Longing For A Luna

Chapter 4: Turning Point II of II

The shock of realizing Ben had just attacked both Fletcher and Brooks stopped my screams, which then turned into body wracking sobs.

Ben and Adam stood face to face, so close their noses almost touched, staring each other down with clenched fists by their sides. The look on Ben’s face was murderous, and I was suddenly afraid for him.

“Ben,” I tried my best to warn him, despite my mouth being wrecked, “Ben, don’t.”

His face flinched slightly, but he continued staring at Adam.

Brooks stood up, swaying and holding his right shoulder, which had been dislocated. He tapped Adam’s shoulder with his good arm and started pulling him away. Fletcher limped over and did the same.

The principal came running up, out of breath. Adam looked over at him and backed away from Ben. Adam glanced at Ben one more time before running away with the other two toward the back of the school, ignoring the teachers’ demands to stop.

Ben knelt down beside me, along with Coach Lee, who had brought towels from the gym.

Coach carefully moved my hands away from my face and pressed a towel against my mouth. I whimpered, and he apologized in a gentle voice, saying he was trying to get the bleeding to stop.

“Fred, I’m gonna help you stand up now, okay?” Ben said, his voice so calm despite the anger still on his face.

I stood up slowly, holding the towel that Coach had given me. I wobbled slightly as the weight of my backpack sent me off balance at first. Ben took my bag and put it on his shoulder. He bent down and scooped me up to carry me out of the school.

“Young man, where are you going? We have to call her parents,” the principal demanded.

“I’m taking her to the hospital. It’ll take too long for her dad to get here,” Ben shot back.

He put me in the front passenger seat and buckled me in. The car was quiet except for my occasional sniffling. I’d run out of tears already, my shirt soaked with them along with blood.

We pulled into the hospital parking lot. The Alpha’s car was there; Mr. Andrews must have called him right after we left. I started to tremble, frightened at the thought that Adam and his friends were with him.

Ben helped me out of the car. I started to protest when he picked me up again, but he ignored me. He walked past Alpha Samuel and into the emergency room entrance without so much as a glance in his direction.

“Danielle, your father couldn’t come, so I’m here as your medical guardian,” Alpha Samuel said, following us in.

I looked at Ben, nervous at hearing that. My dad most likely wouldn’t have been able to make it because by this time of the day; he was usually on his way to being too drunk to function or passed out. But this had happened too quickly. There hadn’t been enough time to let my dad know and figure out that one of the pack leaders would need to sign off on my care since I was still 17. I started to shake with fear, assuming that Alpha Samuel had come to clean up after Adam and his friends, and that we were in danger.

Ben turned to Alpha Samuel and spoke in a very low, even voice, “I am staying with her the entire time.”

Alpha Samuel pursed his lips and nodded before stepping over to the front desk to check me in. There were doctors and nurses on staff dedicated solely to the care of pack members. We were ushered to a room quickly. After one look, the doctor ended up calling for a plastic surgeon to come to the ER and stitch me up.

Alpha Samuel stood in the hallway outside the room, only speaking to the doctors and nurses when it was time to sign the paperwork. Ben stayed true to his word, keeping by my side the whole time. When one of the nurses told him to leave so they could get me out of my blood-soaked shirt and into a hospital gown, he refused and simply turned around until they were done.

It was all excruciatingly painful. Even after they sedated me and used a local anesthesia, I could still feel so much of what they were doing. Not only had it torn through my lip, but the gash extended almost an inch past my lip line. The doctor said that part probably happened when I screamed; the movement had pulled at the edges of the wound, deepening it. When they discharged me, they gave me a bottle of pain meds and a card with information about a follow-up appointment with one of the doctors.

Ben carried me to his car and got me settled in.

“Don’t go anywhere, Fred,” he said while winking cheekily, “I’ll be right back.”

Fighting sleep from the meds they’d given me, I watched with half-lidded eyes as Ben marched over to Alpha Samuel. They spoke for quite a while, but they were too far away for me to hear. Ben occasionally grew agitated and made wild hand gestures, while the Alpha remained stoic, his face unreadable. Finally Ben turned away, shaking his head as walked back to the car.

“Alright Fred,” he said after starting the car, “I texted my mom and she said you’re staying with us for a while and she’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Alpha is going to talk with your dad about it.”

Unable to say anything coherent, I gave a thumbs up.

“I hate this f*****g pack,” he said, then started to put the car in gear and paused to look at me. “When we leave for college, we’re not coming back.”

That earned another thumbs up.

-

The teachers at school, both pack members and humans, finally stood up to the powers that be and demanded the bullying and harassment be dealt with instead of swept under the rug this time. Adam, Brooks, and Fletcher still only got the equivalent of a slap on the hand. They had to write letters of apology to me, which I simply threw away, and supposedly had to clean the pack house for a few months as punishment for the “unfortunate incident” that had occurred.

We were like ghosts those last eight weeks of school. All the other werewolves at school ignored us, most likely because they were ordered to by Alpha Samuel. The human students did the same; they had no idea what was going on, but had picked up on the tension surrounding Ben and me. Neither of us attended the graduation ceremony and decided to have a game night with some online friends instead. I doubted anyone from the school missed us.

That day did more than scar my face. I felt violated and fearful all of the time. It would take a couple of years before I stopped flinching every time someone laughed loudly or moved quickly in my vicinity. Thankfully, our new pack, Blue Moon, provided therapy in addition to the continued medical care needed for my healing.

Leaving Crescent Lake turned out to be the best decision for both of us. My 18th birthday was five days before I moved into the dorm. Ben had already come of age months before, but waited to sever his connection to the pack when I did. We started the paperwork to transfer to Blue Moon the day after that incident and submitted it the day we left.

We never went back.