Chapter 304 Every Note, Every Lab
He waited. And in the suffocating silence of his office, the longer he waited, the more his frayed nerves began to snap.
Dr. Chatmory had worked in trauma for over a decade. He had dealt with hardened gang members, unhinged addicts, and dangerous criminals bleeding on his tables, but the werewolves scared the absolute fuck out of him. It was a primal, instinctual terror that settled deep in the marrow of his bones. Even Jax—who had always been relatively polite and paid in thick stacks of untraceable cash—scared the fuck out of him. There was just an ever-present, predatory weight to them that reminded Chatmory exactly where humans sat on the food chain.
He took another desperate drag from his vape pen, but the flavored nicotine was completely useless now. It did absolutely nothing to calm the violent tremors in his hands or the frantic rabbit-beat of his heart.
He stared at his closed door, wondering if he could get away with buzzing his night nurse and ordering her to fetch him a dose of Valium from the dispensary, or maybe even run to the corner store for a cheap pint of whiskey. But he didn't dare move. He knew those men wouldn't give him long to get his betrayal together. They probably just went to piss, he thought morbidly, his mind spiraling. Or maybe to figure out how to dispose of my body.
Trying to regain some small semblance of control, Chatmory reached out to straighten the neat pile of damning paperwork. But his hands were shaking so violently that his fingers caught the edge of the stack, sending the manila folders and printed charts sliding off the polished wood.
Shit, he hissed, scrambling forward.
He was frantically gathering the scattered papers, shoving them back into a messy pile, when the heavy wooden door suddenly swung open.
There was no knock. No polite clearing of the throat. No pleasantries. They were just suddenly occupying the space again, sucking all the oxygen right out of the room.
"Do you have everything?" the lead Council member demanded, his silver eyes flashing as they locked onto the trembling doctor.
"I—I—y-yes," Chatmory stuttered, his voice cracking as he shoved the haphazard stack of files across the desk, right next to the sealed biohazard bag. He practically shrank back into his chair, gesturing weakly to the tiny, crinkled piece of plastic resting on top. "This... this is everything. Every note, every lab. The blood. Right down to Leela's peppermint wrapper."
The two men stepped up to the desk. Chatmory's terrified eyes darted between them. The second man—the one who had mocked his ethics earlier—reached out to inspect the haul. He was the ugly one, Chatmory noted hysterically in the back of his mind. Well, the uglier one. Both of them possessed a harsh, unnatural beauty, but this one had a brutal, cruel sharpness to his jaw and a cold deadness in his expression that made Chatmory's stomach turn.
The uglier one picked up the biohazard bag, his lips curling into a satisfied, terrifying smirk as he looked at the bloodied needles inside.
"Thank you, Doctor," the man said, his voice a low, gravelly purr that sounded more like a threat than a display of gratitude. He scooped up the files and the mint wrapper, tucking them under his arm before leaning over the desk until he was entirely in Chatmory's personal space. "We expect a call the very second you see either of them again. Don't make us come back here to remind you."
The heavy wooden door clicked shut, the lock engaging with a final, terrifying snick.
Left entirely alone in the suffocating silence of his office, Dr. Chatmory finally broke. He slumped forward over his desk, buried his face in his trembling hands, and cried. He sobbed, his chest heaving with ugly, ragged gasps, because his body had reached its absolute breaking point and gave him exactly two options for releasing the sheer, primal terror: it was either cry, or shit his pants.
And honestly, he really didn't want to have to explain soiled trousers to his wife when he finally made it home.
God, his wife. The thought of her made a fresh wave of miserable tears burn his eyes. She was already furious with him. When the hospital administration had first been quietly approached to set up an "off-the-books" triage arrangement, she had begged him not to take the position. She had been livid that he willingly agreed to be the clandestine link to modern medicine for the local werewolf community. She had warned him over and over that the supernatural world was too dark, too dangerous, and that it would eventually ask too much of him.
He had completely brushed her off.
It's just trauma medicine, he had arrogantly told her. How much worse could it be? He had justified it with his resume. He had been a combat doctor deployed in actual, bloody war zones. He had interned in a brutal, underfunded inner-city hospital where there were more boarded-up, drug-riddled flop houses on the block than regular occupied homes. He had pulled bullets out of teenagers and watched people bleed to death on the floor. He genuinely thought he had seen the absolute worst of what the world—and its inhabitants—had to offer. He thought his skin was thick enough to handle a few overgrown wolves.
Wiping the humiliating tears from his face with a shaking hand, Chatmory stared at the empty space on his desk where Ginny's files had been, mourning the complete loss of his soul.
He so desperately wished he had listened to his wife. Because as it turned out, the world was full of monsters that artillery fire and street gangs couldn't even hold a candle to. He had asked how much worse it could be, and tonight, he got his answer.
It could get so much worse. And it did.
Dr. Chatmory reached for the desk phone with a trembling, clammy hand and pressed the button for the nurses' station.
"Sarah," he rasped, his voice still thick and bruised. "Tell the floor I'm heading out for the night. I... I don't feel well. Have Dr. Evans cover the rest of my shift."
A moment later, his private door opened with a soft click, and his seasoned night nurse stepped inside. She took one look at his pale, sweating face and the disheveled state of his normally immaculate office, her eyes narrowing with concern.
"Was it those men in the suits?" she asked softly, keeping her voice low. She had seen the types of 'specialists' that occasionally visited Chatmory's office, and she knew enough to never ask too many questions.
Chatmory swallowed hard, refusing to meet her gaze. "Something like that. I just need to go home, Sarah."
She nodded sympathetically and stepped forward to help him grab his coat from the back of the door. As she did, she paused. "Here, Doctor," she murmured, bending down to retrieve a stark white piece of paper peeking out from underneath the edge of his mahogany desk. It must have slid off when he had frantically dropped the files earlier.