Treasure

“Baby, look at this and tell me I’m not crazy.” Possum looked over at Roadkill, who was tying the last of the improvised bandages on the bleeding wolf. He moved towards her, and she moved the matted hair apart to show the tattoo underneath it.

“That’s…” Roadkill kept looking, moving the wet rust-colored fur apart as his hands went down her back. “That’s Rori’s tattoo.” He sat back, staring at his wife. “They’re real. She’s a fucking werewolf!”

“She’s our daughter, and she saved us,” Possum said. “I can’t lose her now.”

“You’re the nurse, what do we do now?”

She looked down at her daughter in her wolf form, petting her again as Rori licked her hand. “Can you change back?” Rori closed her eyes, but nothing happened. She whined and shook her head no. “All right, first things first. She needs medical care, and we don’t have anything out here. Can you carry her?”

“I don’t know, she’s a big dang wolf and it’s five miles.”

“Figure something out, I’m going to get our clothes and phones.” She moved until she was at a narrower spot of the river and waded across, grabbing the torn backpack and stuffing all the shoes, clothes and phones in it. The bear had eaten all the food, and the map was torn but still readable. She checked her phone, no service. Holding it all high, she waded back across to where Roadkill was laying out two straight branches, each about six feet long and almost two inches in diameter. “What’s that?”

“Stretcher,” he said. Taking the bag, he pulled out his sweatshirt and her pullover fleece jacket. He threaded the sticks up from the bottom and out the sleeves, ending up with one on each end. Pulling the sticks apart, it formed a crude stretcher. “I’m sorry, girl, but this will probably hurt. Don’t bite me, I don’t need to become a werewolf yet.” She whined in pain as he picked her up and set her so her head and shoulders were on his sweatshirt while her hips and back legs were on the fleece. “I’m pretty sure this will hold, and it’s better than anything else. You take the lead, face forward, I’ll take the heavy end.” The both got their shoes and socks on as well as their pants and a shirt. Roadkill took the backpack with the rest of the stuff, including his phone. “No service.”

“Mine either.”

“We’ll have to see if we can get to a high point and call.”

The stretcher wasn’t perfect, but it wrapped around her body and kept her from moving. They were able to keep up a good walking pace despite the extra load, and Rori fell asleep somewhere along the way. They stopped about halfway home, they were on a rise and needed the break. Rori’s wolf didn’t even stir when she was set down. “I got bars,” Possum said as she checked her phone again.

“Call 911… shit, how can we do that? She’s a wolf.”

“I have an idea,” she said. She had loaded Dr. Nygaard’s number into her phone, just in case she needed it. He said he knew what she was, that he was like her, and only now did it click what he meant. She dialed the number.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Nygaard, it’s Donna, Rori’s mom.”

“Yes ma’am, I’m so glad you called.”

She paused, this would be the crazy part if she was wrong. “I need your help. Rori was injured badly by a bear, we’re making our way back to our cabin now, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Call an ambulance, take her to a hospital,” he said.

“An ambulance won’t take a hundred-plus pound, rust-colored wolf.”

There was silence for a moment. “Is she conscious?”

“No, but I asked her when she was if she could shift back and she couldn’t.”

“Shit. She probably doesn’t know how. Where are you?”

“Near Mount Ranier.” She pulled the map out of her pocket and read the address of the cabin they were staying at. “I’m a nurse, but I don’t have any supplies. The wounds are deep, they go from the abdomen to her thigh. She needs surgery, it’s beyond what I can do.”

“We’re not that far away,” he said. “I’ll bring the Pack Doctor and my sister, we’ll be there in an hour or so. Get her back home, keep her stable, and do what you can to keep pressure on the wounds until I arrive. Do you know her blood type?”

“O positive.”

“Good, I’ll bring that too.” She could hear activity and voices in the background. “Thank you for calling, you did the right thing.”

“Wait for us if you get to the cabin first,” she said.

“We will. Donna, don’t call anyone else about this. If others find out, they will take Rori away and send her somewhere to be tested and experimented on. Don’t trust anyone but me.”

“All right.” She hung up and looked over at Roadkill, relaying the gist of the conversation.

“Do you trust him?”

“I don’t know for sure, I think so. I don’t know what he said to Rori or if she trusts him.”

He pulled her into his arms. “I do know who I trust with my life, and you do too. The Brotherhood.” She nodded, they had proven time and again they were Rori’s friends. “I’m going to call Wolfman. He can be down here in a few hours, and he’d never turn Rori over to the cops.”

“You’re right,” she said. “Make the call.” He opened his phone and called the Renton chapter, they were still the closest.

“Coral, Rori’s hurt, I need your help. Meet me at the Pack Clinic.”

“Oh shit, I’m on my way,” she responded.

Chase was already running across the compound to the building that housed their clinic. “Doc, Dad, Rori’s been hurt by a bear. I need Doc to come with me, she’s about an hour away.”

“Is she on Pack land?”

“No.” He gave his Alpha her address. “It’s bad.”

“You take the motorcycles and get there as fast as you can, I’ll follow with Doc and some Enforcers in a van,” he said. “Stabilize her and we’ll bring her back to the clinic.”

“Yes sir,” he said as he cut the link. When he arrived at the clinic, he described what he knew from the call.

Doc tossed him a backpack field medical kit, while he pulled IV’s and put them into an insulated backpack. “Blood type?”

“O positive,” he said, and Doc pulled three bags out of the cooler along with a warmer and put them in the bag.

“Go, I’ll catch up.”

