I ignore my phone buzzing in the cupholder. I'm sure it's the coach again. He's been up my ass since I left the Ghosts' pack house. Wants to know where I am and what I'm doing.
Little does he know I don't answer to him.
Or anyone, for that matter.
The hospital comes into view through the leafy trees ahead, its H-sign glowing blue against the gray sky. I pull into a spot near the emergency entrance and take a moment to collect myself and arrange my hair so the stark strands fall forward over the small white bandages at my hairline.
Here goes fucking nothing.
The hospital's automatic doors whoosh open and the receptionist does a double take when she sees me. I shift the small white box in my hands, careful not to jostle its contents. The last time I was here when I was just a whelp, I knocked out their security guard. In fact, it was the very one leaning against the desk, talking the receptionist's ear off. He still has the same thick mustache that looks like a furry caterpillar.
Quaint.
I slip through the doors leading to the hospital rooms when a CNA comes through them, ignoring the bitching from the guard on my way to the elevator. The numbers blur together as I punch the button for the third floor, bracing my other hand on the sleek metal wall to steady myself. Guess I'm still getting occasional double vision from getting my skull smashed by a fire extinguisher.
The thought makes my lips curve into a slight grin. At least the persistent ache makes me feel like I'm not an entire country away from the omega I can't stop thinking about, even now.
The elevator ride feels endless. An elderly couple gets on at the second floor, the woman clutching her husband's arm as they talk quietly about a friend they're here to visit. They both step subtly away from me, that instinctive recognition of a predator even when it's dressed in designer clothes and standing perfectly still.
The third floor is busier. Voices drift from various rooms. Some laughing, some crying, all that messy human emotion that hospitals concentrate into a thick miasma. I navigate through it like swimming through syrup, each step deliberate.
My pulse picks up in the enclosed space, surrounded by scents and sounds that bring me back to darker days. The wound on my head throbs with every heartbeat.
Every throb reminds me ofher.
So does every fucking fire extinguisher.
Room 314. The door's ajar, and I can already hear the argument from the hallway.
"—absolutely ridiculous policy!"
"Ma'am, hospital regulations require?—"
"Don't you 'ma'am' me, young lady! I've been walking on my own two feet for twice as long as you've been alive!"
I push the door open to find chaos.
My adoptive mother, all five-foot-nothing of her, sits propped up in a hospital bed with her left wrist and hand encased in atemporary cast. Her brown hair, usually carefully styled, sticks up at odd angles like she's been running her good hand through it in frustration. She's wearing a pale teal hospital gown I know they had to force her into.
"Val! Perfect timing!" Her anger-reddened face lights up when she sees me, and something in my chest does that uncomfortable thing where it tries to feel emotions I'm not made for. I shut it down. "Oh good, you brought the eclairs! Caleb makes the best eclairs in the province, I swear."
Caleb looks up from where he's standing by the bed, still in his baker's apron that he must have been wearing when he rushed here hours ago. "Thanks for closing up the shop for me," he says to me. "I didn't even think about it when I got the call."
I shrug, setting the white box of eclairs on the bedside table beside the water pitcher. "Flipped the sign and locked up. You had customers waiting outside but they'll survive."
The nurse shoots me a desperate glance. "Mr. Carter, perhaps you could explain to your mother that she can't go home before surgery?"
"Iamgoing home," my mother corrects her. "I'll come back tomorrow, but there are things I need to do and I'm not going to let that cow ruin my day."
"Jenny Thomas?" I sigh, already knowing where this is going.
And like I've pulled the pin on a grenade, my mother explodes into the tale.
"That conniving, underhanded, jealous bitch!" She waves her hand dramatically, cast and all, nearly knocking over the water pitcher on her bedside table. Rae, my beta adoptive sister,catches it without fanfare. She's been doing this dance longer than I have. "We're at the bake-off—the annual church bake-off, you know the one—and I'm carrying my three-tier maple cake. Three tiers, Val! Do you know how hard it is to balancethree tiers?"
I move into the room properly, noting everyone's positions. My beta brother Caleb by the bed, solid and patient in his baker's apron. My younger beta brother Finn in the corner chair, nervously fidgeting with a partially deflated balloon in the shape of a pink starfish. Rae leaning against the wall, arms crossed, her face pinched as if she's three seconds away from rolling her eyes and getting an earful.
"Maple cake," I echo, settling into the too-small visitor's chair beside the bed. I'm well aware in this room full of betas, I look like a giant trying to sit at a child's tea party.
