Warning: blood.
Werewolf blood. The very notion of it made Seth panic for so many reasons. He knew so few werewolves and he didn't want any of them to be in pain, but he also didn't particularly want them coming to his house—especially when Becky was there. He didn't want to endanger his neighbours or his family, but if a werewolf was in trouble, he could understand them following a familiar scent and assuming it meant safety.
There was more blood splattered in the grass and he did his best to follow the trail without being obvious, just in case his neighbours happened to be watching. As he got closer to the front door, he almost thought he recognized the particular scent, but then stopped dead in his tracks. There was another scent, and it was one he knew better almost than any other: Becky's. Pretending he dropped his phone, Seth crouched down to inhale more of the scent. The werewolf's scent was stronger, so he hoped that accounted for the majority of the blood, but there was still far too much of Becky's to ignore.
As he straightened up, Seth noticed small smears of blood around the door handle. It was nothing that his human neighbours would spot from the curb; they would have to be right on the front step to see it. He did his best not to touch it as he grabbed the door handle and pushed, meeting no resistance at all.
He was already angry at the audacity of this werewolf, a virtual stranger, coming to his house uninvited, potentially exposing his secret and posing a threat to any humans who might have been in his home, so he wasn't surprised when he saw red. When he realized it was blood, however, scattered pools of it, his gut sank. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear Darrell mewling in distress, but since he couldn't smell any feline blood, he knew his cat was fine.
The same could not be said for Becky. Seth dropped to his knees immediately, knocking aside an empty box as he hunkered down to smell the blood. Becky. It was almost all hers—and there was so much of it that it made his head spin. He stood and dropped the black device on his entry table as he followed the erratic trail of blood. "Becky?" he called out. "Where are you?"
"Ki—" It was little more than a letter followed by wet, sputtering coughs, but the blood trail filled in the blanks. While it veered a bit through the living room, it looked more like deliberate diversion—or a scuffle. He nearly slipped on the blood when he turned the corner into the kitchen, his foot stopping just short of Becky's knee.
Her limbs were splayed as erratically as her blood in the main room. One leg was crooked while the other was straight out; one hand was pressed to her midsection, covered in blood both dried and fresh, and the other was reaching fruitlessly for a knife from the toppled knife block beside her. "Becky." Seth fell to his knees again, now almost as covered in blood as she was. "What happened?" Her eyes fluttered, but the only sound that came out of her mouth was a moan.
When he slid a hand under her neck to check for injuries, Seth had part of his answer: ragged tooth marks lined her throat like brutal pearls, oozing over his fingertips. Her arms were covered in bite wounds too, as if she had fended off an attacking dog. Werewolf, he corrected himself. Had the werewolf already been injured and then spooked by Becky, lashing out purely out of self-defence? He didn't think so.
Seth's hands twitched as he kept checking her wounds. It was so much worse than when he had lost control and clawed her; there was barely a bit of exposed skin that wasn't bitten or bloodied, and he was pretty sure there was a large chunk of her thigh missing. Wiping his hands on his shorts, Seth grabbed his phone from his pocket and started to dial 911, but stopped after the first number. 911 was for humans, true, but no human doctor would know how to treat Becky's injuries. He frantically opened his contacts and scrolled to the very bottom, to a number he hadn't called in weeks. He jabbed at Vida's name but, just as when he had been outside, his phone refused to complete the action. "FUCK!" Seth leaned over and kissed Becky's smudged forehead. "My phone's not working. I'm going to try the landline. I'm so sorry. I'll be right back...."
What if I hadn't stayed late? Seth thought as he raced to the landline, grateful his mother had suggested keeping it for emergencies. Why didn't I come home with her? His blood-slicked fingers slid over the keys uselessly until he dried them on his shirt and painstakingly dialled Vida's number. "Please pick up, please pick up...." He couldn't even remember what time it was, let alone what time it would be in California.
"Hello?" Vida sounded polite, but wary.
"Vida, this is Seth. Colby. I—I need help," he stammered. "Can you...?"
"I can talk freely," Vida said briskly. "I apologize. I didn't recognize the number."
Seth swore softly. Of course she wouldn't: he had given her his cell phone number. "My cell wasn't working, so—"
"How recently?" Vida interrupted sharply. Seth thought he could hear a chair being pushed back. "In what way?"
"Why—nevermind. It's not important. Becky's been attacked," Seth blurted out. "She was at the house alone and I just got back and there's blood everywhere and she's covered in bite wounds—"
"You're in Davenport, correct?" Seth could hear a flurry of typing. "Isabelle is in Chicago. I just notified her and she'll be on her way in the company helicopter. I'll give you her information in a moment. First, did you notice any black boxes on your property?"
"Becky is dying!" Seth screamed. It was the first time his brain had formed the thought and it made him hunch over. Not now, he pleaded, feeling his wolf start to stir. Not now! After letting out a few frustrated sobs, he turned back to his phone. "Why are you asking me this shit when my girlfriend is bleeding out on the floor?" He was tempted to hang up and call 911, but he knew the only thing the human doctors would be able to do was stop the bleeding; they would have no idea how to treat the wounds, at least not properly. They would take one look at Becky and assume she had been attacked by a dog.
"Seth, I know I must sound horribly insensitive and I apologize. I'm doing everything I can to get help to Becky as quickly as possible." Vida let her words sink in before she continued. "But I also need to find out who hurt her and I have a good idea, but your answers will help. Did you see any black boxes on your property?"
