Chapter 53
“I’m struggling to comprehend his medical care right now but obviously that’s not all there is.”
“No. That’s just what we found out happens when he’s at General for one of these attacks. When I got him to the hospital wing I personally restrained him to get the IV into his arm. My technique had enough of a comforting effect that he wanted me to stay and I ended up falling asleep with him. When Angela and Lilly woke me around ten, Angela told me that despite leaving him with me for two hours his body temperature had dropped twice and was coming dangerously close to ninety-nine degrees so she wanted to try heated pillows with him instead. He had an extreme fear response to us rolling him off of me and when we needed to place heart monitoring stickers on his chest, he curled his body into the fetal position.”
“What was he afraid of?”
“The catheter being placed is extremely painful for him and every time they monitor his heart the cath and feeding tube come next. Angela cut off his shirt and concerns about his back came up but it was only when his shirt came completely off him that we saw his chest and abdomen. We immediately did an ultrasound showing his liver is enlarged and inflamed but there were no signs of bleeding so we’ve left it be.”
“Okay, that’s appropriate for his abdomen being badly bruised but you mentioned his chest. What’s going on there?”
“It’s littered with cuts and bruises. Here’s the pictures I took of that. If you follow the cuts with your fingers it appears he’s been hit exceptionally hard with a belt about an inch wide.”
“Only the worst infractions allow an alpha to physically punish an individual caught in the act of the crime. This is what he got for being accused, not caught?”
“There’s more to it. Like I said, I don’t know if we’ve even found all of it yet.”
“Keep going Demetri.”
“When I checked on him before lunch he was in a bad nightmare. Despite his desperately weakened state he fought my restraint of him. I barely touched his neck and he ended up screaming in terror, partially shifting and tearing up the bed. Once I got him calmed down, he started apologizing and begging me not to hurt him. Angela was ready to cath him when he asked for it but I discovered that he just simply can’t go laying down. We did end up doing the feeding tube because we ran into several issues. He’s extremely suspicious of anyone giving him food or drink that he doesn’t see prepared, he becomes nauseous when highly stressed and he cramps up badly when his stomach is bruised. So far we’ve been able to get him to drink warm soup that we add nutrients to and get warm formula down the tube without an issue.”
“So you were able to figure out that the food needs to be warmed or it causes problems. Interesting but not overly rare. Has the other doctor figured this out?”
“I don’t think so. He said he doesn’t normally eat even though he always gets a feeding tube put in. He’s gone up to five days without eating.”
“That’s really bad for a werewolf, especially an alpha. Going that long without eating messes up the individual’s metabolism which makes everything medical even more difficult and in some cases, dangerous.”
“Yes, I don’t think I’ve come across a wolf that’s gone that long without eating repeatedly. Going two or three days when you’re sick, once or twice during childhood, won’t affect them much but repeated exposure to starvation as an adult will and from what he’s managed to tell me, his home hospital either doesn’t get the tube in correctly or they don’t warm it and causes his stomach to cramp so eating in the hospital is always painful. We are also giving him anti nausea medicine in the formula every four hours which was never mentioned by his home hospital either.”
“It does indeed sound like they haven’t taken the time to figure out how to keep him eating. How long did it take you?”
“An hour or two. My first attempt was around noon. That’s when Angela put the feeding tube in. He also indicated that today was the first time he’s had the numbing spray before having it placed.”
“Wow, that’s a rough way to go.”
“He handled the placement better than we thought.”
“Good.”
“But he actually became fearful of us using it. Majority of the time at General, the use of the tube is very painful for him.”
“What a shame. That’s quite a bit to be dealing with.”
“There’s more Xavier.”
“More?”
“It was around 1:30 when I discovered a large scar on the bottom half of his back but I can’t tell what caused it because of all the cuts and bruises on his back. He has a nasty, scabbed up black bruise along his ribs that X-rays have revealed contains two cracked ribs. If you look closely you can see with some of the stray hits that the bruise is in the shape of a belt buckle. His rear and the backs of both thighs have the same marks.”
I send Xavier the pictures of his back, rear and legs as I pause to let him collect his thoughts. I hear him sigh deeply before I continue.
“It was after talking with his friend and what his friend witnessed, at least the aftermath portion of alpha’s abuse, that I discovered the most disturbing injuries.”
“You’re not done yet.”
“I haven’t even found everything out about this young man. This is all about what happened three days ago.”
“He’s got a severely bruised abdomen, cuts and bruises all over his chest, back, butt and thighs and two broken ribs. What else is there to beat on?”
“His groin.”
I speak softly as I wish it wasn’t true. As angry as pedophiles make me I still would kill them quickly over trying to beat their dick off. That’s just as sick and depraved as anything a pedophile could do.
“Are you certain that this is simply an accusation? That he wasn’t caught in the act?”
“Even if he was caught in the act of raping his luna, would the council approve of this as appropriate physical punishment? I haven’t even sent you the rest of the pictures.”
“How many more do you have?”
“I’m not certain. I only took one of his groin as he’s so swollen and discolored it’s difficult to tell he’s even a male. I took two of his left leg where he has both marks from the belt and a severe second degree chemical burn.”
“Wait, what was that you just said?”
“He doesn’t know what his father did to burn his leg. He tends to close his eyes when his father chains him. All he could tell me was that something was wrapped tightly around his leg just after his father chained him. He didn’t say anything about it being hot, just that it burned badly. That’s actually a major concern of ours right now. We put him in a twilight sleep to do a debridement surgery on his leg. When Angela took a fluid sample she found that it was already badly infected. We reversed the twilight sleep over two hours ago and he hasn’t woken up yet. We’ve already maxed him out for today on the reversal drug so we’re keeping a tight watch on him until morning. I’ve got an alpha nurse that normally works the night shift at General coming to keep an eye on him overnight.”
“What else did you find?”
“There’s bruises on his wrists where he broke the chain, and cuts and bruises on his forearms and shins. After he broke the chain his dad got careless with the belt. There’s a bruise in the shape of a handprint on the back of his neck.”
“Send everything you have. I will request a special meeting with the council tomorrow to discuss applicable laws that pertain to a situation like this but it can take up to a week just to get a date and it may be a month or longer before I can meet with them. They don’t have a very good prioritization system which seems to allow dangerous situations like this slip through the cracks. My best advice is to get him talking and agree to the protection orders. If he was willing to give you detailed accounts of the beatings he’s receiving at home I’m certain he’d fit into protection from abuse and protection from torture orders.”
“Thank you. Keep me updated on what’s going on and I’ll do the same from here.”
“I’ll try my best, Demetri. Have a good evening.”
I hang up with Xavier shortly before going through my pictures and sending the last of them. I find myself stuck on the hand print around his neck. It’s as big as my own hand. I can’t help but imagine that nasty bruise wrapped around my girls’ necks. How much pain that would cause them. There’s plenty of times that my submission hold has caused pain but that’s usually only when the adults struggle to comply with my demand or they are actively hurting someone else. Never have I left a bruise like this on the neck of a pack member. Xavier is right, no wonder he had such a dramatic reaction to a partial submission hold.
I’m deep in thought as I didn’t expect Xavier’s reaction to what I gave him nor the fact that getting a meeting with the council is no longer an easy or fast thing. I’ve got to get this young wolf to talk. To agree to the protection orders or I fear that Jamison may be right. Alpha Redmen may indeed kill his youngest son.
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