Chapter Thirty-Six: Who Would Punish The Apex?

Chapter Thirty-Six: Who Would Punish The Apex?

Ember’s mind stirred awake to the sound of Mr Lou’s voice. It was like a dormant alarm blaring her back to life. Her eyes fluttered open as she struggled to adjust her vision and process her environment all at once.

“Ember… Ember… Are you awake? Can you hear my voice?” Mr Lou’s tone was unexpectedly low and gentle.

She gasped because he was the last person she had expected to see, and instinctively angled her body away from him.

“Where am I?” She asked, her voice was raspy and dry. There was a throbbing pain at the back of her head that made her wince.

“You have to calm down, Ember. You are not in the position to make any quick movements” Mr Lou told her.

“I said, where am I?” She demanded in a stern voice.

Mr Lou sighed deeply and then said, “You are in a room. In my house.”

Hearing that, Ember shot up and sat more upright. She asked, “Why am I in your house? What have you done to me?”

“Nothing” replied Mr Lou. “I don’t think I have done anything except take care of you”

Ember watched the twinkle in his eyes and that sent a shiver through her body. Something about him was sinister. She couldn’t prove it, but she knew deep in her heart that Mr Lou was not as clean as he pretended to be.

“Taking care of me? Why have you been taking care of me? Where is everyone? Where is my mom?”, she asked in rapid successions. 

Normally, she would not be so disoriented, but the memories in her head were hazy and half-formed.

Ignoring her questions, Mr Lou said. “Do you need something to drink? Water? Ginger Tea? Anything?”

She shrugged but gave him no verbal reply because she was still wary of being in his presence.

Mr Lou nodded and reached for a ceramic cup in the corner of the room and passed it to her. She accepted the cup from him, but hovered it around her face as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“It’s ginger tea”, he announced. Ember gave him a weird look and shook her head disapprovingly.

“Why am I here with you in your house, Mr Lou?” She queried. 

“You passed out, Ember. You hit your head with such a force that it knocked you out instantly” Mr Lou told her.

The sound of those words opened up her mind and the memories of what had happened came flooding in.

“Juno… Juno…” Ember stuttered as she tried to string the words together. “She did that to me”

Mr Lou nodded his answer. “That’s right, Ember. Thankfully, I got to her before she could cause you further harm”

Ember scoffed and asked. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Do you feel better?” Mr Lou questioned her. Ember gave him no reply and instead kept her eyes trained on something in the distance.

After a long silence, she replied. “I’ll feel better when I see my mom”

In reply, Mr Lou nodded at the ceramic cup in her hands. “Are you going to drink that? It’s getting cold”

She hesitantly brought the cup to her lips and took a small sip. “Now, where is my mom?”, demanded Ember.

“Your mom has actually been the one here with you all the while . She left to get more medical herbs just some minutes before you woke up” Mr Lou informed her.

This triggered a series of questions in Ember’s mind and she couldn’t help herself but to ask them. “Wait, you said my mom had been the one with me all the while. How long have I been here, Mr Lou?”

He gave an awkward laugh and then cleared his throat dramatically. This just served to spike up Ember’s curiosity all the more.

“How long have I been here?”, she asked more sternly. 

“A month” Mr Lou’s voice was as frail as Ember felt inside her body when he spoke. “You have been passed out for a month now, Miss Doyle”

A gasp left Ember’s throat and she climbed out of the bed and rushed to her feet. She half sprinted to the mirror in the corner, her gaze asking the reflection to confirm or deny Mr Lou’s claim.

What she saw in the mirror was more than enough confirmation that Mr Lou was telling the truth. 

Her eyes had sunken deep into her head and her face was pale and gaunt. Her neck had become merely a piece of wood connecting her head with the rest of her body and dark lines trailed around her neck.

“What the hell!” She exclaimed and instinctively reached for her hair. Chunks of hair detached from hair, accumulating in her hand.

A cold dread swept through her and she turned to face Mr Lou panic stricken. “What the hell happened to me, Mr Lou? Did Juno do something to me? Did you do something to me? Is this because of Cathy, the vampire? Are you trying to punish me?”

