Waking up from sedation wasn’t the best experience, and for a werewolf especially it was… unpleasant. My healing factor strong enough most of the drug was worn out of me before I first started coming back to the world, and the dosage large enough that didn’t mean there weren’t lingering effects. Nothing I would consider a real dream coming to me deep as the pain killers had knocked me, and still out of it enough that when I did begin to wake I felt as though I was stuck between dream and reality.
Right arm feeling like it’d been dipped in fire, torso a broken and bruised mess trying to pull itself together, my one good eye feeling like it was ready to burst from my skull while it remained closed. The sound of wheels under me, every soft jostle feeling like it shifted the bone in my arm, doors being opened.
In the dark my closed eyes left me in I was a wolf running through the woods, chased by a pack and whining in fear. The head of the pack unnaturally large yet so familiar, with each moment growing closer and closer. Only as they were about to catch me, the pain in my body growing worse and worse, that there were fingers in my fur and the world changed.
I was a dog at a knight’s feet, the armored form crouched in front of me and a voice that could have been a dozen people of different genders at once complimented me. I was safe, there was no one who could hurt me, and the knight was replaced by a woman in courtly robes with long blonde hair. The voice not Barbie’s, though I couldn’t precisely say the resemblance was unfounded either.
Had her to blame for this fantasy anyway.
Embarrassment set in and the vision changed, and I was walking through the Blue Ridge Mountains. A game trail I’d walked a hundred times and also never existed, boots silent on the mud while I enjoyed the sound of the birds and trickling river carried by the wind. The sound of the water almost the same as the wheelchair and yet each sounding distinctly its own.
Barbie still beside me in a dress of pure white while I told her, “you’re going to get that stained.”
The woman shrugged, looking around us as she admitted, “I’m dead anyway.”
Yeah couldn’t argue with that, and I shrugged, “my bad.”
“Blame my dad, you were late to that party by like, six or so decades,” the woman tried to… I assume it was comfort me, “really you’re the one who’s keeping me around. You burn your fingers touching your clothes iron a lot don’t you?”
I raised a brow at that, Barbie and her little goblin grin her main response as I asked, “what does that mean?”
The girl shrugged, walking ahead of me a little and turning to pace backwards while she explained, “you went to a witches house, got told not to touch something, and then touched it. You’re like I was as a kid, get told not to touch the pan because it’s hot and suddenly all I want to do is reach out a finger and test it’s true.”
“I told you, I don’t remember what happened.”
“But I think you know why it happened,” the girl countered, her smile fading a bit while she stared me down. The two of us stopped on the trail, the sound of the river and wheels stopped, “you go to a witch’s house and get told it’s dangerous to touch something and then you do. What would make you do that?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Why go to a hunter bar the first time you see me?”
“Barbie, please.”
“You have something to help you sleep, and you never take it, right?”
“Stop,” I muttered, only then realizing my lips were moving, a hand on my shoulder while machines screamed from all directions. My eye lightly opening to the inside of an elevator and Samuel crouched at my side.
“What were you hoping would happen?” she asked again, the question so clear and at the same time the words tickling a thought already in the back of my head.
What was our guy expecting to happen?
Barbie wasn’t there, and if it was actually her talking she didn’t press the issue while I did my best to ignore her. Samuel looking at me with his lips thin while I rolled my head around and tried to get my lips to move with actual purpose. A few noises briefly escaping me, none of them actually sounding like real words, until I forced myself to stop and tried to focus on just a single word:
“Martin.”
“Called Gevaudan, she moved him into her room. Percy’s on his way now, apparently was driving around looking for signs of you,” Samuel explained, only rising as the elevator door opened and he started pushing me along the halls.
My eye closed, only a moment, I was back in the forest, alone in the field near my home in the Purists. My eye opened and I was halfway in the apartment, Gevaudan stood by the door to her room with a fist over her chest in her flannel pajamas.
They said something, the words not fully processing but understood well enough I could tell them, “bath, please.”
A long moment of hesitation, and Gevaudan walked off quickly and I heard the sound of running water fill the air. Something trickling in the back of my head as wrong though what I wasn’t sure while my eye closed once more.
I was a princess in a tall tower, the dulled sounds of the city a simple comfort while I sat on a windowsill overlooking my kingdom. A cat leapt into my lap and I attempted to pet it, briefly stopped by a wave of pain before I switched to the other and it looked up at me. My nails scritching under its chin even as he told me, “I have a hawk girlfriend back home, whose eyes does she need to claw out?”
My eye opened, Lord sat neatly in my lap looking up at me concerned while I laughed and told him, “I’m gonna handle it.”
Lord let out a low hum, his eyes narrowing at the thought, “I don’t trust that. You sure you don’t want me to help?”
I shrugged, immediately regretting the action while a bolt of pain went through me and I told him, “you’re not gonna win against The Lady.”
