stare.

Roy frowned, wondering what he could do for them. He knew the protocols for combat stress, but what kept people going for long enough to complete their mission did nothing to help them when they came back home. Twenty-four hours of rest and a sleeping pill wouldn’t cut it for the pack, any more than it had fixed him back in Afghanistan. Neither would putting them to work.

But it would be a good start. Better than letting them all sit around like zombies, anyway.

“They need to get out of here. Mind if I invite them over to the cabin?” Roy asked.

“Please!” Laura replied.

Roy hauled himself into a sitting position, with some belated assistance from Laura. If he had to address them all lying down, he’d be embarrassed and feel like he was on his deathbed.

“Come over here,” Laura called, to Roy’s gratitude. He wasn’t sure how loudly he could speak.

The pack obediently crowded round the bed, Miguel supporting Nicolette with an arm under her elbow.

“How do you all feel about coming over to Laura’s cabin?” Roy asked.

“Great,” said Miguel, for the first time showing a spark of interest. “Anything to get the hell out of here.”

“Fuck this place,” spat out Nicolette. “I want to get out and never come back.”

Russell and Keisha nodded.

“You’ll have to drive ahead of us,” Roy said. If he got in a car now, it would probably kill him no matter what Laura did. “Laura and I will walk. So go pack whatever you need in the cars, and come back here when you’re done.”

Laura took out her keys and handed them to Keisha. “Car keys, cabin keys.”

“I’ll pack my medical supplies,” Keisha said. “But whatever I can’t fit can stay. I never want to set foot here again.”

“I don’t need anything,” Russell said. “Let’s just go.”

“I don’t need anything either,” said Miguel.

“Nicolette, are you up for some walking?” Roy asked.

She immediately straightened her back and raised her chin. “Yes.”

“I’m putting you in charge,” Roy said. “Take the others to their rooms and make sure they pack some clothes, their toothbrushes, that sort of thing. Yours too. Take everything you want, since you’re not coming back. All four of you, stick together. Pack one person’s room at a time. And get some clothes from Donnie’s room for me to wear.”

Roy was bare-chested, and his jeans had been partially cut off and sheared straight through the waist. Keisha had left enough so it wasn’t all hanging out, but that was just for modesty; everything would fall off as soon as he stood up.

“When you’re done, come back here. Keisha, you’re in charge of getting the medical equipment loaded.” Roy looked straight at Nicolette, and put some force into his voice. “Nicolette! Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” Nicolette replied. As Roy had intended, putting her in charge had made her fall back on her military training.

The pack trooped out, leaving Roy alone with Laura.

“Think they’ll all show up with three left shoes and a curtain rod?” she asked lightly.

“Not with Nicolette overseeing them. I hope.” Roy abruptly ran out of energy, his head swimming. “I’m sorry. I have to lie down.”

Laura helped him back down. He reached out blindly, and felt her catch his hand.

“I’m here, Roy,” she said.

When he closed his eyes, exhausted, the bed seemed to melt away beneath him, as if he was falling through. His heart jolted, skidding into irrational terror. Roy’s eyes flew open. He clutched at Laura’s hand and did his best to keep her lovely, worried face in focus.

“Talk to me,” he said, hoping she could understand. “Keep me awake.”

Roy had no idea what Laura said to him, but he followed the rhythm of his voice, following its rises and falls. Her sharp scent, lemon with just a sprinkle of sugar, surrounded him. She squeezed his hand tight and stroked his hair, his cheek, his shoulders, giving him something solid to hold on to.

Gradually, the world steadied around him, until he felt as if he was part of it again, and his strength and alertness returned.

“Laura?” To his relief, he finally sounded like himself again. He sat up, and it didn’t even make him dizzy.

She put her arms around him, holding him close. He turned his face into the delicate skin of her throat, the tickling curls of her hair. Her scent grew sweeter and sweeter till it was more meringue than lemon, and the bond hummed between them with her happiness and relief that he was better, that he was alive and breathing in her arms.

