Filed to story: The Healer and The Wolf PDF Free
“Okay,” Ven said, voice still so soft and syrupy. “We’ve got all the restraints off. Do you think you can sit up?”
Sit up? Sure, even babies could sit up, and I most certainly wasn’t?-
Huh.
I tried to sit up, but my muscles weren’t receiving signals from my brain. I lay there, tongue slack in my mouth, staring up at my four rescuers. If they were real, they had to be having some wild thoughts about me at the moment.
“I don’t think you can,” Ricky said. Even in my messed-up state, I could hear the concern in his voice. “You two carry him. I’ll make sure to clear the path. Ven, you bring up the rear.”
“Will do.”
They picked me up off the table that had become so much of my world and carried me through the chaos. There was more screaming and what sounded like fighting, but I couldn’t really focus enough to see it. It wasn’t until we were nearly out the verydoor that had first locked me away from Ricky and Ven that I managed to get my wits about me enough to speak.
“Wait!”
I would have cringed at my weak and reedy voice if I was physically able. Ven was at my side in an instant, gripping my hand.
“What is it? Are you okay?”
“The others…” I wheezed, hoping that would be enough, but when I saw confusion on their faces, I knew I needed to say more. It was difficult considering how fuddled and slipshod my thoughts were, but somehow I was able to grab on to an idea enough to get it out of my mouth. “We have to free the others. We can’t leave them behind.”
Ven’s voice was only soothing as she brushed my sweat-soaked hair off my forehead. “I know, dear. We’ve got people on it.”
People? What people?
As if she could hear my thoughts, she stroked my hair one more time. “We learned our lesson and came with a whole lot more than just the four of us. We’ll make sure not a single person is left in a cage.”
Oh.
Relief flooded me as heavy as any drug, and whatever fight I had left in me faded. I could only barely cling to consciousness as we hurried to the elevator I’d thought I would never see again, then up and out of the building. I wanted to ask more questions, but even without the metal contraption in my mouth, I couldn’t quite work up the wherewithal to speak.
However, my vision cleared up enough to see that there were four vehicles waiting for us, engines all running. They placed me in the back of the van, where the seats had been flattened and blankets laid out. The two who had been carrying me hurried up front while Ven and Ricky settled beside me. They slammed thedoors shut and peeled out before I could say a word. There was still plenty of room for others.
Worried, I raised my head enough to see more figures rushing out of the building and piling into the other vans and truck before also speeding off. Had we really done it? Were they all free?
I didn’t know, but I took solace in the fact that all the vehicles were taking off in different directions. Even if one of us got caught, the majority would make it.
I couldn’t believe it. As I watched the facility get smaller and smaller in the distance, it suddenlyexploded.
I stared, dumbfounded, until one of the strangers from the front spoke. He was missing an eye, but his other one shone with malevolent glee as he twisted in his seat to look back at us.
“I always said I was gonna burn that place down, and I always keep my word.”
I stared at him in confusion, then a memory triggered. Right, he’d been there when I’d first been captured. I’d caused such a ruckus and so much damage then that about ten experiments had escaped their cages. He had to have been one of those who got free.
And he came back for me.
Well, he came back for all of us.
I was touched. I had spent so much of my life taking care of others and had largely considered myself expendable, but Ven, Ricky, and a stranger had risked everything to save me.
Even though I’d forced Ven to abandon me.
Yeah, I’d have to face the consequences of that, but it could wait. Everything could wait. For the moment, I just wanted to close my eyes and enjoy my freedom.
VANESSA
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked, trying to sound casual as I poked my head into my own room. It was hard not to believe I was dreaming as my eyes settled on Leo’s worn figure.
He’d only been a prisoner for a week and five days, but the effects of the experiments on his body were visceral. He’d lostsomuch weight in that time I couldn’t help but wonder if they ever fed him. I had hypothesized before that starvation was a pretty good weapon against shifters, and it definitely looked like I was right. Most of Leo’s muscle was gone. His cheeks were gaunt and hollow, and his eyes looked sunken in. What would have happened if it had taken us another few days or a week to rescue him?
I didn’t need to go down that rabbit hole. He was safe. He was here. In my bed. Hopefully, his body was quickly burning through the remnants of the drugs they had given him.
“Do you have more of that iced tea you made a week ago?”
The tea he was talking about was something I’d made him a month earlier, but I didn’t correct him. I figured being a littleconfused about the timing of things was perfectly justifiable given everything he’d gone through.
“The hibiscus ginger tea for nausea?” I asked.
While his smile was sallow, it was so damn sweet as it spread across his features. He was still handsome. Still my Leo. Sometimes it was hard not to see the way his body had been ravaged and feel entirely responsible.
It had been incredibly reckless and stupid to think the three of us could waltz into some secret lab and come out unscathed. We’d only managed to do that with the party at Chadwicke’s estate because I had a special skill, there were lots of other people to blend in with, and a whole bunch of other mitigating circumstances lined up at once. Leo had quite literally paid for my hubris, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
It embarrassed me that it took until Ricky and I had the honest-to-God agreement to come up with a plan for me to come up with the oh-so-brilliant idea of “let’s find help”. Yeah, a real Einstein moment there.
Both Ricky and I had gotten used to being on our own, although in very different ways, and we’d forgotten that we didn’t have to do everything within our own little bubble. That night I had reached out to America while Ricky went on runs to see if he could find any other allies. He’d ended up running into one of the escapees that Leo had somehow managed to free when he was captured. According to them, after we’d escaped, almost the entire lockdown staff had been focused on trying to contain Leo. And of course, the alpha being who he was, he’d used every opportunity to damage or break cages. Apparently, nearly a dozen different experiments managed to get out of their holding area, but only the one Ricky found, and another, had managed to go the full distance.
They were starving and still very weak when Ricky brought them to me, but I did my best to fill their bellies and treat themhowever I could. A difficult thing to do considering I didn’t know everything that had happened to them, but I figured I could help with the headaches, the nausea, the pain, and the bone-crushing fatigue.