The Cursed Shifters - Mateless

Bleeding

Shiloh’s phone started ringing as she raced down the windy little one land back to the main road, Bex and the girl in the back seat. “Bex, can you answer that and put it on speaker?” Bex squeezed her body between the seats and answered the phone. Michael’s voice rang out of the phone’s speaker, it was calm, but Shiloh could read the tension beneath the surface.

                                “Shiloh, I’ve got Lennon bandaged as best I can, but he needs sutures, and I can’t sew him up in a moving car. Well, I could but it wouldn’t be pretty.”

                                “Is he at risk of bleeding out or have you managed to staunch the bleeding enough to get him back to the packhouse?”

                                “He will bleed out before we get there, we will have to pull over and stitch him up if he’s going to make it but that puts us on the side of the road exposed for a long while.” The calm was slipping, Michael was freaking out under the surface.”

                                “We have no guarantees none of the vampires made it out. Do you have the silver nitrate?” Bex’s eyes bugged in the backseat.

                                “I do, it’s always in the kit.”

                                “Use it, find him something in the car to bite, pull over and quickly grab a big stick, whatever, but use it. Warn him it is going to feel like he’s on fire, so he’s prepared, make it sound worse than it really is, and it won’t seem so bad. His vampire blood may lesson the burn for him anyway.”

                                “You don’t think it’s going to be too much for him?” Michael was hesitant.

                                “He can take it, if he passes out just let him sleep it off once everything is closed, he will heal faster that way. The other option is he bleeds out in that car.” Shi wasn’t trying to sound cold and her team knew that, the only way she could handle these situations efficiently and do what needed to be done was to turn off the feelings and the fear, letting her brain work out what to do uninhibited. “He will have some new scars.” She added.

                                “On it.” Michael replied and hung up the phone.

                                The drive back to the packhouse seemed to take forever, the Jeep couldn’t take turns like her car could and slowed them down, Shiloh still pushed the limits almost rolling it on a few bends in the roads. Finally slamming to a stop in front of the packhouse Shiloh through the jeep into first and turned on the parking brake before throwing the door open and running up the steps and into the building. She headed straight for Lennon’s room, leaving Bex and the girl behind in the car.

                                Bex looked at the girl before stepping out of the vehicle and going to the front to remove the keys from the ignition. “Come with me, she didn’t tell me what to do with you so you’re going to get a shower and some clean clothes while we wait on her to be done checking on Lennon.” The girl scooted across the seat to exit the same door Bex had and stared at her feet following meekly behind. Bex was hyper aware of the girl, noting how she moved, shuffling her feet instead of walking properly, silent, choaking back any noise and biting back whatever it was she kept opening her mouth to say. Curious but terrified, that is what she was. Why wouldn’t she be, five people had gone into a nest full of vampires and slaughtered them all, they had taken her, it didn’t really matter that she had been a captive there. In her mind she had been taken captive by things that were stronger and therefor more terrifying, lord knew how much of Shiloh’s fight with the little blonde vamp the girl had witnessed. Glancing back over her shoulder Bex saw the girl ogling everything in the packhouse, it was definitely a different world from that warehouse, how long had she been kept there? Bex opened the door to her room and grabbed some clothes from her dresser for the girl, pajama pants with a tie waste so she could tighten them around her wispy frame and a t-shirt and gently pushed the girl to the bathroom.

                                The girl stood staring at the shower confused for a minute, “I-I don’t k-k-know how to t-t-turn it on.” She stuttered badly and her voice was horse, probably from never being used, but she could speak, and she had.  Bex reached around the surround and turned the water on.

                                “This way is hotter, this way is colder, just turn it to where you want.” Picking up the products Bex began explaining them, “Shampoo, wet your hair then apply this rubbing it until its all foamy, then rinse it off. Conditioner, put it on and rub it in after the shampoo is out, you let it sit on your hair while you use this bodywash on this loofa to wash your skin, then rise everything off.” The girl nodded along, wide eyed and when Bex believed she understood she left the bathroom closing the door to allow the girl some privacy. “How is Lennon?” Bex linked Shiloh.

                                “He’s asleep, Michael says he stayed awake through the sealing of his wounds but went to sleep pretty quick after. Doc looked him over and he will be fine, but he needs a few days rest, no guard duty tonight.”

                                “He will be so disappointed not to wear his suit.” Bex teased a bit.

                                “How’s the girl?” Shiloh’s tone was softer, concerned even.

                                “I put her in the shower, she was gross and smelled awful. Shiloh, she didn’t know how the shower worked, I had to show her and explain how to wash.”

                                I’ll be there in a few minutes, just need to remind the doctor that this stays under wraps and let him know we have someone with us who will need to be looked at later today.” Shiloh closed the link and turned to Doc. “Doc, I assume I don’t need to remind you that any injuries you treat for my team and myself are confidential by order of the Alpha.”

