Chapter 297

Chapter 297
Alex's POV

The bars opened and I went in before anyone could stop me.

Caitlin was on the floor, completely still, her body finally done fighting. I crouched down beside her and slid one arm under her shoulders and one under her knees. She was heavier than she looked, dead weight in the way unconscious people always are. I lifted her off the cold stone and stood up straight.

Her head fell against my chest.

She was still sweating, her hair was stuck to her face in wet strands and her breathing was shallow but it was there. I could feel it against my collarbone. Slow, unsteady, but there.

I carried her out of the cell and down the hall.

James was waiting at the end of the corridor. He had a bag with him already, the kind he always carried when something went wrong, and when he saw Caitlin in my arms his expression shifted from tense to focused. He didn't ask any questions. He just pointed toward the nearest room and moved ahead of me to get the door.

I laid her down on the bed carefully, keeping one hand behind her head until she was fully down on the pillow. She didn't stir. Her face was pale and slack, nothing moving except the slow rise and fall of her chest.

"How long was she in it?" James asked, already pulling things from his bag.

"I don't know exactly an hour, maybe more."

"Did she lose consciousness during or after?"

"After she was talking right up until the end."

James nodded and pressed two fingers to the side of her neck, checking her pulse. Whatever he found there made him exhale slowly through his nose. He reached into the bag and pulled out a syringe.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Something to help stabilize her while her body adjusts. The first shift without guidance is hard. Her system has been through a lot in the last few hours."

He looked at me over his shoulder. "You should wait outside."

"I'm not going outside."

He looked at me for another second, then turned back to Caitlin without arguing. I stood against the wall and stayed out of his way and watched him work.

My mother found out within the hour.

I heard her coming down the hall before she appeared in the doorway, and I already knew from the sound of her footsteps that she was moving fast and that she was not calm. Luna stopped in the doorway and looked at Caitlin on the bed, and then she looked at me.

She didn't say anything for a long moment. She just crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside Caitlin and put the back of her hand against the girl's forehead, the same way she used to check my temperature when I was small. Her jaw was tight. Her eyes were wet but she didn't cry.

Then she stood up, looked at me one more time, and left the room without a word.

She came back three more times that day. Each time she sat with Caitlin for a few minutes, straightened the blanket, checked her forehead, and left. She didn't speak to me on any of those visits. She didn't have to. The look on her face said everything.

Maya was louder about it.

She appeared in the doorway in the late afternoon, and the second she saw Caitlin she turned on me with her eyes already bright with anger.

"You actually did it," she said. "You actually turned her. A human girl, Alex. She didn't ask for this. She didn't want this. What is wrong with you?"

"Maya-"

"No." She stepped into the room, her voice rising. "You don't get to say my name like that right now. She was innocent. She was just a girl who got pulled into all of this, and instead of protecting her you-"

The growl came out of me before I made a decision to let it out. Low and sharp, cutting through whatever she was about to say next. Maya stopped talking. Her eyes went wide for just a second, then narrowed.

She looked at me like she didn't recognize me then she turned and walked out.

I exhaled and pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and stood very still for a moment. The growl had surprised me too. I hadn't meant it. But it had come up from somewhere deep and automatic, some part of me that was done being spoken to that way. Even if she was right.

Especially because she was right.

My father came back in the evening.

I heard the front door, heard the low exchange of voices in the entryway, and then Landon's heavy footsteps coming toward the room. He appeared in the doorway and looked at the bed, looked at Caitlin, and then looked at me sitting in the chair in the corner where I had been for the past several hours.

He didn't say anything right away. He walked in, pulled a second chair next to mine, and sat down. We both looked at Caitlin.

"How is she?" he finally asked.

"Alive," I said. "James says her vitals are stable."

Landon nodded slowly. "And the turn?"

"Completed. As far as James can tell."

Another silence. My father leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor for a moment. When he looked back up, his face was calm but his eyes were not.

"You understand what this means," he said. "Not just for her, for us, for the pack."

"I know."

"Alex-"

"I know, Dad." My voice came out flat. Not angry. Just empty. "You don't have to explain it to me. I understand exactly what I did."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he put one hand on my shoulder, squeezed once, and stood up. He stopped in the doorway on his way out.

"Get some sleep," he said.

"I will."

I didn't.