When he looked up, he saw that the room had been partially stripped, with all the easily portable items taken except the ones still attached to Roy. No one was present but him and Laura.

“Did the pack leave already?” he asked.

“No, they’re still loading medical equipment,” Laura said. “But you might want to get your pants on before they come back.”

Roy looked down. Sure enough, what remained of his jeans had fallen off when he’d sat up. He grabbed the folded clothes from the foot of the bed and scrambled into them in record time. He was buttoning the shirt when the pack came in.

Keisha went straight to Roy and had him follow her finger with his eyes, then checked to see if he could feel her scratch the bottom of his foot. While she tested his reflexes, Nicolette and Russell and Miguel stood still, neither speaking to nor looking at each other. Their job complete, they seemed lost.

Roy hadn’t said a single word to Russell, and he’d spoken to Keisha and Nicolette only briefly. Even Miguel, whom he’d interacted with the most, he barely knew. But he inexplicably felt as if he’d known all four of them as long as he’d known the men in his platoon. He was even aware of the pain each of them had carried before they’d ever joined the pack: Keisha’s perfectionism, Miguel’s self-doubt, Nicolette’s rage, Russell’s loneliness.

Roy frowned at them, puzzled. There was no way he could know any of that. But he was certain of it all.

They were strangers, but they didn’t feel like strangers. They felt like his brother and sister Marines. It didn’t matter if they wouldn’t ordinarily have been friends, or even whether they liked each other. He would do anything for them. He would die for them, and be glad to have had the chance.

It was his responsibility to take care of them, his responsibility to protect them, his responsibility to put them back together.

“Keisha, did you give me morphine?” Roy asked.

“No,” Keisha replied, startled. “I didn’t give you anything for pain. Do you need something?”

He shook his head. “I feel strange. I thought maybe that was why.”

“You’re sensing the pack, aren’t you?” Laura said. “I am too. I think they’re trying to bond with us.”

Roy looked back at the pack members. They weren’t staring blankly any more; they were staring at him and Laura.

“Do you want to?” Roy asked Laura, but he already knew she did. She’d bonded with Keisha in the purely human sense before she’d ever become a werewolf.

“Of course I do. I always have.”

Even as Laura spoke, the entire pack had crowded around the bed, without so much as a gesture of invitation from anyone.

“You could be our alphas,” Russell said abruptly. “I can feel it.”

The others nodded.

“We won’t force anything on you,” Roy said. “You’ve had enough of that. If you want us to be in your pack, we won’t control you or tell you how to live your lives. I don’t know how you’d do on your own, but if you want, you’re free to go.”

“Maybe Nicolette could be your alpha,” Laura suggested.

Nicolette shook her head. “It’s not about who’s toughest. I can’t control the pack sense. Believe me, I’ve tried. I was trying now, and I still can’t do it. It’s you two or no one.”

Keisha nodded. “Once Gregor died, I couldn’t even feel the others until now.”

“I couldn’t either,” said Miguel. Russell nodded his agreement.

“I was focused on you before, Roy,” Laura explained. “Once I was less worried about you, I let myself open to them. I think Nicolette’s right. They need us. At least, they need one of us. It could just be me.”

Roy laid his hand over Laura’s. “If you’re in, I’m in.”

“Do you all want this?” Laura asked.

“I do.” Nicolette indicated Laura. “You killed that motherfucker. I’m good with you.” Indicating Roy, she said, “It’s too bad you’re a jarhead, but on the other hand, you did almost die for us. That’s good enough for me.”

“What’s ARMY stand for?” Roy retorted. “Oh, that’s right, Ain’t a Real Marine Yet.”

“As if I’d want to be one.” Nicolette wrinkled her nose. “You don’t let women do anything.”

“We let them fly helicopters. One of the bravest people I ever met in my life was a female Marine helicopter pilot.”