Pack Mentality: Wild at Heart

Chapter 5

She could hear almost everything. That was the weird part. Becky heard Seth call his mom and ask if she could take care of Darrell for a few days. She heard Isabelle—a witch apparently—whisking together what looked like pearly pink shampoo and lime green shards of crystal. She heard blood oozing out of her neck, which was the strangest of all, because she couldn't feel it. Nor could she feel when Isabelle smoothed something that looked like vanilla custard over her ravaged thigh and had Seth lower Becky into the tub. "Ten minutes," Isabelle ordered, helping Becky sit against the end of the tub.

Becky was in no state to protest, so she sat and soaked, breathing in the thick steam. Gradually her body started to tingle from shoulders to shins. I feel purple, Becky thought idly. Purple as a bruise. Purple as a grape about to burst between her teeth. Ripe and rotten all at once.

She thought she had barely blinked her eyes, but then Seth was helping her out of the tub, sitting her on the edge of their bed to dry her off. At some point, her arms must have moved, because Becky felt a shirt settle over her shoulders. "Where'd my leg go?" she asked, staring down at her thighs. One looked half the size of the other.

"It's going to be okay." Isabelle smoothed a long piece of damp cloth over the bite wound and then wrapped a length of green silk around it. "Nelson and Lorenzo called. They're on their way to the plane, so we should get going. Seth, do you have all your matters settled?"

Seth nodded. "I've called my mom and Marek. Mom's coming to pick up Darrell, and he's waiting in the backyard. I... I have no idea what to do about the mess inside, though."

"If you trust Vida enough, she.... knows people who specialize in this sort of thing," Isabelle replied. "They can have everything cleaned up in a day. However, she may want the scene preserved for a few days for evidence."

"Evidence?" The word felt slimy on Becky's lips and she rubbed her knuckles against her mouth.

"How much do you remember about the attack?" Isabelle asked, winding green silk around Becky's forearms as well.

Becky tried to focus as Seth slipped runners onto her feet and coaxed her to stand. "There was someone at the door. Hoodie, couldn't see their face. I thought maybe Seth had something delivered, so I answered it. Then...." Recalling the searing pain of being stabbed made Becky stumble, but Seth caught her easily. "Stabbing, pushing me inside. I fell." Once they were downstairs, she looked at all the patches of blood. Constellation of pain, she thought. Each puddle connected to the next with a flash of memory. "Then she changed—"

"So it was a woman?" Seth interrupted.

Why was that important? Becky wasn't sure. When Isabelle had been helping her in the kitchen, Becky had overheard Seth talking to some men in the living room, but their conversation had been in and out like the tides. "I think so? Long hair, breasts.... She didn't even say anything." Through all the surprise and pain, Becky remembered being confused about that. "She... roared—screamed, I guess—but she never said anything. At least not that I could understand." She shut her eyes for a moment. So tired. She hoped she would be able to sleep on the plane.

"Did you see her shift?" Isabelle asked.

Becky got the sense that there was more to the question than she knew, that something important hinged on her answer. "Yes. It... it wasn't beautiful the way Seth does it, though." Panic and tears flooded her all at once. "It was just fur and teeth and I tried to run, but my thigh—"

"Maybe we should wait until we're in San Francisco," Seth suggested, wrapping an arm around her waist. "So she doesn't have to keep telling it over and over." He steered her around a bigger puddle of blood towards the front door.

Shaking her head, Becky looked back at Isabelle. Getting the words out felt cathartic somehow; maybe if she shared the horrors, Seth and Isabelle could do the hard work of remembering and she could sink back into the numbness. "I kicked and punched and got to the kitchen. Knives. I think I got her...."

"You did." Seth hugged her close and kissed the top of her head. "That big spot there?" He pointed to one of the darker stains on the carpet. "That's mostly hers. Nelson and Lorenzo said you did a good job. It's going to help them track her."

Becky leaned against the wall for support as Seth put on his shoes. "But... why? Why did she attack me? I didn't do anything."

Seth grimaced as he straightened up and shouldered their weekend bag. "They.... they think she had a crush on me and was lashing out because I have a human girlfriend, but no one knows yet. When Isabelle's phone beeped, he glanced over at the witch as she checked the screen. "Is that them? Did they find her?"

Isabella nodded. "She's in custody." Her voice was curiously neutral. "They'll be taking her to Vida."

Reaching for Seth's arm again, Becky yawned. So, so tired. She hoped there were blankets on the plane. "Where are we going again?"

Seth and the witch exchanged a look over Becky's head. "To California," Seth replied after a moment. "Vida has connections with a hospital there, and they specialize in supernatural stuff."

Becky tapped her chest with an unsteady finger. "I'm not supernatural."

Another shared glance, another fraught silence. It wasn't until the three of them left the house and got in Seth's SUV that Isabelle spoke again. "It's a special hospital that deals with supernatural matters. If we took you to a regular hospital, they would probably assume you were attacked by a dog and just sew you up. You'll need different treatment than that—"

"Am I going to turn?" Becky was very happy that she was sitting down, because her whole world seemed to tilt, sliding just out of reach. "Am I a werewolf now?" Isabelle's kit was on the floor between them and it seemed to radiate cold. "Am I—Am I...?"

"Drive," Isabelle said softly, looking at Seth in the driver's seat. "She'll be okay." Then the witch leaned over and massaged Becky's temples. "You're fine, you're fine." Each affirmation seemed to be drilled into Becky's head by the witch's thumbs, working in slow, steady circles.

"But... am I?" It was the last thing Becky remembered say before she woke up on the plane, but just as before, she could hear everything—her slowing heartbeat, the witch's magic, but mostly Seth's worry, tripping through his heartbeats.