Lord’s eyes widened in surprise, and I didn’t have much to add on before the door behind me flew open. Frame crashing into the wall with a crack against the dry wall, stumbling steps ringing out, nearly on my feet despite my screaming right arm with Lord hanging on for dear life from the skirt of my sundress by his front claws. Fur threatening to grow, the tension of the muscles for that alone near dropping me back in the wheelchair even as I looked back to Percy.
The man let out the first note of a desperately loud word and silenced by the sound of a hand clapped over his mouth. Samuel near hissing as he admonished the man, “there’s a child sleeping, what are you thinking?”
Whatever Percy could have said stopped by the sound of a door opening, my heart dropping into my stomach as I looked over to Martin stood in the doorway. His glasses off, rubbing his eyes as he asked, “I heard a noise, what-” only to stop at the sight of me. Wide eyed, starting to move closer before Gevaudan ran forward and swept him up to comfort him, “just a little accident. Everything’s going to be okay, let’s get you back to sleep.”
Stolen novel; please report.
My son carried off by the woman, his wide eyed fear never leaving me until the door closed and I was left sitting there ready to throw up. The last thing I’d fucking wanted, even if I wasn’t sure on what the plan was tomorrow, he’d fucking seen me hurt. Fucking broken and bruised, hair still unwashed, broken arm barely splinted and looking half alive.
At least if he’d seen me in the morning I could clean up, the worst of it would hopefully be healed, he wouldn’t have to see me like this.
The words all unsaid even as Samuel tried comforting me, “it’s dark, he probably barely saw you.”
I nodded, not having it all the same as I forced myself to uneven feet, every muscle screaming at me not to. Each movement in my right arm a piece of glass shifting, leg limping, Samuel steadying me while Percy moved a few blankets and pillows out of the way and held the bathroom door open for me. My vision blurring, turning a blinding white barely processing shapes while I used what strength I had to not throw up.
The bathroom relatively large, at least for the apartment, there was a washer dryer, a closet door in here, and the normal appliances far enough apart all three us could comfortably fit inside. Samuel helping me sit on the toilet lid a moment while I gathered myself again, the man muttering something while he adjusted a sling I hadn’t even realized I was wearing.
Whatever angle he brought my arm to feeling infinitely better, and the break enough for me to blink and realize a mistake I’d made:
The tub was already full, a dust covered half-empty bag of Epsom salts still on the lip against the wall. Exactly what I wanted, and at the same time I groaned as I said, “help me rinse my hair off before I get in, need to get this shit out.”
Someone said something in agreement, and I was helped back up to considerable less pain this while I was walked to the sink. The two of them briefly discussing what to do before I felt one support me to bend over while the other helped the water run through my hair while I steadied myself with one good hand. Even not touching it myself the knots and mats that had already formed more than obvious as I tried to work out how to deal with that.
Could probably do it myself, a bit of a struggle though and would take a long while. I needed a full wash too, not just a rinse out or a refresh, which meant…
I let out an almost defeated sigh as I rose back upright and was about to ask Samuel when I stopped myself. Something clicking in the back of my head as I asked, “You know how to detangle and wash hair, right, Percy?”
Samuel looked a little confused and Percy just shrugged while he admitted, “done it a few times for girls if you need my help, but I can get Gevaudan too.”
I shook my head, leaning back against the sink while I explained myself, “Gevaudan’s the best to make sure Marty stays in bed, you’re the closest I got to family to ask for help, and, well…” I hesitated on whether I should make my final point, though the continued confusion of Samuel made me finish my point, “know Samuel’s a nurse and has helped with worse, know he’d be profressional, but all I know about his dating history is my mom was a Purist. Figured you’ve probably helped a girl with her hair once or twice.”
Samuel’s confusion switched to a slow nod of admittance at my point, Percy chuckling a little to confess, “nothing curly as yours, but I can do it. You use a comb, paddle, or bristle?”
“Usually detangle with my fingers and then style and manage the oil with a bristle,” I explained limping to the bath, groaning as I sat briefly on the edge, “shampoo and conditioner are in my room, ones with the horses on them. Before you say anything-”
“For humans too, third girl I’ve known give me that speech,” the man finished leaving the bathroom while I stared at the bath.
Did I trust Percy, and really think he’d be weird about helping me?
Not really.
Was I excited at the idea of having to be naked in the same room as someone for an extended period of time?
Also no.
As much as the Purists had made nudity not feel like a big idea, being vulnerable and naked was a different issue and I had Samuel check the closet for me while he helped me out of my sling once more. A dust covered bottle of bubble bath a good enough find for me while I dumped it in and let the man go far as sliding my first strap off my broken arm before he left. Half-sliding back into the bath, broken arm lightly propped on the lip and good one stirring the bubbles up enough the water was mostly opaque to my chest when Percy returned with the two massive bottles and my brush.
