Chapter 29: Wolfsbane

Chapter 29: Wolfsbane
Vander

My body felt so stiff and sore and my head was pounding, even more so when my eyes fluttered open and dim light shining from a nearby window blinded me.

“What the fuck?” I muttered out as I rubbed my eyes, disorientated and confused. I was in one of the rooms, in a bed, with an IV drip strapped up to me.

“You’re awake,” a familiar voice said from beside me. It was Shaylen, who had a huge smile plastered on his face.

“What the hell am I doing here? And how’s Calina?” I asked as I tried getting up. But Shaylen placed his hand against my shoulder and shook his head.

“You passed out from exhaustion when you were getting something from the vending machine. They strapped you up here to let you get some rest for the night. I came here to check on you after visiting dad. Calina’s my next stop so I’ll check up on her and—”

But before he could finish his sentence, I ripped the drip out of my wrist and stood up from the bed, stretching my shoulders as I did. Shaylen shook his head and sighed, not even a little disappointed by my actions.

We walked towards Calina’s room. But as we got closer, I got the feeling that something was wrong. There was a small crowd gathered at the entrance, with Mary right at the front. They all had wearied looks on their faces and whispered ever so softly. So soft, not even I could hear them. And so, I increased my pace, worried that something terrible had happened. And as I reached the room, I was met with something worse than what I’d feared. Calina was no longer in that room. The bed was empty, and there was nothing, but an unfolded letter left on the mattress.

“W-we were just about to report this to you,” one of the nurses said. But I didn’t even respond to him. Instead, I entered the room and grabbed the letter which they all had clearly already read.

Dear Vander,

I’ve given it much thought, and I can no longer continue to stay in this pack with you. You’ve taken everything from me, my identity, my family, my friends, even the memory of the person I was. I hope you rot in hell. Farewell and good riddance.

It almost made me want to laugh the more I looked at it. Calina had every reason to write this and run away. In fact, she deserved to write this and run away and have me absolutely leave her alone. Maybe then I’d feel a little less guilty about everything. But life wasn’t so kind as to let me off the hook that easily. It was clear to me, based on everything I had learned about Calina, that she hadn’t written that. And so, my endless list of problems had now only increased.

“She ran away?” Shaylen asked, reading the letter over my shoulder.

I turned to him, looking him dead in the eye. I wanted him to have an honest response to what I wanted to ask him.

“Do you really think she would? After everything… would she do that now?” I asked sincerely.

He looked up at me, his eyes searching mine, almost analysing the thoughts running through my head. And then he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think so either… but if she was taken, who would do it?”

I thought for a moment and then called Mary into the room, hoping that she’d have some answers for me.

“Was there anyone suspicious here today? Anyone at all?” I asked.

She thought back for a moment and then shook her head before saying, “I can’t recall. Security wasn’t that great over the last 24 hours. We had many casualties and so everyone was busy tending to the injured pack members. I can say that it would have been possible for someone to have easily snuck in here and taken her. But in that same breath, it would have been easy for her to escape all by herself if she was able to.”

I didn’t like the last implication but brushed it off. Mary’s brows then furrowed and she pulled me to the side, her voice hushed as she spoke.

“Now that you’re making me think about what could have happened to her… I got her blood test results back just now and I was surprised to see that she had wolfsbane in her system. I’m familiar with the fact that prior to the ceremony, she wore a lot of wolfsbane around her clothing… but did she ingest it or inject it anywhere? Although the amount is not high, it was directly in her bloodstream and would immediately cancel out the tonic I gave you yesterday. On top of that, it would cause difficulties in the transformation process which was why she struggled so much.”

I was shocked, to say the least, to hear that she had wolfsbane in her system. But now that Mary mentioned the dangers of her having it in her system before her initiation, it all made sense. It was, however, odd that she had it in her bloodstream.

“I don’t think she would have knowingly ingested or injected it into her body. Hunters don’t usually use it internally that way and she was very forthcoming about her methods of using the wolfsbane.”

“Then was there anyone else who could have given her anything laced with it? Or had an opportunity to get close enough to her to prick her with something Wolfsbane laced?”

I stayed silent for a moment, recalling the previous day, and meticulously sifting through my memories. And then finally, I found exactly what I was looking for.

“That bastard!”