Serenade of my Stupidity

Serenade of my Stupidity
BLANCA

When I spouted the words, ‘Where’s Max’ all but ten seconds ago, I hadn’t accounted for my sounding like a battered crow when I squawked, so the fact that I have yet to receive an answer isn’t truly surprising. Yet, what is surprising, is the impractical luxury that’s present all around me.
I should be at the hospital, right? The Pack Hospital…Doc Maize’s hospital….right? That’s where I remember being headed, that’s where Max screamed that we should go when he lifted me into his arms and raced through the field, so that’s where I should be. But…I don’t remember any of the rooms looking quite like this one.
The walls are a rich sandstone red and decorated with elegantly framed flower petal illustrations, leaving only about two feet of space between each canvas. Three deep pocket sofas upholstered in cream leather stretch along the far corner, near the thick cherrywood door which, oddly enough, bears no slice of a window. Yet, I do spy a thick steel latch and industrial style handle that are both in congruence to the doors that I remember seeing as a girl. There’s a gilded crystal coffee table as the centerpiece to my right, with a tiny chandelier hanging above that bathes the room in scatters of shattered gold light, and the bed that I am laying upon might as well be a cloud, it is that soft.
Only the large machines to the left of me suggest that I might be in some type of medical clinic, or hospice and even those are cleverly housed within the sleek cherrywood cabinetry. All save for one. The heart monitor currently beeping in my ear. That beast is front and center with multicolored wires that wind around headboard before disappearing into the top of my hospital dressing gown.
And that’s when I realize my entire body has been swathed down. The blood of my gruesome encounter with Gamma Corlys wiped clean. 
Someone bathed me while I was unconscious and if it was Max, then he must have seen the damage that tore across my flesh from calf to chin and then decided he couldn’t look upon it anymore. After all, as shiftless, it will take forever to completely heal from all that was done to me. And even when I do, there will likely be quite a bit of scarring. 
Enough to change the way he looks at me? 
Yes. Likely so.
Suddenly, all the things he said to me in the moment…as I lay in his arms dying…bleeding out…don’t feel nearly as promising as before. 
He swore he would be here.
He’s not.
And I think I can gather why.
Before I have the sense to disguise it, a devastated sob escapes my lips and my eyes burn with tears. More that I cannot release lest they become the last. More that I refuse to let fall in serenade of my stupidity.
“What’s wrong, Blanca?” Doc Maize asks, suddenly on high alert. She leaps toward my bedside, her attention on the great bothersome beast that has begun to beep more erratically. After a moment of consulting the device, she frowns. “Are you in pain?” she asks, glancing in my direction. She smirks, her eyes sweeping over me, and says, “Because if you are, I can promise that it’s just a little soreness brought on by your body’s response to such rapid healing. Without your wolf, you’re not used to it and just like a first shift brings on an unholy amount of soreness, so does one’s first accelerated regeneration.”
Doc Maize’s eyes are alight with glee as she looks at me. It is as if I am her pride and joy and not just some shiftless Alpha murdering wretch that somehow landed in the best room of her hospital. 
“Re-regeneration?” What does she mean? What is she talking about? I can’t regenerate like they do and she knows it.
Doc Maize’s smile broadens to blind the room, her hand snaking out to snatch my chin and gently turn my head from side to side while she inspects my face. A face which I’m sure looks like ravaged beef after how many times Corlys struck me. 
My eyes water with the thought.
Oh! What I must look like now.
What will Max see when he looks at me?
Pity. That’s what.
He will pity me. And I very much doubt he’ll be as attracted to me as before.
“Just amazing,” she sighs out happily, her eyes glinting with excitement as she backs toward the cupboard to retrieve what appears to be a handheld mirror. When she turns around, she holds the glass side toward her chest, hiding my reflection from me as she says, “When you first came in here, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think there was much I could do.” She frowns, her throat tightening and her eyes glistening a bit. “I didn’t tell Max that, but in truth…Blanca,” she covers her mouth as her lips quiver, “you were beyond saving. You were going to die right there in that bed if I didn’t think of some way for Max to accept the bond. To mark you.”
Now my tears do fall, but they are silent and so much more heavy than any others I have cried.
Maize goes on. “I considered telling him exactly that! Telling him that if he didn’t accept you...that he would lose you, but-” and I shake my head as she says the words that I, myself, am thinking “-I knew that you would hate for that to be the reason. That you would hate for that to be the only way that he would accept the bond between you both. So…” her eyes glisten as she grants me a watery smile. “I sort of had the crazy idea to collect the venom of his mark and inject it directly into your bloodstream like some goddessdamned morphine and surprisingly Max was more than eager to oblige my request. I wasn’t even sure if it was going to work as I’ve never heard of anything like it being done before, but…look…” she turns the mirror to face me and it’s all 
I can do not to scream…
Instead, I cry again.
Maize cries too and says, “I know…you’re fucken beautiful and I’m a goddessdamned genius.” 
"Yes!" I agree, then, less croaky than before. "But um...Maize...Max...he um-he promised he would be here. Do you think he-"
Maize's expression firms, her eyebrows shooting upward with arrogance as she doesn't allow me to finish, "I think he had quite a few arrests to make. It is a fine time for the tables to turn a bit. Wouldn't you agree?"