Shattered Soul

Chapter 6: Preperations

Kade

She had cried for almost an hour before her breathing steadied in soft, slow breaths. Wade arrived not long after with her food. I could tell he had to go back to the house to have it cooked. Nothing was open right now in town with it being so late. I quickly put my finger to my lips as he walked in and motioned to the bed. His eyes flickered to the sleeping form before he nodded in understanding.

I stood up, anger barely controlled as I briskly walked past him to the door.

“Need to see the Doc. Stay with her in the room.” I ordered. Wade lifted a brow at my tone and I paused briefly to only throw in another command.

“Do not lay a hand on her,” I warned. “For any reason. She tries to escape, you simply block the door but I don’t want you laying a finger on her.” I nearly growled. Wade’s brows pulled down in the center as he reached out and grabbed my arm. I glanced at him as he raised an eyebrow.

“She’s been through a lot and I didn’t even hear a fraction of it before she bottled up again. I don’t want her to fear any more men.” I explained. Wade looked over at the sleeping form on the bed.

“It’s that bad?” He whispered, trying to be silent for her sake. I shook my head at him.

“It’s worse,” I muttered.

"Then, what is Krissy and Nadia going through?" He whispered. I could see the pain in his eyes as he released my arm. I shook my head, not wanting to think about that before turning and leaving the room. I knew where Doc would be and quickly wove my way through the halls and to his office. I knocked quickly before walking in without waiting for a response. Doc was there sitting at his desk and filling out paperwork as he looked up at me.

“Kade. Have a seat.” He said with a smile as he motioned toward the chair across from him. He dropped his pen and slid his paperwork over.

“I want a full run down on her medical report,” I ordered. Doc nodded.

“Of course.” He opened a drawer on his left and flipped through a few files before pulling one out. He handed me the files as he began talking.

“I’m not overly concerned about her physically. Well, I am with the cause of the physical damage. She has multiple contusions, broken bones, and lacerations across most of her body but she should make a full recovery in about a month, maybe a month and a half.” I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Over a month?” I looked down at her injuries. Sure, a couple of broken bones, some deep cuts that we were sure were claw marks, but mostly superficial injuries for a wolf.

“These aren’t severe enough to take weeks,” I noted. Doc nodded in agreement with me and leaned forward to tap one of the papers.

“It’s not but here-” He tapped the blood tests he had ordered. “Is what is slowing her healing down to a near crawl for us. Still, much better than a human’s, I would guess about half the time, and all her injuries will be healed in a little less than that except for that broken wrist, but her weight and nutrients will make it take just a little longer too.”

“What are you concerned about then?” I asked.

“The silver in her blood and her mental state.” He admitted. “I’ve had abuse cases here before. None as bad though. The wounds she suffered, if she were human, should have killed her years ago. The silver prevented her old wounds from healing as flawlessly as they should have so she still has traces of old breaks, concussions, and scarring from some fairly bad attacks.”

“Tell me,” I ordered as I looked back at her blood reports.

“Well, she’s had many broken bones. Most seem to have been around her mid-section and surrounding her lower ribs. I’m guessing they were aimed at her kidneys. There are multiple old spiral fractures from having her arms twisted which are quite common in abuse, especially of children. Each leg has been broken at least once, she’s had her nose broken a few times, her left cheek, and left collar bone. I’m actually surprised she survived at all, wolf or not.” All the left side. So, a right-handed attacker? That doesn't exactly narrow it down as it's common to be right-handed.

“What about the silver?” I asked setting the files down.

“That,” Doc muttered. “There’s a lot concerning that.” He paused.

“The amount of silver in her blood is a toxic level. And I mean toxic as in another wolf even ingesting her blood will die, though she’s functioning normally and is even retaining some of her wolf abilities. Her healing is still better than a human’s, only just, and her senses seem sharper than a normal human. She could smell the wolf on me when she first saw me, which is what probably caused that episode in the Emergency Room. Also, her strength. It’s nowhere near where it should be, but I would compare her current level to that of a fit young human male, not an emaciated and wounded human female. At full strength, I would guess she would be the peak physical levels of a human male.” I leaned back in my chair. That shouldn’t be possible. Silver suppresses all of our wolf abilities and at the dosages listed on that report, if not dead she should be one hundred percent human. Hell, at the levels I'm reading I would be dead.

“How is that possible?” I asked. Doc leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin with his free hand. His silver wedding band glinted slightly in the light.

“Well, if I had to guess, a long period of time of being exposed to it in slowly increasing levels. Enough to build up a tolerance to it. Almost like how an alcoholic can consume increasingly high levels and still function.”

“How long would something like that take?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen it like this before.”

“Take a guess,” I asked. Doc leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful look for a long moment.

“For the levels to be this high,” He started out slowly as if weighing each word. “I’m guessing before her Awakening.” I shook my head. A child’s Awakening is when the body is finally mature enough to handle its first shift. It happens a few years before puberty for wolves where the hormones help to finalize the stability of a child’s wolf half. This was sometime around the ages of ten to twelve. Sometimes as early as eight for females. Before this, wolves have no scent. They smell like any other human child. Scientists believe this mutation occurred to protect our young thousands of years ago, when Werewolves weren’t myths to humans and were actively hunted. Back when the moon controlled our shifts, and when not full, we were vulnerable to those weaker than us.

“That would mean they knew she was a wolf when they took her.” Doc nodded.

“I’m guessing some of her injuries are that old too. It’s hard to judge with her strange in-between healing, but I would say one of the spiral fractures in her arm was before the growth plate fully fused in the elbow, making the occurrence of the injury around the age of ten if it was before her Awakening.” I watched the Doc carefully as I slowly said my next words.

“Possibly she was taken with a parent."

