Chapter 13

Jesse walked to where he knew the signal was strong. He wasn’t going to bother sending messages and seeing if it was a good time. He didn’t like how pale she looked. He’d known she was in pain from the look in her eyes and it bothered him a lot. Was the headache part of the disorder?

Calum’s voice came over the phone, “is Shaelan there?”

He heard Cal chuckle, “I’m just walking over to her now.”

“Okay, I need to talk to her.”

“Is everything okay?” He could hear other voices and hoped Cal had reached his mate.

“No, not really, but I’m starting to think things won’t be for a long time.”

“Here she is.”

“Jesse?”

“Hi. I have about a hundred questions right now, but most importantly will acetaminophen be okay if I give some to Evanna?”

“Headaches?”

He nodded and looked back toward the common house. “Yeah, really bad after earlier.”

“She can take some, I’d suggest one to start, she probably hasn’t had a lot of synthetic drugs in her life.”

Inhaling slowly, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his eyes, “she hasn’t had a lot of anything in her life, but bad things.”

“You’ve discussed some things with her?” Shaelan’s tone was patient, not pushing.

“A bit. I probably could have talked about more, but I can see how much pain she’s in,” he scowled at the ground, “but she keeps answering me, not complaining.” Blowing out a breath to try to calm the hell down, he continued, “as far as she knows there’s just the three of them. She has been around since Leah was six, she thinks.” He took another deep breath and forced his mind to slow down, “She doesn’t consider Leah’s mother to be her own?” How would that even work?

“That’s not uncommon, Jesse, my best guess is that Evanna developed to protect Leah, but she has her own personality and often they don’t feel like they’re related to the host.”

Host? He shook his head; he’d learn the labels and terminology later. “Okay,” he watched Thera lay down outside the door of the house, it bothered him that she was staying so close to Evanna and not following him or roaming. “Evanna doesn’t remember most of the trip from Chicago.”

“Minn was out that long?”

“I guess. From the sounds of it she has to control Minn all the time.” A week ago, he would have felt strange talking about a person’s animal side with a name like it was a different body entirely, but now it didn’t feel wrong. “Or should I say she struggles to control her, especially right now after earlier.”

“I was talking to Doctor Collins earlier, if you think it’s a good idea, she could be here at Blair’s when you get here.”

“This doctor is a shifter?”

“Yes, we have doctors of all types in the Alliance I’m told.”

Jesse turned back and looked at the house, “I don’t want to say yes and then have them freak out.”

“You’ll need to ask them about it.”

“Yeah, okay.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw, “I’m going down to the van to grab some snacks and bars with the med kit.”

“If her diet has been poor for a while, Jesse, it could be why she’s struggling with her cat so much…”

“I thought of that too,” he nodded.

“Have you discussed leaving?”

He took a few steps toward the house, then remembered the signal and stopped. “Yeah, well, mostly with Evanna, she’s writing to Leah right now telling her we’re leaving the mountain…”

“They communicate, that’s a good thing, it actually makes it easier for all of them.”

Jesse snorted, “I doubt we’ll get Minn to write in any journals.” His pulse increased, no animal should put their body through that kind of pain and stress. He frowned; his cat had his annoying moments but nothing like that.

“Let me know about the doctor coming here. I’ve been told some very good things about her.”

Jesse rolled his shoulders, trying to keep the stress from getting to him. “I will, and Shaelan, if you could send me your number it would save bugging Cal all the time.”

Shaelan laughed, “he likes being bothered, but I’ll send it to you.”

Jesse could hear Cal’s objection in the background. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

Jesse paused for a second and looked behind him at the bag he was dragged back up. It was an ingenious idea, however a lot of work he’d discovered. He looked down at the path, probably would have been easier when the trail was maintained.

His cat wasn’t all that thrilled with the harness around his neck, Jesse had to keep pausing to shift it so most of the weight was pulling across his chest. He’d packed the bars, some water, a few juices, the med kit, and most of the snacks he’d had in the van.

Shaelan had said the painkillers wouldn’t hurt, but he was still going to monitor her because if she’d never had anything like that before, there was no telling how it would react in her system.

When he got back up there, he really wanted to talk to Evanna some more. She seemed to cope with anything he told her. He needed to explain about the graveyard. Word had come from Shepard Addison and that word was the bodies would have to be removed, for the safety of the entire shifter world. It didn’t matter which one he told, he knew it wasn’t going to go over well. Hell, if someone told him they were going to mess with his loved one’s graves, he’d probably take a bite out of them.

His cat paused for a few steps and let out a low growl, before picking up the pace. That was his way of telling Jesse to shut up with all the thoughts in his head and to work more to get back to the top of the mountain.

When he picked up the metallic smell, he knew to stay on the path this time and cut a lot of time off the trip up. He couldn’t help thinking about things. That was his mate up there and so much was uncertain right now. The first thing that needed to happen after he got her down from here was he needed to get her the help Shaelan was talking about. The fact she’d survived this long out here on her own was miracle enough, he was taking no chances.

It occurred to him when he spotted the fence that his cat had been oddly quiet throughout the whole talk with Evanna before he went down to the van. He wasn’t sure why that was. Although knowing now that she was his mate explained the strange behavior of his animal side when around her.

Stopping outside the gate, he dropped his head, so the harness was off his neck and shifted. He’d left his clothes here.