                                “Of course, Shiloh, I know your activities are secret, anything I see is kept to me and only me.” Doc was easily the oldest male in the pack, for one simple reason, he was human. The madness made it very difficult to keep a good doctor from their species, the one good thing Shiloh could say about her last Alpha was that he had found this man. His mother was a wolf human half breed and his father a human, this resulted in Doc being wolfless but fully aware of their species and the uniqueness of their medical needs. He was priceless.

                                “Perfect, we brought someone back with us this time, she will need to be looked over later today, I would estimate that she’s malnourished, dehydrated, and possibly has wounds old and new that have healed incorrectly or not at all. Her existence is also to be kept quiet until I have had a chance to speak to Alpha Terry and figure out what we are to do with her.”

                                “Just call me when you are ready, I will look her over and not tell a soul.”

                                Shiloh nodded her thanks and left, headed straight for Bex’s room. Reaching the door, she knocked lightly before opening it, more of a warning that she was coming in then anything. The girls had an open-door policy, they could come and go as they please to each other’s rooms, this had only resulted in one awkward situation. Neither of them had the nerve to have such a policy with the boys. Shiloh trudged into the room, utterly exhausted and running on sheer stubbornness and threw herself face first onto the bed next to Bex.  She groaned and buried her face into the comforter, a few moments and a couple deep breaths later she lifted her head to speak. “He got away, its still not done.”

                                “Lennon shot him in the chest three times, and I unloaded a shotgun on him, and it didn’t slow him down. The shotgun knocked him down but with the three slugs in his chest he was still faster than Lennon.”

                                “Next time he faces me, I take him down. We have to find him again first though, ugh!” Shiloh dropped her head back into the bed dramatically. Hearing the doorknob turn she lifted her head and turned in time to see the girl step out of the bathroom, still terrified and wide eyed but clean. “You didn’t show her how to put a towel on her head did you?” The girl’s hair was still soaked and dripping all over the pajamas Bex had given her. Shiloh got up and retrieved a towel, instructing the girl to flip her hair over her head pointed to the ground she wrapped it for her. “Come sit, we are going to talk, are you hungry?” The girl nodded timidly, and Shiloh linked Michael telling him to bring food up from the breakfast in the dinning room for the three of them. “How old are you?”

                                “I’m nineteen I think…” Bex noticed the girls voice, while still scared was much smoother after the steam of the shower had worked its magic.

                                “You think? How long were you kept captive?” Bex settled in next to Shiloh on the floor as she spoke.

                                “He, he took me when I was six, I didn’t know the days, never saw the sun so I couldn’t keep track but, he, he,” The girl paused and took a breath, “He would have a party of sorts for me once a year, called them my birthday party.”

                                “Why did he take you and keep you?” Shiloh asked, it was one of the more important questions. Motives matter. 

                                “I don’t really know, he said that I was a key, and he was going to keep me locked up so I couldn’t be used.” Bex and Shiloh exchanged wide eyed looks, it couldn’t be that easy to find the person they needed. The girl continued, “but he told me a little while ago that he was wrong, that I wasn’t what he thought. I don’t know why he kept me after that.” Shiloh and Bex deflated.

                                Shiloh linked with Bex to speak privately, “She’s not the fairy wolf then but it he realized that out of nowhere after years he must know who is. We will have to keep him alive long enough to find out.”

                                “This just got more dangerous, he’s lethal, keeping him alive long enough to get a sentence out of him could mean death.” Shiloh nodded and turned back to the girl.

                                “Do you remember your name?” Shiloh wanted to be able to call the girl by name when she met with Terry about her.

                                “Kira.”

                                “Thank you, Kira, I talked to our doctor and he’s going to give you a once over later today after you rest.” Just then Michael entered the room juggling three large plates over filled with food. Kira scooted back into the couch and curled her legs up, cowering. She was scared of men, the implications of it make Shiloh growl low in her throat and Fayrah was raging in her mind. Michael slowed his approach and carefully set the food on the coffee table, pulling canned sodas from the pockets of his pants, and setting them down as well. He backed away slowly smiling softly at Kira who was now staring at the food eyes big and ravenous. Shiloh was as hungry as Kira looked and Bex probably was too. “Michael you should get out of here before you see how girls really eat.” Shiloh and Bex laughed as Michael feigned terror and fled the room.

                                Kira visibly loosened up as the girl’s inhaled food in a very unladylike manner together. Shiloh explained to her that if she is permitted to stay with the pack an appropriate story about where she came from would be constructed. She told her how the activities of herself and her group had to be kept quiet. Kira agreed, said she understood, mostly around half chewed food in her mouth. Full and exhausted the three girls curled up like cats and slept, Kira on the couch, Bex and Shiloh in the floor.