“No—I want to be there, too. I can lead the team. It’smycase.”
“You’re not going anywhere like this,” he said, looking down at my body. “Jesus—you’re covered in blood and wounds, De Ver. You need to go down to the healing rooms right now.”
“No—I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine, actually, but damn if I let them go back to that ship without me.
Except the Chief wouldn’t hear it. He leaned closer until his face took over my vision completely. “Go. Home.” He turned around and opened the door to his office, clearly kicking me out. “And I’ll need a detailed report by seven a.m.”
“It will be too late. You need to search that shipnow,” I said, practically begginghim, but the Chief still shook his head.
“I said I’d handle it, and I will. Go home, for fuck’s sake, De Ver. I’ve had enough of you.”
Swallowing the pain and disappointment, I raised my chin.
“Fine. I’ll be expecting your apology in the morning, then.”
I walked out of his office, limping, but still fast enough, and he slammed the door shut after me, mumbling curse words I couldn’t even understand.
Everything hurt.My hands were shaking, so that was a problem.
“Just a little more,” my mom said through the camera of my old phone—because the new one I bought just a few months ago was ruined after my swim in the Hudson. I’d kept this one around for the pictures because I’d been too lazy to upload them to my computer. Now I wasreallyglad I had. Who knew being lazy could be so rewarding?
My mom was guiding me to make a really potent healing salve with the herbs and powders she sent me in her monthly package. Letting go of the spoon I was using to mix the vaseline with all those ingredients, I turned to the piece of cake next to it and ate some. Chocolate always makes things better—except multiple wounds on your body, apparently.
“You can’t let it sit for that long. Get moving,” my mom said. My phone was on the table, standing next to a glass full of water while she watched me work on the bowl where I’d mixed everything she told me to mix.
Picking up the spoon, I kept on mixing and added the purple powder from the small vial that was supposed to add a calming effect to the salve.
“My God, Teddy,” she whispered under her breath. “Just let me look at you.”
“No.” I was wearing dry clothes, and I was barely standing, but I would not let her see what was under those bandages the nymphs had put on me. They’d used medicine of their own for the cuts, but my mom’s was going to work better. That’s why I’d gathered up the courage to call her in the middle of the night, knowing it was going to probably freak her out, but hoping she’d get over it because she couldseeme standing. Moving. Talking. Barely, but still.
“I’m not going to say anything—I just want to see,” Mom insisted.
“Mom, the nymphs said I’m not supposed to take the bandages off until morning. So how about I show you tomorrow?” When I’d used her salve, too, and my wounds were closed.
Mom sighed. “Fine,” she muttered, running her hands through her purple hair furiously. “Fine. That’s enough of the Melonia. Now stir for three more minutes.”
She stayed with me and instructed me until I put the bowl of vaseline and all those powders in the refrigerator. The mixture had to cool down for at least one hour before I could use it. She made me promise to call her as soon as I woke up in the morning, too, before she let me hang up the phone.
By the time I sat on my bed with my laptop to work on the report, I could barely see anything. And I didn’t even make it to the second paragraph before my mind shut down and sleep took me, sitting on the bed with the laptop still on my lap.
ChapterTen
I wokeup eleven minutes to seven. My body hurt so much I could barely move, but my laptop was still there, and it still had some battery left. So, before I forced myself out of bed, to move and to find out exactly where it hurt the most, I just typed in everything that had happened last night and sent it to the Chief without looking it over even once. He wanted it by seven a.m.?Fine. I sent it at six fifty-nine, and if his eyes bled from the typos that were probably in there, he was going to have to suck it up and deal with it.
Hunter called me as soon as I stood up. I wanted to pick up, but I couldn’t, not without throwing up from the pain. Instead, I went to the fridge and took the salve Mom helped me make, then I sat myself on the toilet and began to take the bandages off. The rest of the wounds on my body weren’t bad, but the wolf bite on my left arm was horrible. I hadholesin my skin where his teeth had been, and they were still bleeding a little bit. Bile rose in my throat every time the cool salve touched my burning hot skin around the wounds. I put a good amount of the sticky thing on every wound on me, just like Mom instructed, and then I leaned back against the bathroom tiles, closed my eyes and focused on breathing.
I must have fallen asleep again like that because when my eyes popped open again to a knock on the door, it was already seven-forty. Groaning, I held onto the wall and made it all the way to the door by some miracle without collapsing to the floor.
Hunter and Eva stormed inside my apartment like they owned it, calling me every name in the book for not picking up the phone and not calling them back. They grabbed me by the arms gently and sat me down on my bed, inspecting the wounds on me as they went. I wore a tank top that barely covered my boobs, but Hunter didn’t even look at me twice. He liked women—just as much as men—but I was his friend, and he was being a real gentleman in not making me feel as naked as I actually was with those pajama shorts I’d slept in.
Patricia arrived ten minutes later with a bowl of soup under one arm, and a plastic bottle full of brown liquid that looked too disgusting to drink. But it was a painkiller—a family recipe—and she’d made it for me this morning after Hunter had heard about what happened last night and called both her and Eva. So, I sucked it up, closed my nose and drank half the bottle in one gulp.
Yep. Disgusting.
“I’m fine, guys,” I said for what must have been the sixtieth time, yet they still wouldn’t let me even stand up. “Really—look at my wounds. They’re already closing.”
“Notthatone.” Eva eyed the bite wound on my arm with a flinch.