11

I figured I would still have drugs in my system, they had rendered me helpless so I’d treat it as a date rape. I could say I met some guys who invited me to a party and didn’t remember anything after that. They would see the bruising on my legs, and there was other evidence of what he did to me.
I walked as far as I could along the creek before I went up the opposite site, into a residential neighborhood. The blood loss was getting worse, I was lightheaded and stumbling along the road when a woman screamed.
“Billy! Dial 911!” A middle aged woman rushed across the street, an afghan in her hand she probably grabbed off her couch. “Oh my Lord, you poor dear! What happened to you?” She wrapped the blanket around me and sat me down. “BILLY! CALL AN AMBULANCE!”
“I… I don’t know.” I felt myself falling, my head dropped onto her shoulder I started to cry.
“It’s going to be all right, dear, I’ve got you.” She pulled my hand away from my chest, it was bleeding again. She yelled for help, another neighbor came out and went to his car and got a first aid kit. He wrapped gauze around my injured hand, and put the thumb in a baggie. I don’t remember more, I must have passed out.
I woke up in an ambulance as they were opening the doors. They wheeled me in to the Emergency Room; the EMT handed the nurse the baggie with my thumb in it. “It’s in pretty bad shape,” he said, “it looks like a chew toy.” The staff was efficient, soon I was hooked up to an IV, on monitors, had been poked a number of times for blood tests and a Doctor was doing a head to toe check. He ordered a rape kit, which one of the nurses did after things settled down, and he left to find an on-call hand surgeon.
A policeman talked to me as we were waiting for the doctor to return. “Ma’am, we need a statement from you. Can you tell me what happened to you?”
“My name is Ella Grey, I’m from Belden, North Dakota. Today’s Sunday, right?”
“Yes, it’s Sunday night now. Can I call your parents?”
I gave him the number, it rang and went to voice mail. He left a message with the hospital phone number and to call immediately as I had been injured. “Is there anyone else I can call?”
“You can call home, our housekeeper may be in.” Same thing, he left a message.
“So last night, my parents were meeting some friends so I went to the mall. I ran into some guys, they were college students they said, and were on their way to a party. I haven’t been to a college party before, so I got a ride with them.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“Tom, Dick and Harry, I think they said. We got into his car, it was a white Ford Taurus, and he drove us to the house where the party was.”
“Do you remember an address? Anything about it?”
“I was busy making out with Harry in the back. The house? Old rambler, white with black shutters. We went inside, I got a drink, and that’s the last thing I remember until waking up.”
“When did the dog show up? Doc said you have a bite on your neck and it took your thumb.”
“I woke up by a creek, a dog was biting me. I tried to push it away, that’s when it got my thumb and ripped it off. I poked it in the eye, it yelped and ran off. Big German Shepherd.”
“Collar or identification on the dog?”
“I don’t think it had one, I didn’t feel anything there when I grabbed his neck.” He asked a few more questions, then left me his card and said they would be in touch.
The injury was more than this hospital could handle, so I was packed off into another ambulance for the drive to the University of Minnesota Hospital. I was taken right into surgery.
When I woke up in the recovery room early the next morning, a policeman and a chaplain were standing by the bed. They waited until the nurse finished her checks; my hand was heavily bandaged and I was on some good painkillers. The chaplain held my good hand while the policeman stepped up. “Ella Grey? Do you know where you are?”
I looked around and nodded my head. “What’s happened? Where are my parents? You told them I was here, right?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Ma’am. There was an accident last night involving your parents.”
“NO, WHERE ARE THEY? TAKE ME…” I struggled to get up, looking shocked at the expressions on their faces, and they held me down. “NO! NOOOO!”
“They died, Ma’am. The vehicle left the road and rolled several times, and burst into flames.” I cried myself out into the chaplain’s arms as their death hit me again; it was like I could finally grieve. The pent-up emotions poured out of me like water, I cried and cried until I had no tears left. My parents were the best thing in my life and they are gone now because of me.
Eventually I stopped crying on the chaplain, and the policeman was left. He offered me his cellphone to call someone; I dialed home, hoping that our housekeeper Marge was still in. I was relieved when she answered. “Marge, it’s Ella…” I started crying again.
“Oh Ella, I’m so sorry.” She started to cry as well. “Where are you, dear?”
“I’m in Minneapolis at the U of M hospital. I was raped and attacked, Marge… my left thumb was bitten off. I woke up to hear the news about Mom and Dad. Marge, I lost everything including the shirt off my back.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing, dear, we’ll get through this. I’ll get ahold of Mr. Harris, he can take care of everything. Do you want me to come get you?”
I thought about it, she was a sweet old lady but Minnesota wasn’t safe. “No, you take care of things back there. Talk to Darryl if you have any questions, and listen to what he says. It’s for the best.”
