Chapter 286

“Chelsea this is the last suture,” Jack informed me, standing I left the room, tripping over Grant, Julia and a shirtless Ben, who seemed to have hit a small growth spurt. His blonde hair longer, and was a good two solid inches taller than before he shifted, “How is she?” he barked his eyes slightly darkened, “What’s a suture?” I wanted to smile but I didn’t think that would help him right now. “Jack just meant that he’s closing up her leg, we fixed her bones with pins, I’ll help once the swelling goes down so instead of taking weeks to fix everything should be healed correctly faster than average,” I tried explaining, but Ben just bounced on the balls of his feet, his eyes focused behind me. Moving aside, I went straight to Gabriel, “That black wolf, Kieran, he’s outside… pacing,” there was a bit of rage in his words, I squinted my eyes trying to figure it out. Chelsea, his mate is in surgery but the pain, he’s feeling it, but his thoughts… worry me, it’s like he isn’t letting his self admit he’s in pain, Gabriel tried to explain obviously someone told him about Kieran’s past. X – x – x – x – x – X – 0 – X – x – x – x – x – X I sat next to Ben, drawing pencils in hand, my sketchbook on my lap as I drew, the picture slowly forming the hardness of Oakley’s jaw, lips thin, hair pulled up, messy, dirt on her cheek, but it as her eyes, that I seemed to have wanted to draw first, the place where there was the most detail and focus. I held my pencil still, hovering, the image Kieran thought of for the past week while we waited for Oakley to be in less pain before waking her from her induced coma. Kieran didn’t linger, coming once a day, standing out in the forests, just where the clearing began, waiting for word. “She looks pretty,” he murmured quietly, “It looks like her but, it’s still…” he twisted his lip searching for the word, “she looks like her,” he stressed and I knew what he meant. Even as I drew, the picture forming wasn’t something I had seen in Oakley before in the short time I’d known her; there was heaviness but her eyes, fine, small and so delicate. They were normally guarded, furrowed despite her young age, but here, the girl I was drawing – she looked innocent, not quite baby faced but fresh-faced, child like. “She isn’t in pain right?” Ben questioned again, the same thing he asked everyday, but I had become accustomed, “No she isn’t in pain, she’s just in a deep sleep, this way she won’t be uncomfortable as I heal her.” A peaceful lull despite our location and this situation was always here, when I sat with Ben, we didn’t need to speak but more or less we spoke when he had something to say, but after a week of being a wolf I wanted to know, “How are you feeling?” I asked him. “I’m fine, it’s Oakley I’m worried about. We’ve never gone this long without speaking to each other you know? Even if she was real busy with school and projects, we’d speak,” his voice small. “You’re a good brother,” I blurted out, I had been noted that, but it needed to be said, he needed to know how wonderful he was, Ben was balanced, logical. Things were very black and white in his world, “I’m happy you’ve made friends here…” “Oakley’s’ made friends too,” the words uttered happily, she’s never had friends before, he thought to himself. The concern Kiley, Tera and even Justine have shown for Oakley was pleasing him, more than his own friendship with Marlon’s children, Farrah, Sage, Dayton and Bradley. “I’m okay being here, I’m happy, but this move was good… I liked our home but things are good here with you,” he said shyly, “You know the recording?” I nodded, giving him my full attention, “Our mom she said ‘girls’ and then she said Jay Colt and Gabriel,” I knew immediately where this was going, “We have another sister and Jay is your dad, but you haven’t really mentioned them…” he shrugged almost as though he didn’t care if I answered but the curiosity in his tone was loud and clear. “Well… I didn’t grow up with Jay or Gabriel like our mom thought, I know I told you about the guy that hurt me, I was with him before my dad adopted me. The man that had me, he knew my biological dad…” I paused not sure he even understood, “when I finally found them though, I – I had other brothers and sisters. Half siblings like you and Oakley but I didn’t want anything to do with them…” his young mind already questioning the difference between them, Oakley and him self. “A lot of people want to hurt me, and those around me, like Jack they help protect me. You know how Farrah and Sage are identical twins,” I jumped to use them as an example. Ben nodded, “Well your other half sister, Audrey is my twin. While I was with the bad man, she lived with Jay – our biological dad.” “Why weren’t you both with him?” again his black and white logic, he was with Oakley, she is his sister. Audrey is my sister; of course we’d be together. It was a good question but I didn’t have a definitive answer to give him, so I went with, “I was lost and they didn’t know that,” I paused letting that settle, starting again after he’d process what he could, “When I finally met them, Audrey attacked me, hurt me and one of the people guarding me she hurt them badly, and in the process of protecting me, he was injured.  You know how I’m fixing Oakley?” he nodded his blue eyes focused, “Audrey needed help, but I decided not to help her because…” “Because she tried to hurt you, and you didn’t want too?” he asked his head tilted to the side, I shook my head, “if she would have gotten hurt the way Oakley had, for the reasons Oakley had I would have healed her. However I couldn’t heal her when she hurt the person guarding me, and she would try again,” I said hoping it all made sense to him. “You didn’t want to fix her so she could hurt you again,” like dad always hurt Oakley, he finished privately. It would be different, Pat never physically harmed Oakley, but he left scars on her that you just couldn’t see on the outside, but just because you couldn’t see them, didn’t mean they weren’t as important.