Chapter Fifteen
The doctor was shocked, and frankly so was I. When we arrived back at the base, Lycus insisted I see the doctor. Barely coherent after my dream, I agreed and allowed him to carry me there. My mind was spinning, and I felt faint-unsure of what to make of the dream.
We made it to the doctor, and she took immediate action. Lycus set me on a table and Helgi peeled my shirt off. Dried blood stained my skin, but when Helgi cleaned it off
there was no wound.
An iridescent scar sat where the bullet wound had previously been, my skin pulled tight as if it had been stitched together already. The entry hole on my back, where the bullet had first struck me sported a similar scar.
“What the hell?” I ran my fingers over the scar.
“Did you do this?” I asked Lycus.
“No. You saw me bandage it this morning. That was the last time I touched it.” He was looking at my stomach, bewildered, and I realized I was laying there only in a bra.
My cheeks burnt and I swallowed the ball in my throat, but tried my best to ignore it. This wasn’t the time, and it’s not like he was looking at my chest. I needed to get over myself. It could always be worse.
Worse like maybe my dreams were more than dreams or visions. I had watched the woman heal my wound in the dream, the blue mist surrounded her hand. I didn’t even want to think about the second part of the dream and what it could mean.
Every dream I had that featured that woman held some kind of significance in what was to come. Somehow I was healed, when just hours ago I still had a gaping hole in my abdomen.
I wasn’t sure what significance the first dream held, I hadn’t thought about it since that night. The rest of the dreams had played themselves out. There was a surge of wolves who had shifted, though not as many as there were in my dream. The woman had told me to protect them, which explained the way my wolf felt about everyone who had shifted. Why she insisted on being with them during their shifts.
This last dream, held so much more significance, and if any of it was true…
I looked at Lycus, his long blonde hair falling around his shoulders, his eyebrows scrunched up as he thought over the current situation.
Lycus could be Soren.
But Soren was dead, I had seen his body.
It was unidentifiable. My mother’s voice rang in my head. I was unsure what to do with this information.
My head spun and I stood from the table.
“We should-" Helgi began.
“I need some time to myself.” I interrupted her and walked to the door. When I realized Lycus was behind me, I stopped and turned around. “No. Don’t follow me.”
“Fine, but don’t walk out there like that. Not with the way the males around here are.” He argued, taking his shirt off slowly and thrusting it towards me.
I averted my eyes quickly from his semi nakedness but accepted the shirt. He was right, if I had learned anything during my stay here, it was that the males were thirsty. Meeko claimed it went back to our primal instincts, I said it was disgusting.
I tugged his huge shirt over my head, turned around, and walked out.
...
I lied in my bed for hours going over and over the information I had. It was well known that Lycus had been taken as a young teen. Soren had died at thirteen. Soren’s body was unidentifiable, but who else's body could it have been? A young male, who had been beaten until he was unrecognizable. Except there was only one male that age that was missing from our community, and it was Soren.
There would be no way to prove Lycus was Soren. We couldn’t examine and compare blood because the body was long gone. Even so, I doubted Lycus would allow it. After being experimented on most of his life, I don’t think he’d allow a needle near his body. I wouldn’t.
Did he know who he was? If he did, why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he confess? Was he scared he’d be met by disbelief? Or maybe he didn’t know at all. Maybe he had lost his memory. Maybe they had altered his memory. Was that possible?
Dakota burst into the room, startling me from my thoughts. “You’re back!” she grinned. “Are you okay?” she sat down on the edge of my bed.
I smiled at her, even if it had only been a few hours, it was good to see her face. When you think you’re dying, the ones you hold close become so much more precious, and Dakota was all I had left.
“I’m fine. Something weird happened, look.” I raised the shirt to show her the scar.
She stared at the scar, a smile forming on her face. “It just healed itself?” she asked.
“No. Well… yes… I mean, I don’t know.” I admitted.
“Maybe it was Menily blessing you?” She laughed. She was in a good mood.
“I don’t think that’s it.” I scoffed. “Dakota, when you have your visions… what are they like? Is it like a dream?”
“No. It’s more like, a strong feeling and sometimes glimpses of images. Sometimes I just know.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason, I just was wondering, I guess.” I didn’t want to tell her about my dreams. They felt too private.
Not to mention only humans were known to have premonitions. One of the consequences of The Great Creator’s flings with Hekoolas. Or so they said. If I was Menily, I would have killed my lover long ago, the cheating bastard. It was all just a story anyways, one to warn males of infidelity I suspected.
We sat in silence for a moment, thinking.
“Hey, at least you got a cool scar from all this.” Dakota said, trying to lighten my ever darkening mood.
“Yeah, right.” I scoffed.
“At least it’s not on that pretty face.” She teased.
“Wait. What did you say?” a memory popped into my mind.
“At least it’s not on your pretty face?” she asked.
“The trick is to plant your feet correctly. You absorb the shock and you don’t fall down. Once you hit the ground, it’s over and they can do much worse than just shove you.” Soren said as I picked myself up off the ground once again.
We stood behind The Slums, where there was gravel and a fence blocking us from the woods. I had been shoved by a human boy again, this time my face had met pavement and given me a bloody nose.
Soren was intent on teaching me to stand my ground. He said if I just stood up for myself, they would stop pushing me around. He couldn’t always be there to help, he told me. Except every time I needed help, he magically appeared.
“Let’s go again. Keep your feet apart.”
“I don’t want to go again.” I huffed. “I’m tired of being shoved down.”
“One more time, and then we'll take a break. I promise.”
“Fine.” I planted my feet far enough apart to hold my balance, bracing myself for the impact.
He came from behind, his arms shoving into my shoulders. I braced but stumbled a step forward. He was much bigger and stronger than me and I tripped on the gravel, falling on my arms. The gravel bit into my skin and I blinked back tears.
“You’re down, and they’re gonna hit you. Now what?” he asked, advancing towards me in my peripheral vision.
I laid there motionless and disappointed in myself. His boot gently nudged me in the ribs.
“That could have been a kick, and it would have knocked the breath out of you. You’d be trying to catch your breath, and they’d have time to hit you again. Do something, quickly.”
He nudged my side again with the tip of his boot. When I didn’t move he did it again, and again. It didn’t hurt but the repetitiveness was making me angry.
“Do some-"
I grabbed a handful of gravel and flung it as hard as I could at him.
“Shit.” He cussed.
I used the distraction to stand up quickly and turn around to confront him. He held a hand to his face and blood dripped between his fingers.
“Oh my god! Are you okay?” I asked, rushing towards him.
He held a hand out, stopping me. “I’m fine.”
He lifted his shirt and held it to his face. “Good job, you did something unexpected and it bought you enough time to get up.”
“But I hurt you!” I objected.
“There’s no such thing as a clean fight when you’re fighting for your life. Do you understand that Cariad? You did what you had to do. Don’t feel bad.”
I had left a scar on his right cheek that day. A scar that would still be there thirteen years later. If Soren had lived, he would be twenty six year old.
I jumped from the bed, “You’re a genius, Dakota.” I yelled, running from the room.
A/N: Sorry for the short chapter but this is just where it needed to end. Thank you for reading and as always Vote and Comment! Let me know what you're thinking, I love hearing from you.
BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER!