Chapter 144
HANNAH
I barely noticed the coldness on the hard floor where I sat. Or Cade pacing and cursing. Or Chase and Jace showing signs of increasing tension. Or Alpha Wallace sitting as still as a statue, staring like me at the door of Willa's room. The doctor had arrived fast and had been inside her with her for over an hour now.
A sob slipped past my lips. I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep in the sound. I couldn't hold back the tears that trickled down my cheeks like raindrops. If something didn't happen in the next few minutes, I felt like I would start screaming and wouldn't be able to stop.
Was Willa conscious now? Was she okay?
She had to be. I couldn't live with the alternative.
She was the sister I never had, my best friend in the world. Now she lay maybe dying, and it was all because of me.
Oh, I didn't kid myself. Willa's poisoning wasn't a coincidence. It was all part of a plan, someone's plan, to get at me, to hurt me or scare me and it was working.
If she died...
My mind shrank from the thought. Still, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about it.
If she died, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from shedding blood. I would go to the ends of the earth to find whoever had dared do this. When I had found them and their accomplices, I would slowly and painfully-
The door opened. The doctor came out. I was on my feet even before I became consciously aware that I had moved.
The doctor was immediately surrounded by everyone and by the questions we had all been burning to ask.
"How is she?"
"What's going on?"
"Can we see her?"
"Is she-"
The doctor put up his hands in a calming gesture, although it looked more like a warding-off gesture. My mates looked very threatening just then, like they would crush him to bits if he so much as said their little sister wasn't fine.
"Speak," Alpha Wallace ordered with a voice that trembled slightly. He pushed Cade aside so he was standing in front of the doctor. "What news?"
"She is alive," the doctor said.
Cade grabbed me to hold me up. I realized my legs had almost given out. Thank goddess, she was alive. Thank Goddess, nothing serious happened-
"But she's in a vegetative state," he continued.
Shock. Complete and utter shock was mirrored on the faces of everyone.
"You mean..." Chase began after finding his voice.
"She's in a state of unconsciousness so deep there is nothing I can do to bring her out of it." The doctor hesitated, looked around at us, then continued. "Her body is just barely performing the functions it takes to keep her alive. There is very little brain activity. She's more or less stable, though. The good news is that based on the poison used, she is going to make a full recovery in a few days. The symptoms of the poison are scary and sudden but not necessarily... fatal."
"The poison. What was it?" Alpha Wallace hissed.
"It was a concentrated amount of Moonshade," the doctor replied.
Moonshade.
I knew what that was. A rare kind of poison that caused temporary paralysis for a few days. As the doctor had said, the victim would recover within a few days. Moonshade didn't kill, just put a person out of action for a while.
This fact left me even more confused than ever. Why would someone who had the opportunity to kill Willa just stop at making her unconscious for a few days? What would they gain from doing that?
Still, I thanked the moon goddess that the poison hadn't been lethal. I felt tears, this time of relief, prick my eyes.
"Is there anything else we can do?" Jace asked. "Isn't there an antidote? Most poisons have one."
The doctor shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid there is none for Moonshade. The poison will just have to work itself out of her system, and like I said, it will take a few days. You just have to be patient." The doctor checked his watch. "I'll be back every hour to monitor her."
"Thank you, doctor," Alpha Wallace said quietly.
In the last few minutes, he seemed to have aged. The doctor bowed and left.
As I stumbled after the others into Willa's room, I couldn't help listening to the voice at the back of my head, which kept growing louder with every passing second. The voice said there was no way Willa had been poisoned for nothing.
There was a reason this had happened, and I needed to find out why. I needed to know.
'Before it's too late,' my wolf chimed in.
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