RULE 24: IMMEDIATELY REPORT ANY SIGN OF OUTSIDE MATERIALS LIKE BOOKS, MAGAZINES, OR FOOD. THEY ARE POISON TO THE MIND AND BODY.
✷ C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N ✷
A week had passed before I was able to haphazardly move my body around without collapsing into a heap on the floor. Mina said she was happy with the progress, but she remarked often that I healed so slowly. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I was Mina's first human patient.
Scratch that, it goes beyond: I was actually the first human patient to ever be treated here. Mina asked if she could poke and prod around my body to see exactly how things worked. I had wanted to say no, but watching TV caused eye strain, and I had nothing else to entertain me, so I hesitantly obliged.
It wasn't the worse deal to have. Well, not completely. Throughout the past week, I had learned a little bit about the Outside world. I had tried to bring up the topic of witches, but Mina had scrunched her nose up and shook her head at the mention. She remarked that she was not very fond of them after her last girlfriend was entangled with one.
"Why do you ask?" Mina questioned me just as she got done explaining her mishap situation with a witch.
"Oh, I just thought maybe a witch could, you know, heal me completely? I don't know, is that something they can do?" I thought up very quickly; the lie slipped out of my mouth almost as if it was second nature.
It's not a lie, exactly; it's just a means to survival, I reassured myself.
"You've seen those ads?" she grumbled. "I've been trying to petition Theo to have him do something — no anything — about those damn ads. The one on Fifth is the worst. The audacity, some witches think they can take advantage of innocent people by posting ads about all this magic they can do. It's all usually lies, by the way. Most witches don't even know how to light a candle without a match at the ready. Ridiculous. Another reason to stay away."
Mina then went on a tangent about how supernaturals these days relied too heavily on their abilities instead of trusting cold hard facts like trusting magic over medicine. She was so heated up about it that I almost witnessed her shift right in front of me.
Meanwhile, I had approximated I had spent about a week and a half recovering so far from the car crash. I had come to this realization last night when I woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare. I had less than three months to find a witch, and I knew absolutely nothing about anything. Not that I could do much more than bask in my own misery, but that just piled onto the misery. It was a never-ending cycle.
On the bright side, the cut on my forehead had scabbed over and the bruise flowering over it was gone. My ribs and chest still hurt more than I would have liked to admit, but by now, I was able to better manage the pain. My broken wrist was wrapped up in a blue cast. At least, my sprained leg barely hurt at all; I often forgot that there was anything wrong with it at all. With all this progress, I was slowly being weaned off my pain medicine, and I no longer had to be hooked up to any machines.
My body was healing itself, and it was getting easier to think clearly despite the ongoing concussion I still had. In light of my good progress, I had tried to convince Mina to let me leave the room so I could scope things out, but she said she was on strict orders to not let me wander. Of course, I did not hear about these orders firsthand as that would have required Theo to visit me. Ever since that night he helped me to the bathroom, he had not made an appearance.
I knew I shouldn't have been upset about it; he was a beast, an abomination, but the feeling of being left alone made a pit grow in my stomach. However, I couldn't decide if the pit was forming because I knew I would get no closer to finding a witch this way or if it was for another reason.
"Congratulations, Sage!" Mina busted into the room, her dress flowing behind her. "You are spreading your wings and flying out of here. Smile!"
She pulled out something from behind her back and a flash went off, blinding my eyes. Instantly, I knew she had taken a picture of me. There were some cameras in the Borderlands, but the ordinary Borderlander would not be able to afford one. I had never had my picture taken before, not that I was eager to see the results of said picture.
"Oof looks like you had your eyes closed. Oh well, I can just add some googly eyes to it later when I get it printed. Don't look at me like that — I like to keep a log of all my patients," she reasoned as she put the camera in her dress pocket.
"Where am I flying off to?" I asked, twiddling my thumbs.
"Your new room. Alpha's orders with my approval, of course," she smiled widely.
"I'm going to get to leave this room finally?" I almost leaped off the bed. While my body was still an achy mess, part of the aches I was now experiencing sprouted from my isolation in this room. There was not enough space in here to walk around, and it was hard to see out the window with the bars invading the view. The TV had been entertaining at first, but most of the shows did not make a lot of sense to me, so I ended up just watching a shopping channel most of the time. In an attempt to turn the TV off, I had accidentally flipped the TV to a murder mystery channel; it did not take long for me to swear off TV entirely from the gruesome experience.
