Wolfen (47 page)

 
The man tried to speak a couple of times and finally twitched his head slightly in an effort to shake it.

 
Dakota smiled and the man's eyes rolled back in his head.

 
Shrugging, he dropped the man, returned to his human form and sat down in the man's chair, searching the files on his computer. Nudging the man out of the way, Xavier moved around to look over his shoulder.

 
Dakota flicked an annoyed glance at him, but focused on his search, grinning broadly when he brought the address up. Getting to his feet abruptly, he glanced around the office, strode to the phone line and ripped it out of the wall and then headed for the door with Xavier on his heels.

 
He grinned rakishly at the secretary as they left the man's office. She blushed, smiling back at him a little shyly.

 
"Have a nice day,” she called after them as they strode briskly down the hall and out of the doors of the building.

 
Xavier, still trailing slightly behind him, nearly bumped into him when Dakota stopped abruptly. Half fearing the cops were already waiting for them, Xavier stepped around him and came to a halt himself. Con, Balin, and Jared were parked next to their bikes, waiting for them.

 
"Well fuck!” Dakota growled, stalking down the steps and striding toward them.

 
"Did you get it?” Balin asked coolly.

 
"Yes!” Dakota snarled, mounting his bike and turning it.

 
"The cops after us?” Con asked.

 
"Maybe,” Dakota snapped.

 
"Probably,” Xavier said, earning a glare from Dakota.

 
"I guess we'll take the back roads till we cross the state line."

 
"It'll be better to take the main road and get across the line as fast as we can,” Balin contradicted Jared. “I imagine it'll take a little while for the man to come around. Then he'll waste a little more time trying to get up his nerve and get his story straight."

 
Dakota slid an assessing look at him. “How'd you figure all that out?"

 
Balin shrugged. “I doubt he gave it up willingly or you wouldn't be concerned about the cops,” he said dryly.

 
Revving his engine, Dakota took off. The others fell into formation behind him.

 
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Chapter Nineteen

Danika eyed the doctor uneasily as he fiddled with charts and files on his desk. She could see he was struggling with something. She just wasn't certain what it was. There was an underlying current of excitement about him, though, that gave her definite bad vibes.

 
He pasted a professional smile on his lips when he finally met her gaze. “There are just a few things I wanted to go over with you."

 
"Bad news?” Danika managed around the constriction in her throat.

 
A frown appeared briefly between his eyes and disappeared. “I have a few concerns. First off, as I'm sure you're aware, there's your age."

 
Danika narrowed her eyes at him. “Women considerably older than me have babies these days!” she snapped irritably. “You hear about it all the time."

 
"True, but it's still a concern—although I haven't found anything that gives me a great deal of concern at the moment,” he added hastily. “Still, it's something we have to consider and we'll have to monitor you closely to watch for any potential problems that might arise."

 
He stopped again and seemed to be gathering his thoughts. “We found something ... a little unusual in your blood workup."

 
Danika felt coldness creep into her. “Did you?"

 
"I'm not saying it could be a problem. It's just that ... Well, we don't really know what it is at this time. We'll need to run some more tests."

 
He beamed at her. She supposed it was supposed to reassure her. She pasted a tight smile on her lips in return, striving to hide the fact that she had a very good idea what the ‘unusual’ thing was that he'd found in her blood.

 
She should've considered that the tests might turn up something unusual in her blood, considering what her grandmother had told her, but she hadn't actually accepted it at the time and besides that she'd been too panicked over the possibility of being pregnant.

 
"We won't worry about that right now since it doesn't seem to be causing you any problems. Now...."

 
Here if comes!

 
"You haven't by any chance been taking fertility drugs?"

 
Danika blinked at him rapidly, trying to digest the implications. “No,” she finally responded without elaborating any further.

 
The frown flickered over his face again. “I thought that might explain.... “He seemed to shrug. “I thought you might have been off in your calculations regarding the time of conception. Your uterus seemed a little large for the time frame you gave me...."

 
"And?” Danika prompted when he paused again.

 
"I guess you weren't off. I heard three distinct heartbeats when I examined you earlier."

 
The cold washed over Danika again. She stared at him glassy eyed for a moment, trying to gather spit in her mouth for speech. “What does that mean?” she asked hoarsely.

 
He chuckled. “Triplets—at least."

 
Danika felt distinctly ill and more than a little faint. “What the hell do you mean ‘at least'?” she ground out.

 
He looked disconcerted and then irritated and finally concerned. “This shouldn't be any problem for you. We're just going to have to take precautions and take extra special care of you."

