Chapter 40 What's Happening In The Kitchen
Aria
I left the training gym with my muscles feeling like they were on fire, but I didn't want to go back to my room because I knew I would just sit there and think about the way Grayson’s hands felt on my waist. I walked down the hall and decided to hide out in the kitchen instead, since Martha usually had something for me to do and it was the only place in the building where people weren't staring at me like I was a spy.
The room was warm and smelled like vegetable stock, so I grabbed a knife and started peeling a mountain of potatoes while Martha hummed a song and organized the pantry shelves.
"Are you okay, honey," Martha said, glancing at my red face and the sweat still dampening my hair.
"Did Grayson go too hard on you in there, or is he just being his usual stubborn self?"
"He's just difficult, Martha, because he acts like teaching me how to punch is a chore he’s being forced to do," I replied, dropping a peeled potato into a bucket of water.
"One minute he’s being helpful and the next he’s looking at me like I’m a problem he can’t solve, so I’d rather just stay in here and peel vegetables until it’s time to go home."
"Well, don't take it too personal, since he hasn't been right in the head for a long time," she said, but she didn't get to finish her thought because the heavy swinging doors of the kitchen burst open.
A woman named Sarah ran inside, and she was carrying her five-year-old son in her arms while she sobbed so hard she could barely breathe. The boy looked terrible, because his skin was a waxy shade of gray and he was shivering even though the kitchen was hot.
Martha dropped the jar she was holding and rushed over to them, helping Sarah lay the boy down on the large wooden prep table while she shouted for someone to go find the pack doctor.
"He was just playing in the courtyard, and then he just collapsed and started shaking," Sarah cried, clutching her son’s limp hand.
"I tried to give him the usual healing tonic, but he just threw it up, and look at his neck, Martha, I've never seen anything like this before."
I stepped closer to the table and saw what she was talking about, because there was a thick, dark vein running from the boy's collarbone up toward his ear.
It didn't look like a normal bruise or an infection, as it looked more like ink was moving under his skin, and it seemed to be pulsing in time with his shallow breathing. Martha put her hand on the boy’s forehead and pulled it back immediately, since he was burning up so much that she looked genuinely frightened.
"His wolf isn't fighting it, Sarah, and that’s what’s wrong, because usually a pup his age can burn off a fever in twenty minutes," Martha said, her voice shaking while two other women from the pack crowded around.
Jax came into the kitchen a few seconds later, looking even more stressed than he did earlier, and he went straight to the boy to examine the black vein.
He pulled a small electronic device out of his pocket and held it near the boy’s neck, which made the machine let out a high-pitched whine that made everyone cover their ears.
"It’s that signal I found at the docks, because the frequency is matching the pulse in his blood," Jax muttered, looking at the screen with a grim expression.
"The Iron Fangs must have set up a transmitter closer to the clubhouse than we thought, and it’s hitting the pups the hardest since their bodies haven't fully adapted to the shift yet."
"Can you stop it? You have to stop it, Jax!" Sarah screamed, but Jax just looked at the floor because he didn't have an answer for her.
"I’m trying to find the source, but this tech is Syndicate-made, so it’s designed to bypass our biology and mess with the internal wiring of a shifter," Jax explained, while the other women started whispering about curses and bad omens.
I looked at the boy again, noticing the way his eyes were rolling back in his head and the specific smell of his sweat, which reminded me of a winter when half our trailer park got sick. Nana had spent three weeks boiling roots and making us drink this bitter tea that smelled like dirt, but it had saved everyone while the hospital was turning people away because they didn't have insurance.
"I think I know what this is," I said, stepping up to the table even though the pack women moved to block my way.
"It’s not just a signal, it’s a type of blood poisoning that follows a frequency, and if you don't get his fever down in the next hour, his heart is going to give out."
"Stay back, Aria, this isn't a human sickness and you don't know what you're talking about," one of the women snapped, pushing me back toward the sink.
"We need a real healer, not a girl who works in a bakery and doesn't even know what it’s like to have a wolf."
"I know what it’s like to see a kid die from a fever because nobody would listen to the person with the medicine," I shouted back, feeling a surge of anger that made the women go silent.
"My Nana used to treat this back home when the local factories would dump chemicals in the water, and she used a specific mix of herbs to pull the poison out of the blood so the body could breathe again."
"She’s just a human, Jax, we can't let her touch a pack child with her weird tall tales," Sarah said, looking at Jax for help, but he just stared at the boy and then back at me.
"Aria, if you're wrong, you'll make it worse, and the pack will never forgive you for interfering with one of our own," Jax warned, his voice low and serious.
"He’s already dying, Jax, so what do you have to lose besides your pride?" I asked, and I didn't wait for him to give me permission as I turned to Martha.
"I need a pot of boiling water, some honey, and I need to get into my bag in the bedroom because I have the dried roots Nana uses for her heart."
"You stay away from him!" Sarah yelled, stepping in front of her son like she was going to bite me, while the other women moved in to surround the table.
Grayson walked into the kitchen right then, and the room went dead silent as he took in the chaos and the sight of the sick boy on the table. He looked at the black vein and his face went pale, but he didn't move toward the child, instead he looked straight at me while I was holding a bunch of potatoes like they were weapons.
"What is going on in my kitchen?" he asked, and the power in his voice was enough to make everyone take a step back, but I didn't move an inch.