"Don't get too excited," her tone changed nervously. "As I said, it was Alpha's orders, so he is having you moved to the Alpha Wing—"
"—That sounds a bit pretentious."
Mina stifled her laughter, "you will have to take that up with Theo's father, then, our Alpha Sr. He's the one who built and named it. The Alpha Wing is just part of our packhouse that can accommodate the Alpha and his most esteemed guests like other visiting Alphas. It is secluded from the rest of the house and is pretty self-sufficient. I would say pack your things, but you don't seem to have any."
Mina then escorted me out of the room. This time, however, when we left the room a guard-like person was standing outside. I was right; Theo had put a spy on me.
"This is Max. Say hi, Max," Mina greeted him with a wave. He did not wave back. Mina rolled her eyes, as all Max did was let out a grunt instead of introducing himself.
He was still dressed in the outfit I had been catching glimpses of for the past week. Not that I could be one to judge on that front. For almost a week a half, I had been in the same gown, up until a day ago when a couple outfits were delivered to my room. They were all jeans and a basic t-shirt. Mina had reassured me that once I healed more, I would be able to wear something that wasn't so bland.
As Mina guided us out of the healing wing, Max followed along behind us. It seemed like Mina lead us in winding ways. There was no way I would know how to get myself back to where we had just left; it was making my head dizzy from the sheer size of the supposed house we were in. It all seemed a bit too much.
"Here we are," Mina stopped in her tracks in front of a big, intricately carved door. She pulled out a key and unlocked the door. She ushered me through the entryway. Max did not follow us through. Instead, he stayed outside the door with his hands stiffly placed at his sides. "This is the Alpha Wing. To the left are the bedrooms. This is the — I guess you could call it the oversized living room. To the right are some rooms for entertainment — wait, that sounds gross — but there is a library and movie room amongst others. Just straight ahead is the Alpha's room."
"Theo's room?" I started to feel unsettled.
"It was, not anymore, though. He has his own estate just north of the packhouse," we walked to the left side of the living room, towards the bedrooms.
From the living room, a hallway branched off with several doors. Mina opened the first one, and we walked in. The room was triple the size of the room I had been sleeping in for the past week a half. The carpet was a plush grey color and many windows lined the back wall, leaving just enough of a gap for a king-size bed to fit.
The bed was centered in the room with two white nightstands on each side. Across from the bed was a desk, with a dresser to the side. A TV rested on the wooden dresser, a remote laying next to it.
"Well, I'll leave you to get settled. There should be some clothes in the closet, and I believe someone stocked your bathroom with everything you should need including your pain meds. It looks like my tour guide duties are settled here. You can explore around the Alpha Wing as you please," before I could say anything else, Mina had left the room and I was left all alone.
Instinctively, I walked over to the windows and peered out, surprised no bars were securing them. The view was similar to the first room I stayed in (the room I smashed through the window in). For a short period, I thought about jumping out the window, but I didn't think my body would survive this high of a fall, and it would not help my situation.
I flopped onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. I was back in the Outside yet again, but I was trapped inside and secluded from really experiencing the Outside for what it could offer. Sighing, I rolled onto my side. I shook my head, trying not to think of home and life before my birthday mishap.
Getting up, I wandered out to the living room. It held a large L-shaped couch and several long meeting tables behind the couch. I had guessed that this room did not see much living with all the dust collected everywhere. Curious, though, I made my way over to the right side of the wing.
Again, there was a hallway with several different doors. I peeped through all of them. There was indeed a library, a room with a giant screen, a room with a lot of different technical equipment, and a room with a bar. After having looked at each, I took a step into the library.
All four walls were covered in floor-to-wall bookshelves, each one filled to the brim with books. There were several wooden tables in the middle of the room and a giant desk to the right. I flipped on the lights and started looking at the different titles, not that they would mean much to me yet.
My eyes were searching, looking over many different novels. Some with cheesy titles and others with titles so long I thought the title alone needed its own book just to fit it all. One book caught my attention: a book about mates.
I picked up the book, my heart thundering in my chest. Why was I so nervous? It wouldn't change anything. It couldn't change anything. It couldn't change my mind. Why was I getting so worked up over a book?
Lost in my thought, I almost didn't hear a rustling near the lone desk in the room. Gulping, I asked, "who's there?"
Someone cleared their throat. "I must ask: why did you decide to come back?"