She shrugged. “I’ve lived here my whole life, never been a mine nearby. Must be a new place. Been bloody quiet about it, haven’t heard anything about hiring.”
I nodded, wanting to end this weird arse conversation. We took a seat away from the other punters in one of the corners. “So, what the hell was that?”
Brandon sat on one of the stools and took a long sip of his drink. “The Sanctuary operates in a weird space.”
“Of course, it does.”
“The way I had it explained to me, is it’s like a membrane. Only those things that have permission can see it or go in or out of it, anyone with some wolf genes. Everyone else just sees dirt and trees.”
“So my place of work plays Jedi mind tricks?”
He grinned, “From what I heard it’s witch mind tricks. Cost a lot of money back in the day.”
“So that’s how they knew I was one of you, when I found the Sanctuary.”
“Ah, no, that was confirmed when you saw the ad.”
“Seriously, magic wanted ads?”
Brandon got up and walked over to one of the other tables and picked up an old newspaper there and passed it to me. “Take a look.”
I opened the classifieds and there it was, over and over, the same offsider job advertised in every space. “So why didn’t they tell me what was going on?”
“Because everyone runs, just like you did. Kelly thought it would be better to wait until we know if people can turn, so there’s less time spent chasing after people and making sure they’re OK. If it turns out you can’t change, and don’t want to stay at Sanctuary, no harm no foul. If you do, well they deal with that when it happens, rather than freaking people out about something that might not happen. I meant what I said, the full moon was never going to hurt you.”
“We should get a room for the night,” I said. I just wanted to climb under the covers and shut out the world right now.
“Ok, one or two.”
“One should be fine.”
The beer had hit me pretty hard, I realised as I got to my feet. I was feeling kinda drunk already, but I guess getting bitten by monster beasts took it out of a girl. The room was dark and smelled musty, but I dropped down on the bed as soon as we got in the door. “Are you OK, Jules?” he asked, but I only heard his words dimly.
“Hot,” I said. “Turn the aircon on, will ya?”
A hand was placed on my forehead, and I knew Brandon had something to say about that but I missed it, dropping almost immediately into sleep.
17
“She’s burning up! She should have taken her damn medicine. I told Kelly to leave the explanations until she was out of the woods.”
“What are we going to do, Doc?”
“Get her back to the hospital. What else can we do? You all need to be prepared to lose her. I’ll put her on the strongest antibiotics I’ve got, but I don’t know if they’ll help much against the lycan strain. If I was in a major hospital with more resources at hand…. Get her in the van. I’ll hook her up and do my best.”
I slowly came back to consciousness, and wished I hadn’t. “Unh!” I mumbled, it came on me so fast. I whimpered ineffectually as it felt like someone was smashing into my skull with fists of iron, my heartbeat sounding like a bass drum being pounded at 100 decibels, and I burned. As my awareness of my body grew, so did the feeling. I was so, so hot. I’m burning! I thought, fear clogging my throat. I needed to get up, to run, but I was made of lead. I cried as all I could do was shift restively. Nothing helped, nothing provided any respite. If anything, moving exacerbated it, sending slashes of pain through my body as I did. But I couldn’t stop. My skin felt like it was surely beginning to crisp and blacken. “Uh…uh..uh..” I felt the hysteria rise, I couldn’t escape this, I couldn’t get
up, leave, kill whoever was doing this to me because this was me. My body had betrayed me, turning on me, threatening to crush my awareness like a bug. My back curved into a harsh bow, the muscles trembling with the effort and unable to stop.
“Fuck! She’s regaining consciousness. Up the tranqs, 20ml!”
“Is that wise? What if this is the change? She’s been here for days, the full moon is coming…”
“She’ll be dead before then if we don’t get her sedated! She’s knocked the fucking line out. You two, hold her down, I don’t care if you bruise her, just keep her steady. I need to get this back in, and I don’t want to rip a hole in her vein.”
“Arrrgh!” I shrieked as bars of iron were wrapped around me. I needed, had to move, to somehow get away from what was going on. My throat felt like it was scraped with glass, but I screamed and screamed. It was the only way, either that or let the pain take me whole. Something cold and hard was shoved in my arm, I tried to yank it from the harsh grip but instead, was forced to fight for breath as I was squeezed inexorably. I panted madly and moaned, then felt the spread of a cold heaviness inside me. I whimpered, not yet willing to believe that there was a way out of this hell, that I might not have to endure this agony.
“She’ll be out in 3…2…”