The Beauty and the Biker Alpha

Chapter 8: Irate in the Infirmary

Chapter 8: Irate in the Infirmary

Calla

The last thing I remembered was the worried look on Callum’s face as he hovered over me. I wanted to reassure him but I could hardly speak. My mouth wouldn’t form the words. My mind drifted. I closed my weary eyes. It felt as though I was sinking into a deep dark ocean, and yet I didn’t feel afraid. I felt at peace.

I woke up and sat straight up so quickly that I startled a nurse who had been charting my vitals. She stumbled backwards and almost dropped her clipboard. Why was I in the hospital? Did I get shot? I remembered hearing gunshots earlier that day, assuming that it was still the same day. Had my birthday ended on such a sour note?

I looked around for my phone. I was wearing a pale blue and white checkered print hospital gown. It was one of those gowns that revealed your whole backside when you stood up because of the loosely tied bows preserving your modesty.

I began looking around for my clothes. The serene feeling I had experienced earlier was long gone. I was beginning to panic in these unfamiliar surroundings. It didn’t help that the nurse’s eyes had turned pitch black all of a sudden. Perhaps visual hallucinations were a side effect of the medication, I rationalized. I had been seeing eyes that blazed back for a while now. The strange phenomenon had begun ever since I had started working at the diner, so it couldn’t be a side effect from the medicine. Had I been hallucinating all this time? I had grown up with an uncle who had auditory hallucinations. He would hear voices telling him to do unsettling things. Was it genetic?

I was hooked up to a bag of saline. I peered at the bag, trying to decode the handwritten word on the bag. I dared not speak to the black-eyed nurse, but I had to know what was going on with me. I waited until I found the nerve.

“The word on the bag. Is that the stuff you added into the drips?” I asked hesitantly, pointing to the abysmal handwriting.

“Why, yes, dear,” said the nurse, a tranquil smile appearing on her face.

Her smile brought me no warmth. The smile didn’t quite reach the cold back orbs. I thought. I lowered my gaze immediately, avoiding those pitch black irises. My breathing became shallow, and my heart sped up a little. I could hear the cardiac monitor beeping faster to match my rising pulse. I needed to calm down. I chanced a glance at her face. The black eyes were already gone, leaving a warm brown in its place. Maybe it was a trick of the light. I noticed a Snellen Chart on the wall in front of me. Perhaps I needed to get my vision checked.

“Um, where am I?” I asked the nurse, watching her scribble something on my chart.

“You’re in Bay Moon Pack Infirmary,” she said politely.

“Did you say pack? What does that mean? Is the town or whatever called Bay Moon Pack?” I asked, trying to clarify.

“No, the name of this territory is Bay Moon,” she said.

Territory? There she went again with the strange terminology. I was frustrated by the lack of transparency, but what could I do? I couldn’t force her to talk. I didn’t want to monopolize her time if she had other patients to look after. I looked around. I seemed to be the only patient in this room. All the other beds lining the room were empty.

Flashes of what had happened earlier came back to me. The bikers on their motorcycles, Alpha Callum, the rival biker gang, the shootout, the kidnapping. I gasped. The sudden sharp intake of breath made the nurse jump again. She was easily spooked for a nurse. My grandmother was a nurse and that woman was fearless.

“Sailor!” I exclaimed.

They had taken Sailor and I had been powerless to stop them. My stomach felt like it was twisting into knots.

“I need to speak to Alpha Callum or Nick,” I said. “We need to call the police and file a report. My friend was kidnapped right in front of me,” I explained.

She stopped me with a raised palm.

“The police have already been notified,” she said.

“And they didn’t want to interview me?” I said.

Shouldn’t they be questioning all the witnesses?

“We should organize a search party!” I said, standing up at the side of my bed.

The nurse looked at me doubtfully. I could tell she was scrutinizing me, her eyes lingering on my messy hair and my hospital gown which was askew. I straightened the gown and smoothed my hair with my hands.

“I suggest you lie down,” she said coldly.

I sat gingerly on the bed, ready to get up at any moment.

“Do you know where my phone is?” I asked, feeling a bit annoyed.

I knew this woman didn’t like me. My intuition was strong, so I trusted it. I was usually right about these things.

“How should I know?” she replied.

“I fainted in a waitress uniform with my cellphone and woke up in a hospital gown without my cellphone. You’re the nurse. Who else is supposed to know?” I said through gritted teeth.

She refused to answer. I was seething. She went back to the desk at the other end of the room.

“Where are my clothes?” I yelled, overestimating how far away she was.