 
"What do you
mean
‘at least?” Danika demanded.

 
"You need to calm down,” he said soothingly.

 
"I
am
calm!” Danika growled. “What do mean ‘at least'?"

 
He studied her for a moment in silence. “You said you hadn't taken any fertility drugs. It's less likely that you produced multiple ovum at one time—not impossible, but not as likely as the possibility of cell division. In that case, the cell divides equally—into to two and then, more rarely, it will divide again. I only found three heart beats, but it's still hard to be certain at this point. There could be four. There's probably only three,” he added hastily at the look on her face. “Very likely the other just didn't develop for whatever reason, but there's definitely three."

 
Danika smiled at him tightly. “I have to go."

 
"I think you should lie down for a few minutes."

 
"I'm fine!” Danika snarled, then pasted another smile on her face when she saw the doctor recoil at the vehemence in her voice. “I'll lie down when I get home."

 
She managed to feign a more calm demeanor when she saw the doctor was seriously alarmed and left despite his efforts to convince her to let him give her something to calm her.

 
It required focus to drive home and she almost welcomed the respite from the chaos churning inside of her. From the moment she parked and switched off the ignition, however, the panic was back, beating at her as she strode quickly to the door and went inside. She dropped her keys and bag by the door, missing the table set there for that purpose, but without actually registering it.

 
She paced restlessly around the house, not wandering, but racing, as if she could outrun the thoughts chasing her, picking up things at random and walking around with them for a while and then setting them down and picking up something else. She supposed, somewhere in her mind, she was convinced she was cleaning. She emerged abruptly, however, when she discovered she was putting the phone book in the freezer.

 
"Three! Oh my fucking god! Three?"

 
At least.

 
She looked down at her already rounded stomach, visualizing the young women she'd seen in the waiting room, their bellies protruding as if they had a beach ball under their shirts.

 
And that was just one!

 
"They'd have to be smaller,” she muttered, trying to reassure herself, trying to banish the image of herself lying like a turtle on its back with a basket ball balanced on top of it. “There's only so much room for expansion!"

 
She should've waited around and asked him questions instead of dashing off as if she could escape her fate by escaping what he had to say!

 
The flashing light on her answering machine caught her gaze as she shoved the phone book into the freezer and turned away. She stared at it, her mind leaping instantly to the possibility that one of the guys had called her. Rage suffused her instantly as she found a target. Marching to the phone, she stabbed a finger at the replay.

 
"Bill Fellows here. Give me a call when you get this message, Ms. Whitney."

 
Deflated, Danika glared at the phone, wondering idly why the man's voice sounded so strange. It also sounded urgent, but she didn't feel like dealing with anybody else's fucking emergency at the moment!

 
Stalking into the living room, she was on the point of flinging herself down on her couch to consider how she might track the bastards down and cut their balls off and get away with it when someone knocked on the door.

 
She turned to glare at the door, wavering between answering the summons and taking the head off of whoever had had the fucking nerve to beat on her door and ignoring it. The second, more demanding knock, clenched it. Stalking to the door, she snatched it open. A jolt went through her when she discovered a crowd on her doorstep. Recognition was a little slower.

 
Con and Balin were at the forefront, Dakota just a little behind them. Jared and Xavier brought up the rear. “Three!” she snarled, holding up three fingers and shaking them in Balin's face. “Three!"

 
Whirling, she slammed the door behind her, stalked to her couch and flopped down on it, folding her arms. She'd the told the bastards off, she thought with a trace of satisfaction! The dirty, rotten sons-of-bitches! Knocking her up and then going on their merry way!

 
But why should it bother them?
They
weren't going to be stuck carrying around a fucking football team for nine months!

 
Alright, so not that much longer, she conceded. She'd already put in a third of that, maybe a little more.

 
It didn't make her feel any better as it dawned on her that that also meant she had a lot less time to face the moment of truth.

 
Her front door opened. Balin and Con leaned in to stare at her a moment and finally strode inside. Dakota, Jared, and Xavier followed them, looking the house over with interest. Danika glared at them as they ranged themselves casually around her, Con stopping to prop one shoulder against the wall and folding his arms over his chest, Dakota and Jared taking the easy chairs across from the couch. Xavier flicked an uneasy glance at her and moved to the window. Balin stopped right in front of her, studying her assessingly.

 
She glowered at him. “If I'd known it was y'all at the door I'd have grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen on the way and cut your balls off at the door!” she snarled.