Chapter 212 Chapter 212
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 medkit.”
“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.”