Chapter 156

Chapter 156
Jess:

“So what’s he like?” I asked him as he sat beside me, eating obnoxiously loudly while I was screwing up my sutures. 

Fallon had shown me a couple of stitches, but I wasn’t able to get them down, no matter how hard I tried. 

“Godammit!” I growled, slamming the tools down as another suture tore. 

“Calm down, love, you’re just pulling too tight,” he scolded me. “And who’s like what?” 

“Denver,” I hissed, grabbing the threads and trying again. 

The air in the room froze. Charlie didn’t say anything, and I focused only on my sutures, trying not to worry that I had upset him. I couldn’t hold the question in any longer, wondering for weeks what the monster was like. 

“You know the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?” He asked me. 

I stopped and looked up at him. “Yes? Are you telling me he takes some sort of concoction to turn into a wild beast?” I cracked a grin. 

He returned it, leaning in closer. “No, but it’s as if he’s got two people inside him. One is a deeply religious man who believes in the power of the goddess as truly divine and the ultimate power on this earth. Then there’s the beast. The crazed man who will not stop at anything to accomplish the goals of the other man, a rabid beast capable of no matter of ugly atrocities,” he told me, looking over my shoulder as if he was standing there. 

“When my wife died. I went…went to the prison, they let me see him. Every day of the trial, I watched one second he was spouting some religious prophecy as if he were the goddess's agent on earth. The next, he was barking and growling like a rabid beast,” he seemed colder by the second, slipping away from the present with me and back to the past where all his pain was. 

“Do you think they’ll survive this?” I hated that I didn’t stop my interrogation, but I needed to know. I need him to tell me the truth. 

He didn’t say anything for a long time. Thinking over what to tell me, I watched him stare into my eyes, trying to hide his resignation. To him, Denver was the worst there was, and he wasn’t exactly sure if Allie and Green were able to win. 

"I think they have the best chance of anyone,” he told me, trying to sound optimistic. 

I looked back down at my work, trying to focus on the knots again. He seemed to understand that his half-hearted answer hadn’t calmed my worries at all. 

“I don’t know how to prepare for someone like him. I don’t know who they’re facing, the tactical man or the beast. Both are dangerous, both are killers,” he tried to explain. 

“I get what you mean. We always knew that it was a hard challenge. I just… needed to know,” I didn’t look at him, frustrated not with him but with the truth. I sighed, setting my work down again and looking at him, his eyes worried that he’d made me angry again. “Thank you for telling me the truth.” It was a weak smile but an earnest one. 

I kept on practicing and eventually, though ugly and rough, my sutures stopped tearing and started to look like something resembling the textbook. 

“You think you’ll keep this up once this is all over?” He asked me before taking a bite of his apple. 

I quirked an eyebrow at him. Considering he’d just told me our chances were slim to none, I was shocked he was talking of brighter days. 

“What? Even I can dream,” he shrugged. 

I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m gonna do when this is all over. Allie and Green have their life here, and I’m just trying to help as best I can. If, when this is over, there’s a place for me here, I’d consider staying, or I might just go back home, who knows,” I told him, looking around the clinic exam room we had to ourselves. 

In all honesty, I had thought about what happened when this was over, and I desperately wanted to stay. I wanted to stay here with him, but Charlie liked to move around. He wouldn’t ask. 

“New York. Marketing. PR. Studio apartment, different guy every night. Just like those annoying women you yanks love so much,” 

I rolled my eyes at the Sex and the City lifestyle he had painted for me. “For your information, it is not a new guy every night. Maybe a new bar and plenty of free drinks, but not that many guys are lucky enough to take me home,” I teased, eyeing him like he was a meal. 

He stared back the same hunger in his gaze, “and of a guy we’re lucky enough?” His finger brushes my wrist. 

“Ah. ah. ah. That’s not how friends talk, Charles,” I scolded, holding up a finger.  

He flashed a cheeky grin as if this chase was everything he’d ever want, and my heart hammered in my chest as I turned my limited attention back to my practice, but it was no use.  

He grabbed the tool from my hand, and I went to grab it back, but he held it away. “What if you did stay here?” 

I stopped my reaching and met his eyes, my heart in my throat and my mind a little dizzy. I had dreamt up a moment like this a thousand times. Was he really going to ask me to stay? 

“That would be up to Allie and Green, I’m not a wolf,” I blushed, hoping he would continue. 

“But if you were with a wolf-“ 

A damn siren broke the air and interrupted our conversation. He jolted up from the table, looking out the window. I pouted, wanting him to come back and finish what he was saying he was just about to say something absolutely wonderful, something I had been dying for months to hear, and now is when an attack siren goes off. 

My mind shifted. An attack siren. 

Allie. 

“Where’s my sister!” I screamed over the blast, heading out of the room, running down the hall towards her office. 

“Jess! Jess, come back!” Charlie called after me, but I wasn’t going to listen. 

“Allie!” I called for her as I ran up the stairs to her office. “Lalley! Connor!” I ran down the hall of offices, bolting to her door. 

The room, empty. People in a flurry around us, grabbing children, taking them to safety, grabbing armor, weapons, and medical bags. 

I ran back downstairs to the clinic, Fallon already in command, and Charlie was hot on my heels. 

“What’s going on?” I asked her. 

“The coven is here, they’re attacking at the north gate,” She explained. 

What? But they wanted Denver to attack first, that’s what Allie's visions told her. They wanted him to kill off the problem. 

“Where’s my sister?” I asked her. 

“With her mate. She’s protected by four wolves, no doubt more than covered you need to be here,” she told me, handing me a medical bag. “Are you here?” 

I nodded. She was right. Allie was taken care of. I wanted to do what I had set out to, I wanted to help.