Page 32 of Hunted

“I’ll do my best.”

She examined Dobe briefly, her heart sinking. His skin was pasty and clammy. He seemed restless, and yet exhausted. She peeled back one eyelid, and saw the pupil was dilated.

He really was in bad shape. She prayed to all the wolf gods that she hadn’t come too late.

She pulled the covers down and shot the antidote into his upper arm.

Rex watched her. “What, that’s it? What happens now?”

“Now we wait,” she said. “And could you get those yahoos out of here? This could take a while.”

“Cisco and I are staying,” Sanchez said, his voice hard. “We don’t trust you.”

That certainly cut both ways.

Before Gunn could intervene, his phone sounded an alert. He took it out of his pocket, glanced at it, and swore. “Damn. I need to go over to the command center.”

He met Michelangela’s eyes with a silent question. You going to be okay here?

She gave him a short nod.

“Don’t worry, Boss,” Rex said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” He gave Michelangela a flat stare. “Make sure she doesn’t ‘accidentally’ kill Dobe.”

“No one is getting killed,” Gunn said. He waited, radiating alpha mojo until all three of the wolves met his eyes, and then lowered their heads slightly in submission.

Very slightly, in the case of Sanchez. She was going to have to watch him.

Gunn left the room. Sanchez said, “If he dies, Gunn’s going to come back to find you bleeding out on the floor.”

Awesome.

They waited, the minutes dragging on, Michelangela checking Dobe’s vitals periodically. Every time she had to say “No change,” the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch. And every minute Gunn didn’t come back, the tension ratcheted up along the back of Michelangela’s neck.

Sanchez and Cisco got restless, but they wouldn’t leave. Instead, they drew a target on the wall in magic marker and started throwing knives at it, keeping score on one of the patient-chart clipboards.

The constant thunk, thunk, thunk of the knives hitting the wall started to get on Mikey’s nerves. That, and them wrangling over the score.

“Would you two fucking stop that?” she snarled, after the fifth or sixth argument.

“Shut the fuck up, or we’ll pin you against the wall and use you for a target.”

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

“That one was a 20.”

“Bullshit, it’s outside the circle.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

Sanchez pulled the knives out of the wall and went back to the line. “Quit bitching like a little girl. It’s my turn.” He prepared to throw.

“Is not.”

Mikey snapped.

Standing up, she stormed over to the wall and stood in front of the target. “Will you both fucking SHUT UP?”