“Because someone will eventually find something weird in the sample?”
“That’s the fear, yes.” She nods. “But it’s not likely as long as they’re only testing for specific illnesses, like strep and flu.”
“So, where are they taking this new guy?” A door squealed open downstairs, then everything went quiet as it closed again on three sets of footsteps.
“They use the basement beneath the guest house as an infirmary.”
I thought about that for a second. Then I headed for the stairs. “Let’s go!”
Abby caught up with me in the kitchen, carrying a pair of slip-on shoes, but I headed into the backyard barefoot. The tiles were cold against my feet as I raced across the porch and down the steps. I passed the pool, which was covered for the winter, then crossed a small patch of grass in front of the guest house.
The door was ajar, so I went in without asking and followed the echo of voices to a stairwell off the small, high-end kitchen.
“Robyn!” Abby called as she followed me down the stairs. “Wait!”
At the bottom of the steps, I could only stop and stare. The basement was small but brightly lit, and divided into two distinct halves. On my left, steel bars were set into the floor and ceiling forming two old-fashioned jail cells. Both stood open and empty. Each cell held a stainless steel toilet and sink, as well as a twin-sized bed bolted to the floor. As I watched, Drew made the mattress in the farthest cell up with a clean fitted sheet.
“You keep new strays in prison cells?” I demanded.
All three of the toms looked up, obviously surprised to see Abby and me, in spite of my stomping down the stairs.
“It’s a precaution,” Titus said. “We don’t close the cells unless we have to, and there’s a private bathroom over there.” He pointed to an open door in the other half of the basement, past shelves of medical supplies, a kitchenette, and a small round breakfast table. “We modeled it after the one in Faythe’s basement.”
“With improvements,” Jace said.
“Hers doesn’t have a kitchenette,” Abby added. “And hers is for detention, whereas we mostly use this one for acclimating new strays.”
“Think of this more as a hospital than a prison,” Titus said. “We only lock the cells if the patient gets violent, and that’s as much for his good as for ours. But most of them are just sick.”
“Like you were,” Abby reminded me.
The guesthouse front door squealed open upstairs. “Hey! A little help?” a new voice called, and in answer, I heard the clomp of more footsteps, coming from the second floor of the guest house.
“Move over.” Titus tugged me away from the stairs as a tall, fair, shirtless man came down backward, carrying the lower half of an unconscious guy by the ankles. As he twisted to spot the next step, a loose strand of dark blond hair brushed his left shoulder blade from a rapidly unraveling man bun. His chin and upper lip were covered by a neatly trimmed full beard and mustache a shade darker than his hair.
Higher on the stairs, the unconscious stray’s shoulders were carried by a man in greenish scrubs, with warm brown skin and eyes glowing a rosy hue of amber in the clean white light falling from the ceiling of the stairwell.
“We’re ready for him in here,” Drew called, as he set a freshly cased pillow on the twin bed in the far cell.
“Spence, can you tell how long ago he was infected?” Jace asked as he pulled a forehead touch thermometer from a drawer in the kitchenette.
“He’d been there for hours when my shift started. His temp was 102 in the ER, so I’d say it’s been at least a day since he was infected,” the man in scrubs—clearly Spencer—said. “Which would mean…Thursday night, maybe? But I don’t think he’s shifted yet.”
“Where’s the wound?” Titus followed them into the cell as the other men laid the stray on the bed. The patient’s face was pale,and his clothes were soaked with sweat.
“Did I look like that?” I whispered.
Abby nodded, her eyes wide.
Spencer carefully lifted the man’s T-shirt to reveal a bloodstained bandage wrapping around his lower ribs toward his back. “He told the ER doc a cougar attacked him in the woods. Animal control issued an alert and they’re sending people out to look for it at first light.”
“What was the diagnosis?” Titus asked.
“The doc thinks the fever is from an infection,” Spencer said. “She gave him IV antibiotics and ibuprofen, but those weren’t working, so I had to talk him into checking out before they ordered blood tests.”
“How did you do it?” I asked, and when Spencer turned, seeming to notice me for the first time, I realized I’d wandered to within feet of the cage where the new stray now lay on the twin mattress. “How did you get him to check out?”
“Who…?” Spencer aimed a questioning frown at his Alpha.