“All right, I’ll let Tom’s office handle everything. You get well, dear, I love you.”
“I love you too, Marge.” I hung up. I needed to get a phone, hopefully the attorneys would take care of replacing the important stuff.
When they left me, after I had control back over my emotions, the surgeon stopped in. I looked down at the heavily wrapped hand at my left side. “Were you able to put it back on?”
“We were able to reattach it,” he said as he sat by the bed, “but the damage was quite extensive. We did our best to fix the nerves and the muscles, but we won’t know for a while how successful it was. There’s still a risk of infection or rejection. You’ll need to stay in the hospital for a few days, then you’ll need rest and therapy.” He answered a few more questions then left for his other patients.
I was taken to a room; an administrator stopped by since I didn’t have insurance paperwork on me. I gave her my attorney’s number and she left to call him. I laid back, the events of the weekend playing over and over in my head. I had to be realistic; I was no longer a werewolf, I wasn’t able to be an Alpha, and my Pack had disbanded. It was just me now.
Me and my burning need for revenge.
I would take my time, I would plan it all out. I wouldn’t just kill them, I would make them suffer. I would take from them everything they loved before I took their lives. I vowed to Luna that I would not die until my revenge was complete.
******
Daytime television sucked.
Basic cable sucked. The hospital had the local stations plus about a dozen cable channels, none of which were of interest. I was bored, my hand throbbed in a way that the pain medicine didn’t help, and I felt all alone in this world.
Lunch was, well, not up to the standards I was used to. As werewolves, we had greater senses of smell and taste, so we were particular about the food we ate. Processed foods, additives, chemicals- all of them were avoided. We liked natural foods, with herbs and spices to give layers of flavor. Marge made the most amazing food, and this stuff I wouldn’t feed to my enemies. I think I would prefer the cardboard it was packed in.
I was also finding the loss of wolf senses to be an annoyance. It was like I was wearing earmuffs, dark sunglasses and pinching my nose all at the same time. It wasn’t just food that tasted different, I could no longer make out conversations in adjoining rooms, or scent people or werewolves approaching. My body was weaker, and I didn’t have wolf speed healing. The surgeon said I was looking at a recovery that could take years, waiting for the nerves to regenerate. If they ever did.
I was watching some local talk show host pan fry trout with a chef when the door to my room pushed open. I looked up expecting to see a nurse, and was shocked at what I saw. The man closed the door and turned the deadbolt to lock it. He walked over while I tried to remember to breathe. He scented the air deeply, shaking his head as he did so. He set a duffel bag next to me and sat in the chair by the bed. “Don’t call anyone Ella, I’m just here to talk. I’m not going to kill you just yet.”
“Alpha Goodwin.” I was fucked. Marvin was the Alpha of the St. Cloud Pack and was the ‘host’ Alpha. Nothing could have happened to my parents on his land without his consent. He was most definitely on the list I was compiling in my head, the one that involved long and painful deaths.
“It seems my Gamma was right, you did lose your wolf. It was confusing for a while, we tracked the police radio and talked to the hospital and we were sure it was you. After all, how many people have their thumb bitten off? Quite resourceful, actually, we found the handcuffs and the blood told the story. You are far more than we anticipated, I’m afraid. It’s too bad you are no longer one of us.”
“Not by choice.” I glared at him. “You knew he was going to rape me and yet you didn’t stop it, in fact you helped kill my parents to give him the chance. Why?”
“Why does one do anything as an Alpha, young lady? Power and influence. If your Pack doesn’t have it, you can’t thrive. We would have kept the peace, extended our alliance and brought new revenue sources in with the mating we had planned. It’s too bad David screwed the whole thing up.” I looked at him like he had three heads. “His timing was all wrong. He was meant to have marked and mated you as soon as the drugs hit, but Olivia moved too soon. We were supposed to present your parents with your mating as a fait accompli. Instead, they freaked out and attacked us. Then the bite didn’t even take.”
“Yeah, that whole seduction thing didn’t go well. Who knew you had to give someone you have tied to the bed an overdose of wolfsbane just so you can rape them?”
He shook his head. “We figured that out as well. Doc said giving you the second shot that early was dangerous, and it looks like it was fatal to your wolf. On the good side, that is the only reason you are going to live past this day. Alpha Tanner was furious, both that you escaped and that you killed his son. He wanted blood, but he’d caused enough trouble in my territory. I sent him home, but if I were you, I wouldn’t visiting the North Shore. Ever.”
“I want nothing to do with that family.” I looked out the window.
“They weren’t the only ones. I wouldn’t travel through Brainerd or Grand Forks, either. Alpha Anderson and Alpha Lewis are not happy you beat up Olivia, plus you cost them their share of the agreement.”