She winced in annoyance as though I had screeched at the top of my lungs.

“They’ve been sent to the laundry department,” she said, as though I was supposed to be aware of this.

“What’s your name, Nurse?” I asked.

I needed to know who to never ask for if I ever visited this hospital again. Silence. That was it. I wasn’t staying here. If I signed myself out, they would have to give me back my stuff. I detached the IV line and then removed the IV cannula. I pulled off all those circular electrode stickers from my person quickly. I wrapped the ties of my hospital gown around my waist multiple times, knotting them, so I didn't give anyone a peep show. I realized I had no shoes. Ugh. Gross. I hated being barefoot in a strange place. It was a hospital though, so it should be clean enough at least and sterile at best. I marched past the nurse’s desk. She was on the phone. A land line. I caught a snippet of her conversation.

“She’s no Hortencia, that’s for sure. She’s totally wrong for this. She’s not Luna yet,” she muttered into the receiver.

What the hell was she talking about? I glanced at the name badge pinned to the lapel of her uniform. Nurse Twitch. Nurse b***h was more like it.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She exclaimed in shock.

She had been so preoccupied on the phone, she hadn’t noticed me until I was almost out the door.

“Wherever my phone is,” I muttered as I pushed the double doors open with both palms.

I entered a hallway. I could hear her calling after me. I picked a direction and went that way. I turned a corner sharply and walked right into what felt like a wall at first. Callum. I had collided with his chest. He towered over me. The top of my head barely grazed the crook of his chin. No wonder I had mistaken him for a wall.

“Why are you out of bed?” he asked, looking alarmed.

“I need to know what’s going on! I want my clothes and my phone!” I demanded.

I was no one’s captive. I was a free woman. I could leave whenever I wanted.

“Your clothes were covered in desert sand. They’re being laundered. I left your phone with the nurse,” he said.

I saw red. That lying conniving…

I let out a cry of frustration, turned on my heel and began marching back to that infirmary. Callum seemed amused. He effortlessly kept pace with me with his longer stride. I entered the infirmary and my heart sank. No one was there. I pressed my lips together tightly to stop myself from screaming. Today had just been…too much to handle. I began searching the desk area for my phone.

“What do you think you are doing?” Came the nurse’s voice.

She had popped her head out of the adjacent room to see what was going on. The door behind the desk just said ‘office’.

“He says he left my phone with you,” I said.

“Who said that?” She asked incredulously.

She stepped out of the office, placing her hands on her hips.

“You can’t go rifling through my desk,” she said.

“I won’t have to if you give me my phone,” I said, in disbelief of how stupid this all was.

“I don’t know where your phone is!” she insisted.

She took a step closer to me and froze. Callum was huge but he was so stealthy. His footsteps made practically no sound. She hadn’t noticed him standing a few feet behind me, leaning against the wall with his face cast in shadow.

“Are you calling me a liar, Nurse Twitch?” he said, his voice silky smooth and serene, but there was an underlying tension to it.

His authority was not to be challenged. Nurse Twitch literally gulped.

“I didn’t see you there, Alpha,” she said apologetically.

She took my phone out of her pocket and handed it to me. I snatched it from her. I wasn’t usually this rude or combative. Today was just not my day. Of course, the phone's battery was dead.

“I didn’t want to risk it being misplaced,” she said, trying to talk her way out of the blatant lie she was just caught in. “She was hysterical, Alpha,” she whispered, as though I wasn’t standing right there between the two of them. I glanced back at Callum, still standing there smirking whilst shrouded in darkness.

I sighed exasperatedly as I exited the hospital room.

I felt a sharp pain in my neck. My hand flew up to the spot instinctively. My fingers traced the outline. There was a new mark on my neck with raised edges situated just under my triangular birthmark.

“Something stung me or bit me,” I said to Callum, who was walking beside me.

His smirk disappeared instantly, replaced by a look of worry.

“Does it look that bad?” I asked, extending my neck and moving my hair out of the way so he could see it better.

I had thought his grim expression was due to the severity of the bite, but it didn’t feel that deep or large.

“It looks almost fully healed,” he said, sounding like he was choosing his words very carefully.

“What do you think did this?” I wondered.

He was silent. I stopped walking to look up at him.

"The dart, remember?" he said, his expression difficult to read.

I remembered the dart shot at my neck. How had I forgotten that? Whatever was on that dart had messed with my memory.

"I have a puncture mark from the dart, but this is something else. It feels like a bite mark," I insisted.

He was silent again. My intuition told me that Callum was hiding something, but what?