Mr Lou shook his head, surprisingly taken aback by Ember’s words. “No, no, no, Ember. Why would you say that? I’m not trying to punish you for anything”

He approached Ember and put a hand over her shoulder. In a whisper, he told her. “Why would I punish you, Ember? You’ve already agreed to keep our secret and so far, you’ve been doing exactly that. I would never punish you as long as you keep to our terms”

Ember squirmed under his touch and tried to free herself from him, but his grip on her was firm. He slowly led Ember back to the bed and made her sit in it.

Crouching down just before her, Mr Lou said. “Ember… if you can remember, you were demoted to a Beta. Your super healing abilities are at an all time low right now”

He paused, letting his words sink into Ember’s head, but she gave him no response or physical reaction. Mr Lou continued, “What happened was that the impact of your fall affected your head in a real bad way”

“Ho…how?” Ember sputtered.

“When you fell, you were taken to the care center where we all thought you would regain consciousness. After three days, when there was still no sign of life from you, your parents began to panic” Mr Lou explained. “No matter how bad the fall was, you should have woken up because of your super healing abilities, but you didn’t”

Another round of silence fell over them, but Ember’s heart pounded fiercely in her ears. There was no way that this was an elaborate plan by Mr Lou to punish her. He had to be telling the truth.

“Your parents decided to bring you to me. As the Apex, I have the power to heal other werewolves” Mr Lou told her. Although this was new information for Ember, she didn’t act like it. 

Her gaze urged him to continue his story. “I did all I could but it was like you were resisting my help. Everyday, I would come into this room and try to heal you, and everyday, I failed. We didn’t give up hope, but it was really hard for your parents to see you like that”

A hitched breath escaped Ember’s lips and with teary eyes, she looked up at Mr Lou. “Can you reverse my punishment? My body is weak and my mind, even weaker. If something happened to me right now, I would die. I’m even lucky to be alive right now after all that happened”

Her voice sounded like a plea and she looked at Mr Lou hopefully. If he could move her back to being a Sentinel wolf, she would appreciate that.

Mr Lou shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Ember. I can’t do that. When you’re strong enough and you’ve proven yourself, then you will automatically move to a higher Lycan rank”

She sighed in disappointment as her face fell. What had she been expecting? Of course, asking Mr Lou to move her up the ranks was asking him to break the rules.

Who then would punish the Apex when he is the one who broke the law?

“I’m glad you’re awake, Ember.” Mr Lou said with a sly smile on his face. “Your mother will be with you soon”

He turned around, ready to leave but was halted by the sound of Ember’s voice. She asked, ”Can you do me a favor, Mr Lou?” 

Without turning around, he replied. “What favor?”

“Tell your niece Juno, that I am coming for her. Tell her to run and hide whenever she sees me because I’ll make her wish she was dead.” She said.

Even Ember was surprised at the anger in her tone, but she meant every word. Juno had taken a lot from her. Juno and her bunch of docile friends had made her life hell right from the day she’d set foot in the academy.

Ember’s rage amused Mr Lou and he turned to look at her. “There would be no need for that, Ember. I have already taken care of Juno and her friends”

Ember’s curiosity got the best of her as she asked, “What did you do to them? Did you lock them up like you did Cathy?”

Knowing her mistake, she swallowed saliva and with it, the rest of her statement. “Did you hurt them?”, she whimpered.

“I protected you, Ember” Mr Lou informed her. “We have an agreement, if you can remember. You agreed to protected our secret and therefore, I had no other choice but to protect you”

Ember swallowed hard as the sound of Mr Lou’s piercing words hit her ears. Without saying another word, he walked away.

“Goddamn!” Ember exclaimed as she sunk into the bed. Being conscious again meant she had to deal with stupid issues like Mr Lou, Juno… and that nasty vampire who had erased her memory.

Why the hell was she thinking of him in a moment as delicate as this? She had just escaped the claws of death and yet, she woke up to thoughts of that vampire.

She didn’t even know his name, but why would she care about that? Hopefully, they would never get to run into each other ever again.

In that moment, Ember wished she could drift back into unconsciousness. It was definitely a hundred percent better than her reality.