Getting dressed quickly, he opened the gate and carried the bag inside. Securing it, he made quick work heading to the middle house.

Evanna was sitting at the table writing in the journal when walked in. She glanced up and him, “that was fast.”

Jesse shrugged, “it’s much shorter with four legs.” He motioned to the book in front of her, “you’re still writing?”

She rolled her eyes, “it’s hard to figure out how to say some things.” She glanced down at it, “I’m not much of a writer, Leah could go on for pages.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever written more than a few sentences at once,” he grimaced, “since I left school.”

“Aunt Tillie used to make me write paragraph after paragraph.” She grinned, “and there was no cheating and getting Leah to do it because our writing is so different.”

“Points for trying I guess.” He set the bag on the table and opened it. “I brought a little of everything.” He started setting it on the table. “Protein bars, water, juice, some chips, and jerky…”

“You have jerky?” She stood up and leaned over to look at it. “I miss jerky. Papa Low made the best.”

“Well, this probably won’t taste anything like that, because I bought it in a store.” He pulled out the med kit. “Shaelan says try one acetaminophen and see how it goes.” He opened the plastic box and got them out, “they might make you feel weird because you’ve never had anything like that.”

“If it helps my head, I’ll try it.” She looked at the bottle in his hand.

Jesse got one out and held it to her. After she took it, he handed her a bottle of water.

She read the label. “You buy water too?” Popping the pill in her mouth, she opened the bottle and took a drink. “It tastes different.”

“It’s purified.”

Evanna gave him a weird look, then capped the bottle and put it down. She picked up the journal and held it out to him, “can you look at this and see if I should add something else? I really want to get through to her.”

He nodded and took the book.

“Can I?” She motioned to the things he’d put on the table.

“Help yourself.”

She smiled at him, and it was the first time he’d seen that strained, ‘hard life’ look leave her face.

“You should smile more often.” He said quietly as he sat down and looked in the book. It was hard to take his eyes off her for more than a second as she picked up the things he’d put on the table. She ran her hands over the packaging and read the labels one after the other. “Try whatever you like.”

Her eyes widened, then she smiled. “I don’t know what to start with first. We need to save some of this for Leah to try too.” She nodded and picked up the jerky again. Frowning at it for a second, she figured out how to open it. Taking a bite, she nodded her head and with huge eyes looked back at him while she chewed.

Jesse smiled at her and then forced himself to look down at the book. Watching her was refreshing. Seeing her look at things for the first time made him see them in a different way too. He flipped back a page to where she’d started. The last entry was from her telling Leah it was time to leave the mountain. There was no reply.

Hi

That was quite the run Minn took today, huh? Jesse was there for me once I got her under control. He’s sorry for causing it. I believe him. There’s something about him that is sincere and I’m trusting him, so you can too. You know I always look out for you. I always have and always will, Leah.

He’s gone down to his van to get some painkillers that will help with the headache. I’m excited about that. He is also bringing up some other things like juice and these protein bars. You have to try those. They taste like nothing I’ve ever had before.

Leah, he knows what’s wrong with us and says there’s help for us if we go with him. I believe him. I’m going to talk to his healer when he gets back, on his phone. He can even send messages on his phone without talking. Almost everyone carries a phone with them. It’s completely crazy.

I need you to think about what you need to take with you when we leave. His friends at the Alliance are going to come back and pack everything else up for us. So please think about it and leave a list. We need to get off this mountain and get some help, for Minn especially.

If you feel like you’re going to lose control of Minn when you are with Jesse, just hold his hand. There’s something calming about it.

Get to work on the list.

He was humbled by her belief in him. She didn’t know him and yet she was putting her, no, their fate in his hands. Jesse cleared his throat and then looked up to see her eating a protein bar. He couldn’t believe she liked them.

She swallowed it. “Does it make sense?”

He nodded. “Do you think she’ll listen?”

Evanna shrugged, “I think so. I’ve never been wrong about a person before, so I think she will.”

“Okay.” He closed the book and handed it back to her.

She went over and put it on the table beside the chair. “She’ll check it.”

“Will she be back in the morning?” He didn’t understand how it worked really.

Evanna came back over and picked up the bottle of water. “Probably. I’m not out for long periods of time anymore, just usually when she needs to work through something.”

“What about Minn?” If he was going to load up the van and leave, he needed an idea of what to expect. Having Thera in there was going to be adventure enough, he was sure.

“I usually take Minn for a run when I’m out, sometimes Leah can if all is calm.” She made a face, “if it were up to Leah, she’d let Minn take control all the time. It’s just been the last two years she’s been able to be herself for longer than an hour.”

He stood up, “If you have any suggestions on how I can help, let me know. That includes the trip too, it’s going to be a long drive back and the smoother that goes the easier it will be on everyone.”

Evanna snorted softly, “I don’t even know if we’ll get Thera in a vehicle.”

Jesse blew out a breath, “yeah I was afraid of that.” He motioned to the door, “come show me what’s what. I looked around earlier, and made a list, but if you can shed some light on things it might make this go a little faster.”

“Yeah.” She paused and grabbed another bar and her bottle of water. “I really like these things.” She grinned and went to the door.

Jesse looked down at the protein bars and then picked up a pack of the jerky instead. “We’ll call Shaelan before we start.” He told her as he followed her out.