He handed the second backpack to Coral and they ran out to their Harleys. They entered the address into their navigation systems, then fired up their motorcycles and peeled out of there. At normal speeds the drive would take almost ninety minutes on the winding back roads, but this was not going to be a normal drive at all.

They pushed their bikes hard, often reaching well over a hundred miles an hour on the straightaways and pushing hard through the turns. Coral was struggling to keep up with her brother, who was taking more risks than she thought prudent. “Slow down a little, crashing won’t help her,” she sent.

“My wolf keeps telling me I need to go faster,” he said as he opened the throttle again. It was just under an hour after he got the call when they braked hard and took the turn into the driveway for the cabin. He shut it down and jumped off as Coral pulled in next to him.

“You Chase?”

“Where’s Rori?”

“Folllow me, she’s in her room.” He led them into the vacation cabin, up the stairs to a room with a twin bed. Rori was laid out on the bed, towels underneath her soaked up the blood, and the torn fabric of the improvised bandages was soaked. He could hear her heartbeat, it was weak and thready. “Coral, take Roadkill downstairs, get some water boiling and wait for Doc to arrive. Donna, I need hooks for the IV and the blood.” They started moving, and he pulled out the blood warmer and plugged it in on the table next to her, placing two bags on it. Donna used a coat hanger to hang the IV bag while he opened up the backpack and got what he needed. He shaved a small area on her foreleg, found the vein, and started the IV.

“What’s next,” Donna asked.

“I don’t want to remove the bandages until Doc gets here, first is getting fluids back into her system. Did you see how deep the cuts were?”

“At least a centimeter, I could see bone in places and her back leg was useless.”

He nodded, that meant muscles and tendons were involved. He hung a bag of blood, then checked her gums for color to make sure she was getting enough oxygen. The first bag of blood was almost in when they heard the van pull up, and a minute later Doc came in with his field surgery kit. “Coral, keep everyone else out of here,” he sent.

“That won’t be easy, Dad’s pissed, you didn’t tell him that humans were involved and Rori’s in wolf form.”

“Nothing matters right now, we have to save her first. Keep them calm.”

“I’m trying, but you know the rules as well as I. He’s already talking to the enforcers about taking them back to the Pack until the Council can question them, then they’ll be killed.”

“Just try, sis.” He cut the link and together they cut away the soaked shirt strips, exposing the four deep furrows. “The bear really got her.”

“I’ve seen worse,” he said. “With what is going on downstairs, I think it’s best if we force the shift and then do the repairs. She should be stable enough to take the change, and it will kick-start her healing.” He reached into the kit and pulled out a bottle and a syringe, drawing out what he needed and injecting it into the IV line. “When she starts to change, pull out the IV and we’ll put it back in when she’s done.”

“Donna, you might want to leave for this,” he said to her mother. “Forcing a shift can be tough to watch.”

“No, I need to be here, she’s my daughter,” she said stubbornly. The drug hit, and the rust-colored wolf started to twitch and then seized up in pain. Her eyes opened as Chance removed the needles, and a whine of pain came from her throat. It took ten seconds for the change to come, and when it was over, a naked and bloody Rori lay on the bed. “It’s all right baby, I’m here,” she said to her daughter, who was screaming in pain.

“Get the lines back in,” Doc said. It took a minute for Chase to get the IV inserted into the back of her hand, then Doc injected a sedative. “We’re putting you under for this next part, Rori,” he said as her eyes started to close. “You’re going to be fine.”

He waited until her vitals stabilized. “We need to clean her and get these bloody towels out of here first,” he said. Using sterile water, they irrigated the wounds and cleaned the blood from her skin. The bleeding picked up as clots were washed away; it had to be done, just because werewolves could fight infections better than humans didn’t mean they had to have one. While they worked, Donna told them everything that had happened in the fight. Chase was proud of her, taking on a bear was a brave thing and they all had survived.

Surgery took about forty minutes; Chase assisted as Doc sewed up muscles and tendons, placing internal and external stiches where needed until the four wounds were closed. All three bags of blood were needed. “She’s going to have a bad scar, but she’ll be fine in a few days,” Doc said as he taped the last bandage down. “She should be up in a few hours. Keep her on her side or stomach, bedrest for the first day. The day after tomorrow she can sit up and move to the bathroom. Chase, you’ll follow up with her?” He knew her mate would not leave her side.

“Yes.”

“Call me if you see signs of infection or other problems. Congratulations, boy.” He packed his kits back up as Donna and Chase cleaned the bed area.

“Can you stay with her for a minute while I walk him out,” Chase asked Donna.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

He carried the garbage bag out to the van, and his father followed. They loaded everything up before his father took him aside.“I’m sorry your mate is hurt, Chase. I know how you feel about her, but she exposed our existence to two humans. I have to take them into custody now, and they have to be interrogated to make sure no one else knows our secret.” Chase winced, ‘interrogated’ often meant tortured as people might not be forthcoming. “Humans can’t be trusted, even if they are her parents. They’ll slip up, talk to the wrong person, and we’re outed. They know too much, they have seen us. They have to go.”

“Losing them will crush my mate, Dad. She’s an orphan, Donna has been her mother as long as she can remember.”

“We’ll make it look like an accident. She’ll get over it, you’ll be there to help her do that.” He put his arm around his son. “What we are requires hard decisions to be made, son. We have these rules for a reason, for centuries they have kept us safe. I’m sorry this has to happen.” He looked up at the window where he saw Donna looking down at them. “Eventually she will understand you did what you had to do.”

He looked down at his feet. “I can’t do it, Dad. I can’t bring myself to hurt her family like this.”

“I’ll take care of it, son. Take a walk and calm yourself, it will all be over before you return to her.”