"Yeah, a little walkie-talkie type thing, yeah." Seth grabbed it from the entry table, trying to focus on the sound of Becky's ragged breathing. He wanted to be in the kitchen comforting her, but then he wouldn't be able to talk with Vida. "I stepped on it in the grass and it was covered in blood, and that's how I first knew something was wrong."
"Okay." Vida's voice was as steady as an emergency operator's. "Does it have a lot of... antennae?"
Seth got the sense that she was simplifying the lingo for him, but he was too worried about Becky to be offended. "Yeah. No buttons that I can see."
"No. Find an antenna that has a blue circle around its base, and turn it clockwise until you hear a click," Vida instructed.
Seth did as he was told. "Now what?"
"Try your cell phone again. Text, call, anything."
Seth found the house emoji again and sent it to Becky. I'm home, he thought hopelessly, for all the good it did.
A second later, he heard a small ping and saw Becky's phone light up on the coffee table. "It works," he reported. "How—"
"Cell phone signal jammer," Vida explained. "We had one stolen from our office and I had suspicions, and this... well, it isn't concrete proof, but it makes me believe I'm on the right track."
"You mean you know—" All-consuming rage kept Seth from finishing the statement.
"I have a good idea," Vida said grimly, "but I've already got people working on it. Isabelle should be there in about twenty minutes. Now I'll hang up and call you back on your mobile so you can attend to Becky, okay?"
"Thank you. I—I didn't know what to do," Seth mumbled. Vida had been a member of a local pack that had approached him, asking if he would like to join. He had declined at the time, but now he was definitely having second thoughts. He wouldn't have had the first clue what to do if he hadn't had any pack contacts.
"Friends help each other, Seth," Vida said gently. "Even if you never want to join our pack, we will always help you if we can. Have your phone handy."
Seth barely even realized she had disconnected until his cell phone rang and the screen showed Vida. "Hi." He lurched back into the kitchen. Some small part of him had hoped that Becky would have magically healed in the time he was gone, but she was still in obvious agony. She had managed to straighten out her legs a bit, but otherwise she hadn't moved much. "Hey, Becks. I called Vida." He jabbed the speakerphone button, jacked up the volume, and propped the phone up against the wall. "Was it a werewolf?"
"Yes?" Becky croaked, eyes fluttering erratically. "Not... at first. Someone at door. Human. Knife?" The hand on her abdomen twitched a bit and Seth felt rage course through him. It was bad enough that Becky had been attacked and was fighting for her life, but to have a werewolf first incapacitate her with a knife was galling. "Then inside. Wolf."
Seth concentrated on clearing the area around her. Then he ran water in the sink and soaked all the cloths he could find so he could try to clean some of her wounds. "Did they say anything?" he asked. Had they come for him and she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or had she been the intended target all along? Any werewolf with a functioning nose would have been able to tell Seth wasn't at home, so maybe Becky had spooked the attacker.
Becky tried to nod. "Mentioned you." When she coughed, tears came to her eyes. "Something about... not deserving?" She raised a hand and tapped her forehead. "In and out. Not sure."
"Hello, Becky." Vida's voice was warm and reassuring. "I sent a witch named Isabelle to you. She'll be there soon, and she'll be able to help. Some werewolves will be with her too. Can you remember anything about the werewolf—as a human or a wolf? Fur colour, accent, anything?"
"Voice... American." A violent shudder tore through Becky's body and Seth pressed one of the cloths against the wound in her abdomen. "Fur... not sure. Too bloody. All teeth. So sharp...."
Seth grabbed one of the wet cloths with his free hand and wiped at Becky's face. The caked-on blood had hidden the worst of the wounds, but he had no clue how deep or serious anything was. "It's okay, Becky. You can answer questions later." If she gets a later, he thought dismally. Blood was still oozing out of her wounds, but he could hear her pulse slowing by the second.
"Shouldn't... door," Becky managed, grimacing. Her back kept arching off the floor each time a jolt of pain lanced through her.
"You're not at fault in any way, Becky," Vida assured her. "Seth, where is Becky right now?"
"In the kitchen." She fought back. Did she try to go for the knives? Pride warred with regret. It sounded like the attacker had brought a knife with them. Had Becky gone for one of her own or was it the werewolf who tried to take a knife from the fallen block? "Should I move her?"
"No," Vida said briskly. "Too dangerous. Clean her wounds as best you can and apply pressure to the worst of them."
Seth grabbed a big mixing bowl at random, filled it with warm water, and sat it on the floor. Within seconds of him dipping the cloth in the bowl, the water was dark pink. "Should I go look for the attacker?" It hadn't occurred to Seth that he person responsible could still be in the house, biding their time and waiting to attack him as well.
"I doubt they're still there. I imagine they dropped the signal jammer when they fled." Then Vida sighed. "I also have a sinking suspicion that they were after Becky, not you. I can't be sure yet," she added for clarification, "and I really shouldn't say anything until I have confirmation, but my people will be able to provide that. Seth, I'm sending their credentials now."
Seth's phone gave a series of beeps, and he opened text messages that included names, descriptions, and scans of their identification. At that moment, he never wanted to see another werewolf again, not after seeing how one had maimed Becky. She gazed up at him and, miraculously, managed a smile. "This... isn't my surprise."
The sound that came out of Seth's mouth was half laugh, half sob. "Yeah. I figured that."