Page 46 of Hunted

Vlad: I’ll put a team on it.

River: He’s from a powerful werewolf pack. It won’t be easy getting to him.

Vlad: Like you ever hand out easy assignments.

When Ethan came back ten minutes later with a wheelchair that my doctors said was mandatory if I wanted to be allowed out of my room, I didn’t fight it. My head was buzzing like a swarm of angry mosquitos, unable to separate distinct voices. My brother wheeled me down a long hospital corridor to another patient room, knocked quietly, then pushed open the door.

August was in a single room, hooked up to even more monitors than I had been, looking like he’d been run over by a bus. His skin was a pasty white, the dark purple bruises under his eyes giving him an eerie zombie look. He’d lost weight since the last time I’d seen him, his cheekbones standing out sharply. Ethan sighed behind me, his fingers tightening on the handles of the wheelchair, and I didn’t need my mind reading abilities to know he hated seeing August like this just as much as I did.

“Hey, Riv,” August said weakly, trying to sit up. “Any news on the safehouse?”

“Waiting to hear back from Fallon,” I said as Ethan quietly left the room. “How are you doing?”

He blew out a breath, sending strands of his dark auburn hair fluttering up off his forehead. “Not so great. I talked to my rheumatologist a little while ago. The repeated autoimmune attacks are doing damage to my neural system. It’s why my seizures have been increasing in intensity this past year. We’d hoped that because I’m a shapeshifter, my self-healing abilities might be able to compensate and rebuild in between attacks. Sort of balance out the damage, you know? But the attacks are coming too frequently now. They’re slowly destroying my body an inch at a time. My specialist said this is it. Eclipse was designed to suppress the lycan virus. It wasn’t made to treat conditions like mine, but that’s only because there aren’t other patients out there like me. I’m what’s known as an orphan illness.”

“God, I hate this for you. I wish there was something any of us could do.”

August stared up at the ceiling. “My doctor said if I don’t go on at least a low dose of Eclipse now and try to reduce the attacks, he’s afraid the disease will do irreversible damage. Simon says they have to get the dosing just right. Too low and the attacks will just continue. Too high and it will suppress the lycan virus to the point my body won’t be able to heal the damage to my neurological system that’s been causing the seizures.”

“Are you going to do it?” This wasn’t the first time August had wrestled with this question. None of us had ever been able to convince him to actually start taking the drug that would suppress his wolf to the point he couldn’t shift any more. Taking Eclipse would for all intents and purposes, make him human. “I know it’s none of my damn business, but—"

“You get it, though,” August interrupted, voice suddenly weary. “Everything has a cost. The question is whether it’s one you can live with. Everyone is telling you to stop, not to push too hard, to let someone else take the lead in the search for Rossi. Mom heard from Fallon that you tried to break into vampire minds three nights in a row. You could have ended up dead. But I also get why you did it. Not acting carries a risk, too.”

I didn’t even try to argue with him on how stupid I’d been. We both knew he was right. “The most dangerous thing a neural manipulator can be is arrogant. The ones who survive and don’t eff themselves up practice good mental discipline and know when to stop. They don’t get up in their heads believing they’re somehow God and can play master of the universe day after day, year after year without consequences.”

Tonight had been a wakeup call.

“I could have been permanently changed.” I looked down. “Or worse, lost the part of myself that recognizes right from wrong, and perhaps become another Rossi.”

“The difference between you and Rossi is that you have six brothers who give a shit about you and will literally hogtie you to a chair if that’s what it takes to get you to rest and get better. If the Tracers have to take you off active duty, what would that mean, that you’re off the Rossi case completely or just can’t go out in the field?”

“Depends if I’m cleared for light duty or not. With neural manipulator traumatic brain injury, typically there’s a return to duty period where you get assigned to work background on cases, but you’re strictly forbidden from any rewrites.”

August rubbed the edge of his wrist. “There’s the rational side of my mind that knows I need to start taking Eclipse to manage my autoimmune condition, that if I don’t, my health will only continue to deteriorate. But every time I stare at that bottle of pills, try to get up the nerve to take the first one, I just can’t. I won’t be a wolf shifter anymore. The drug will repress my wolf side, make me half of who I am. And I hate that something like that matters so much that I’d be willing to risk my health over it, but it does.” He swiped at his eyes.

“We’ll always be your brothers. We’ll always be your pack. Nothing about taking the meds you need to get healthy is going to change that. I don’t care if you never shift again. You’re the smartest engineer and evil genius hacker out there. You kick my ass at Fortnite. And fuck me if it makes me the biggest prick out there for saying this, but I care about you being alive more than I care about you growing fangs and a tail.”

“Well, you’re gonna get your wish.” He stared down at his wrist and I saw that the IV had been taped over the faint scar from Rowan’s claiming mark. “Maybe it would have been different if I was a Bitten wolf, if I could remember what it was like to be human, if I hadn’t always been part of a pack, connected to my brothers every second of every day. I just wish I couldn’t feel my connection to her singing in my blood every time I close my eyes. Because now I’m pretty sure these will be the last few hours I’ll ever hear her wolf call to mine again.”

“You want to tell me what really happened with Rowan?”

August looked away. “We went out a few times last spring. I ended things. I didn’t feel right continuing the relationship when we both knew it could never go anywhere.”

Even with the interference screaming in my skull, I knew a bullshit answer when I heard one.

“August Caldwell?” A nurse knocked on the door. “I’m taking you up to imaging for another round of scans.”

“Fun times.” He chugged a cup of water. “Seriously, I’m glad you’re okay, Riv.”

Which seemed to be the theme song of the day.

As Ethan approached my room, I caught our mother’s scent from beneath the door. When I glanced towards the nurse’s station, Ethan leaned over.

“You want me to make a run for the stairwell?”

“Too late. And we both know she’s fast. We’d never make it.”

Smirking, Ethan pushed open the door and wheeled me inside.