You Fight For All The Wrong Reasons

In the movies, when the characters come across a dilemma like this, some huge hero would step in and save the world.

Unfortunately, our lives weren’t screenplays. And our hero was out of town. Way out of town.

“He’s in Detroit!” Christina cried, exasperated. She slammed the phone back into its cradle. “He said he would try to make it back here as fast as he could…but I don’t think we have that much time.” Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Ryan went over to comfort her.

We were extremely fortunate to have Mr. Kostick. Not every werewolf pack has their own little medical advisor. You can’t exactly go to a hospital.

We all owed Mr. Kostick our lives. We had all gotten pretty beaten up in the past.

When a werewolf gets injured, they heal extremely quickly. When a werewolf gets sick, it works the same way. Life-threatening still means life-threatening, and fatal still means fatal, but if you get some killer disease, you’re more likely to make it out alive than if you were a human.

And with not having our ER team of one here to save the day, Mitch’s mortality rate wasn’t getting any higher.

I turned away and ran my hands through my hair in anxiety. “What are we going to do?” I asked Trey, who was sitting on the couch, his head in his hands.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel completely responsible for all of this.”

“Don’t.” I twisted my thoughts into an audible lie. “You had to go after them. You know what they did to Ray.”

“And I know what I did to Mitch.” He looked up at me. I tried to hide my shock. One eye was awfully red, crimson veins staining the white of his eye.

“That eye doesn’t look good,” I said, changing the subject, although this one wasn’t much better.

“I’m fine,” he said, brushing me off. “I was thinking about rinsing it out again, though.”

“You should.” The only way this could get any scarier was if our Alpha’s health was in jeopardy as well.

Trey stood up, and glanced at Mitch and his mother.

“Your eye,” Mitch wheezed.

“It’s fine. Breathe easy, okay?”

Mrs. Windsor’s eyes widened in concern. “That really doesn’t look good, Trey…”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. Take care of your son, not me.” He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze before he headed upstairs.

Mrs. Windsor forced a smile onto her face and shook her head. “I’m going to see if I can find him some eye drops.” She stood up and left the room with a few worried glances at her son.

I made my way over to the couch and sat down next to Mitch, tucking my legs up under me. “Hey,” I said. “How’re you feeling?”

“Okay.” I narrowed my eyes at his lie. “Is everyone else alright?” Mitch asked.

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Is Trey gonna be okay?”

“Mmhm. His eye’s just a little irritated, that’s all.”

Mitch raised his eyebrows, doubtful.

Trey gets eye infections all the time. They were more frequent before he started phasing, but now that he has, they have become less frequent, but more severe. So I guess he was more prone to whatever the chlorine did to his eyes.

Mitch coughed. Immediately, I tensed.

He coughed again, clutching his chest. I nervously waited for his fit to subside.

Eventually, his coughing stopped. He winced and rubbed his chest.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Mitch glanced at the clock in the kitchen. “You guys don’t need to stick around. It’s four in the morning!”

“You are not fine.”

“What are your parents going to say?”

“I’m at a sleepover at Christina’s, remember?” I said with a wink. Both of my parents were human, but I had some werewolf ancestors way down the line. Weird how that stuff works. Still, I like to keep my parents in the dark about the whole werewolf thing. I’ve become a very good liar. My parents just think I have a very demanding social life. Which is partially true.

“Oh, right,” Mitch said with a grin. He yawned.

“Go get some sleep.”

“I have a mother, you know. Don’t get all Christina on me.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Mitch flopped down on the couch and pulled a quilt over himself. “Aren’t you gonna read me a story?” he said, making sad puppy dog eyes.

I laughed. “Night, Mitch.”

“What?! Aw, c’mon, I was counting on Goodnight Moon tonight!”

“Night, Mitch!” I said again, still laughing.

************************************************************************

I found Christina in Mitch’s bedroom, sitting on the edge of his bed. Her eyes landed on me and she gave me a sad smile as I walked in.

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “Hey.”

Her eyes were still tinged with tears. “Hey.”

“He’s going to be okay.”

Christina looked at me, her blue eyes frightened and disbelieving. “I sure hope so,” she whispered, fingering a charm on her bracelet. I looked closely, and I recognized it as the bracelet Mitch has given her as a present for her 16th birthday. It was a crescent moon shaped as a C to represent Christina, with little stars dangling off of it. And instead of a star dangling down in the center, a tiny wolf figurine took it’s place.

“My dad says that’s he’ll try to get back from his business trip within the week. He says that his excuse will be a ‘family emergency’.”

“Well, Mitch is practically family.”

“I just hope we have a week.”

I shook my head. “Don’t think like that. If he were human he may not have a week. But he’s a werewolf. And a strong one at that. Look, we don’t even know exactly what’s wrong. So don’t go jumping to conclusions like that, okay?”

“Okay.” A single tear trickled down her cheek.

I bit back my own conclusions. I didn’t admit that I was scared too. Christina trusted me, and I didn’t need to freak her out any more.

I hugged her, and we stood up. “So I guess we’re camping out here for the night?” Christina asked, her voice still shaking a little.

“I guess so.”

“Cool.”

“Where’s Ryan?”

I was interrupted by a bang from the upstairs bathroom. “Dammit, Trey, just take them!”

“There’s your answer.”

Just then, Ryan’s shock of red hair appeared in the doorway, his brown eyes fiery and frustrated. “Are either of you skilled in the art of forcing unwilling Alphas to take eye drops?”

I sighed and stood up. “Trey!”

“Good luck. I got him all good and angry for you.” Ryan whispered, giving me a playful punch in the shoulder.

“Thanks,” I muttered back.

“I don’t need them!” Trey shouted.

“Shh! Mitch is trying to sleep, and Julia’s already out.”

Trey bit his tongue.

“Will you just take them?” I felt more like saying “Start acting like Alpha instead of a five-year old!” but I didn’t. I liked having my arms attached to my body.

“Look, I really don’t want to have to go get Mrs. Windsor. She’s going through enough already.”

His eye looked absolutely awful. It was drenched in a crimson film, and a discharge of tears was continuously dripping, making it look like he was crying, but from only one eye.

“My eye doesn’t need any more liquid in it,” he argued. “I think I would know.”

“It’s not going to get any better if you don’t do anything about it.”

“I seriously don’t think this is going to do the trick. I can’t even move my eye!”

My mouth dropped open and I stared at him, half exasperated, half alarmed. “Trey! Why are you telling us this now?"

“There are more important things to deal with,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the steps.

“I would say that not being able to move your eye pretty bad!”

“Look, I’ll make a deal with you. You take care of Mitch and you can check my eye out.”

“We don’t even know for sure what’s wrong with him.”

“Can’t Christina’s father do an over-the-phone diagnosis?”

I sighed. “Trey, you can’t just make bets over someone’s health like that.”

Our argument was cut off by an awful coughing, almost choking, coming from downstairs.

Trey’s eyes were piercing. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” he growled, and ran downstairs.