"I'm guessing her mother," Doc said as he landed behind his desk and pullout out a very beaten-up sling bag. I opened it, finding a decent wad of cash, clothes, food, and a photo of a woman around her mid-thirties. The picture was carefully placed in a plastic baggie, so the dirty blonde woman with the same strange amber eyes was smiling at the camera. She was in a long pale blue dress and holding a wide-brimmed hat on her head from the wind blowing her dress and hair around. I looked up at Doc.

“The only way this makes sense is if someone caring for her was the abuser, was kidnapped too, or she was willing to give to them. But looking at how carefully she cared for this picture, I'm guess not her mother. Unless they knew her parents before taking her.” I mused.

“Anything is possible at this point." Doc agreed.

"I do know that her father died in the Southern Wars, and her mother had died when she was little.”

“She opened up to you?”

“A very little.” Doc nodded as I carefully placed everything back in her bag. I'll have Wade drive it back and ask my sister Harley to go shopping. Maybe even get a frame for this picture.

“It’ll take time. Possibly years for her to be able to face all of this.” I flinched. Coward. She had to live it and will for the rest of her life, and you can’t handle hearing about it for a few minutes.

“If she was being dosed before she shifted, could that be why it’s not harming her?” Doc shook his head.

“No, it will still harm werewolf children, but years ago, before you and your siblings, we used to give it to kids in low doses to help stall the shift in children that were physically still too small for the shift. It would buy them a few extra months or even a year until they were eased off the silver and could shift.”

“What do you mean, eased off?”

“You couldn’t just stop it cold turkey. The sudden influx in hormones caused the shift to be nearly instantaneous, extremely painful, and in cases where it was used for more than six months, caused death from shock during the shift.” I looked up at the Doc as my jaw dropped.

“It killed…how many?” Doc looked down at his desk as shame ran across his features.

“I didn’t condone using it longer than a month but in other packs, they wiped out entire generations.” I gritted my teeth.

“Fuck.” I muttered. He nodded but I looked up as another clue to the identity of Riley’s capture clicked into place.

“When did we stop using silver on kids?”

“Late seventies was when it was ordered by the National Council but some packs still used it until mid-eighties.” I nodded. He’d had to have been old enough to remember this, either because it was used on him, or saw it used on those younger.

“My biggest concern is the side effects being on silver this long will have on her body.” Doc continued, breaking me from my thoughts.

“Like what?”

“Well, she’s never shifted before and she’s…” He paused.

“Twenty-three,” I told him. He raised his eyebrows but continued.

“She will have many issues. First of all, we need to keep dosing her in near toxic levels and slowly decrease the dosage over the course of weeks, maybe even months. We will have to watch her closely and if we see any signs of sickness, fatigue, or seizures, we need to increase the dose again until she levels off. When she’s off the silver, though there is no guarantee she will ever be able to shift. We have evolved to shift just before puberty because the influx in hormones helps to stabilize our shifts, keeping our minds and bodies intact and allowing the body to grow the proper muscle mass to handle a shift and the strength needed to do so. Plus, for a female, they cannot go into heat until they shift and their reproductive system is paused when on silver. She could be sterile or may need to take silver for the rest of her life if her wolf is…unstable. If not she may need to be put down. Kade, without a pack, this makes her vulnerable. A wolf without claws is an easy target.” I shook my head, trying to take all this in. This girl was so f****d. Years of captivity took away years of her life, her pack, and her family. Now she might lose her wolf, the possibility of children, or even her life. This wasn’t fair. I looked up at Doc and he began to smile, already knowing what I was thinking.

“Well, the pack issue isn’t that hard of a solve. She can join us if she chooses.”

“That’s what I thought you would say.” Doc’s grin got wider.

“The rest is more difficult. For now, we will keep dosing her and we take the next steps when we get there.” Doc nodded.

“I don’t think she’ll be too keen on the idea of being dosed still, especially when I don’t think she even knows she was. This could cause irreparable damage to an already fragile mental state. This could even be the last straw and push her to more extreme measures.” Doc said with concern etched all over his face. I nodded in agreement. And it raises more questions. Did she know she was being dosed? What does she think of not having claws? I looked up at the Doc, thinking about my decision for a moment before agreeing that it was the best course of action for her and for those missing girls.

“Don’t tell her about the silver yet.” Doc raised an eyebrow at me.

“Sir?” I lifted a hand to tell him to wait before saying anything else.

“She’s been with them for a long time. She said since she was seven. She’s very cautious around others, especially men. I don’t want her feeling like she’s at our mercy. I’ll tell her about the silver when she’s relaxed a little bit. Maybe we can help her mentally enough that hearing she may never get her wolf or have kids won't completely destroy her. Until then, tell her whatever you need to so you can keep dosing her. Understand?” Doc frowned at me.

“Kade, are you sure? This could cost us her trust if she finds out.”

“Which she won’t until she’s ready because only you and me will know.” Doc sighed. “Look, we can’t lose her. She’s hesitant to stay. You know if she runs off she will get caught again and if she was held by the ones taking the other women then she’s the key to finding them. As of now, she thinks that everyone else thinks she can shift, and it makes her more comfortable. If she knew that not only we figured out she can’t and was still preventing that, it might be too much for right now. I will tell her, but when she feels safer.” Doc frowned. I know this conflicted with his oath as a Doctor.

“I will be there every time you dose her and I will explain if necessary, but if we tell her and she fights us we could lose our only clue to finding the others. We need to keep her with us and alive at all costs until she can at least lead us to another clue.” Doc’s face fell and he looked at her paperwork and then, after a moment in deep thought, sighed.

“You’re right. If she denies the silver, she could die and in her current mental state, she might just take the risk and see it as a win-win. I’ll do it. But for the record Kade, this goes against my oath.”

"I understand Doc, but this is for the good of the pack."