He stopped.
Not a look of someone who was flustered or embarrassed but just… concern. A look you saved for a wounded dog that shifted to a dull anger while he set himself up and asked, “do you want to talk about it?”
I probably should have, at the very least told him some of the basics, and instead I smiled and told him what I was holding back, “our guy’s not trying to start a war, he’s trying to kill The Lady.”
Percy rose a brow, nonetheless walking over and sitting on the edge of the tub to start on my hair. Working the knots and mats out as gently as he could manage with some experience while he asked, “is there a difference? War breaks out The Lady’s going to go down pretty fast if you ask me, much as she’d take us with her.”
“Because they’re not going after her,” I explained, trying to turn my face to actually see him on my blind side and stopped by a snagging of my hair. Percy letting out a soft curse and walking off to get something while I continued, “she has contacts dying, she has me at risk of dying, but no one’s gone after her that we’ve heard about and she’s a public as fuck member of the city. Hell, anyone who knows enough about me to hire a killer knows where she is, right? Most her contacts know her house, her office is a public fucking law firm, what’s there to lose?”
Percy let out a hum, reaching past me to set a small shaving mirror on the opposite lip of the bathtub and angling it so I could watch him on my blind side. The man returning to my hair while he admitted, “you’re making a good point, but… why go after the contacts too, I mean-”
“Vergil’s independently powerful, the fey got targeted and got the person to back out, going after her employees means one might end up flipping if they get the same idea I’m getting,” I interrupted, seeing the man’s brow furrow at the thought while I whispered, “and I’m pretty sure my grandma and Samuel know whose probably doing it.”
The man nodded, bending down to ask in his own hushed tone, “what makes you think that?”
I leaned my head back, partly pulled by a tough knot but enough to make eye contact, “Samuel didn’t want me meeting one of the contacts The Lady thought might know something, and my grandma said she might know someone who knew something in her rolodex. What do you bet those are the same person?”
Percy seemed to consider it a moment, his confusion turning to a small grin as he seemed to catch onto what I mean. The man digging around for a moment before pulling out his phone which I took from him with some small amount of urgency. A small bit of fumbling, him unlocking it for me, and I scrolled through to his contacts before finding the name I was looking for.
Grandma had given her number as processed, and I clicked Cynthia and let it dial. Still the earliest morning possible I wasn’t expecting much, though it wasn’t three rings in I heard the tone stop and my grandma asked, “what’s the problem, boy? It’s hardly been five hours now and-”
“It’s me, grandma,” I interrupted, leaning forward a little too fast and hissing in pain all the while I forced myself to ask, “Father Arthur, that name ring a bell?”
A long silence, and the woman chuckled of all things to ask, “where did you hear that? Haven’t heard from him in a while.”
“Just a hunch, know where I can find him?”
Too long waiting, a soft hum to her voice, and she finally relented, “I know his church, but you sound rather rough. Whose giving you a bad time?”
“The Lady,” I admitted, Percy tugging my hair a little hard at the admittance even as he continued working, “Does he know The Corner?”
My grandma laughed at that, a full bellied one followed by someone trying to ask something in the distance. The woman barely getting control of herself to say, “just a friend, Marty, old people start gossiping early. Now, you get back to bed.” A few seconds passing and she admitted, “everyone knows that place, dear, but he wouldn’t find himself dead there. I’ll pick you up at noon later, just send the address, there are other places where one can have quiet conversations. Your boss asks, you tell her you’re with me and she’ll understand it well enough. Understood?”
“Understood,” I groaned, not sure what else to say even as I double checked, “anything I should keep in mind for if The Lady’s theoretically pissed off at me still?”
I was risking a lot doing this, but at the same time I couldn't exactly sit by and do nothing. Samuel was either not seeing things my way or ignoring it, and that put too many people at risk. My dad, my son as long as he was here, and the faster this was dealt with the better.
A long pause, a small chuckle escaping my grandma, and she admitted, “have someone else come by the apartment after, make it look like you’re just being social. A little lunch with 'friends' followed by that? Looks like a vacation, and it's even better if she thinks you’re spending time with everyone rather than just spending time with a few select clients.”
I nodded, my smile turning a bit more genuine as I told her, “I’ll see you later,” the two of us saying our goodbyes and Percy taking back his phone to text her the address.
The two of continuing in the silence, the man helping shampoo and condition my hair and then leaving me to do my body. Only coming back in when I needed help out of the tub and to help me dry off and slip on a nightgown. My hair hardly wrapped in a towel with his help when Samuel came in and helped me back into my sling while I thought away.
Only one overly safe idea of who to invite over coming to me as I asked, “when you changed me, there was a number in my bra. Did you hold onto that? Need to see how many people I can get over here for dinner, long as Percy doesn’t mind doing the chili tonight.”