Abandoned Treasure

Warrior Vic Knightly’s POV

Spider Monkey’s Silicon Valley Condo

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Awareness came back slowly as I woke. The motion had stopped, and the road noise was gone. There was a slight bump, then the sound of a garage door closing. Pain filled my chest and my leg; I kept my eyes closed, thinking until I remembered what happened.

I got shot. And it hurt.

“Leave the cash in the car for now; I’ll get it after Vic is resting again. If you can grab my medical bag and open the doors, I’ll get him out of here.” It took my brain a sentence to remember it was Chase speaking.

“You can’t carry him alone,” a female voice said. Spider Monkey.

I tried to talk, but it came out more like a groan. I tried opening my eyes, but they were stuck closed. “He’s waking up,” Chase said. I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Easy, Vic. You’re safe. We’re back at Spider Monkey’s place.”

I had to make sure she was all right. I got my eyes opened, blinking a few times before looking around. Spider was standing just outside the door. “Baby?”

“Welcome back, Vic. Don’t get shot again! You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. Chase helped me sit up, and that was a new level of pain in my chest. He took his time moving me until I stood on one leg in her garage with my arm around Chase’s shoulder. Spider led me towards her bed, but Chase first made a pitstop in the bathroom. Changing my bandages stung like a bitch, but I didn’t make a sound. Spider Monkey caught my face. “Damn, that stings,” I said as Chase used alcohol and a cotton swab to clean my chest wound.

“It beats an infection,” Chase said. He put on fresh bandages, and the two got me into her bed. My wolf settled down with her scent strong in my nose, and I was asleep in seconds.

When I woke up, it was daylight, and I was in the back of a car again. My clothes were soaked in sweat, I was feverish, and I could hear airplanes. Chase opened the door, helping me walk to a seat in a small jet. “What is going on,” I asked.

“We’re taking you to Arrowhead.I had to clean up your leg, and I need Doc to look at you before this infection gets any worse.”

“What about her?”

“She won’t let you out of her sight.”

I cracked a little smile. “She’s still human.”

“And she’ll stay that way. Get some rest, Vic. You’ve got a long way to go before you’re healed.” Spider Monkey had my hand in hers as we waited for the door to close. I was asleep before takeoff.

The turbulence woke me up. The wounds in my leg and chest didn’t like the sudden altitude changes the plane was making. Spider Monkey raised our seats and then checked the buckles were tight. “What’s going on?”

“A blizzard is moving through western Minnesota,” Chase answered. “The pilot said we’ll land ahead of it, but it’s going to be a rough ride.”

Spider Monkey held onto my hand with a steel grip while I was trying hard not to let her know how much I was hurting. I thanked Luna when it stopped shortly before a smooth landing in Duluth.

The painkillers were wearing out, and my leg had stiffened up during the flight. Getting out of the plane and into Doc’s wheelchair about wiped me out. The cargo van he’d brought had a gurney in the back, and the two men had me strapped down in a few moments.

Doc started examining me while Chase and Spider loaded our bags from the cargo hold. The bags of cash took up so much room that Doc had to sit on them. He started hanging an IV as the other two got in the bucket seats up front. “Let’s go home,” Chase said.

“Canvas is going to freak out when she sees me.” She looked back at Doc. “You didn’t tell her we were coming?”

“Chase said not to say anything, and I haven’t.” He cut the bandages off to check them. “This happened yesterday?”

“Yes, about thirty hours ago. The fever spiked about ten hours ago.” Chase summarized the damage and his actions to treat them.

“You did well getting him this far, but in the future, take him to a P… a clinic with someone you can trust. You should have gone to your brother’s place.” He almost said, ‘Pack.’

“He couldn’t fly, and Spider’s place was a safe drive. Hindsight is perfect, just like if I’d had stronger antibiotics in my bag, we might not be here.”

“You operated in a moving van, so you should have expected complications like this. Field surgery is to stabilize the patient for transport. You did what you could.”

“Guys,” Spider interrupted. “It wasn’t the best situation, but we’re here now. Let’s focus on what’s important, and that’s fixing my man up.”

“She’s right,” Chase said as he turned left. “I did what I thought was best at the time. I’ll learn from it and move on.”

“Good,” Spidey said in that voice, meaning all discussion was over. It was a female thing. “What’s the plan when we get to the clinic?”

“I need to take X-rays of his chest and leg to make sure no bullet fragments or other material was left in there. We may need to operate on him again, this time in sterile conditions and with proper equipment. If the foreign material is in there, it could keep us from curing his infection and cause other problems.” He poked around my leg, and it hurt like a bitch. “The antibiotics he had couldn’t handle this. We’ll clean it out again and pack it. We’ll know in twenty-four hours if we’ve turned the corner on it.”

“And until we’ve got the infection cured and his body has a chance to heal, we’ll keep him in the clinic at my compound,” Chase said.

“I’m not leaving here without him,” Spider objected.

She wasn’t leaving, and I didn’t want her to. Arrowhead often had human visitors; they would keep the secret. “I’ll be better in no time. When I’m up to it, we’ll take a vacation, just me and you and a beach villa.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. You stay patient until I’m better, and then we’ll have time. You can decide where; I don’t care as long as I’m with you.”

Her arousal was evident in the enclosed space, and it made Doc uncomfortable. “So what’s in all the bags,” he asked to change the subject.

Chase chuckled. “Christmas presents. We did some shopping.”

“Huh. I guess that’s a good thing with the party going on.” Yep, Rori was surprising her mate! “You didn’t know? I guess with the storm coming and the place on lockdown, Rori decided to hold a beach bash at your indoor pool. All your, um, family and friends from Oxbow Lake are there already.”

“With the storm?”

“As your Uncle Michael said? Better to wait out the storm by your pool than in their homes.”

I heard Spider Monkey squeal and bound in her seat. “I’m sure there will be lots of food.”

“You can count on that. My, uh, wife made her famous New York Style cheesecake. Three of them with different fruit toppings.”

“Those are the best,” Chase agreed.

I hadn’t tasted it yet, but I’d find out!

“Now I’m getting hungry,” Spider Monkey said.

“We’ll have someone bring you a plate while we work on Vic,” Chase replied. He was pointing out the sights to Spider as he drove north.

“It looks so different in the winter,” my girl said.

“We’ll have to show her what we do for fun in the Great White North, eh?”

Doc grunted. “Ice fishing, ice skating, skiing? You can do it all around here. Bikers like you will love snowmobiles. Chase has extra gear and sleds, and most people have their own. I’m sure there will be someone willing to take you out.”

“It looks cold as hell.”

“This is balmy! Practically T-shirt and shorts weather for us,” Chase said. “After the storm passes? It will be fifty or sixty degrees colder.” I doubt if she’d ever done winter sports. “We dress for it; you’ll be fine. You ride closer to the ground than a motorcycle, so it feels faster. They are more maneuverable, too. Snowmobiles are more fun than motorcycles; you can go almost a hundred miles an hour on an open area like the lake or wind your way slowly through the woods.”

“I’m a California girl who thinks ice should be in her drink, so you’ve got some convincing to do. I think you are all nuts to stay here in the winter,” she said.

“We’re here,” Chase said as he made a turn. “I’ve got Doc from Oxbow, Vic, and Spider Monkey along. Vic’s hurt. We’re heading to the clinic.”

I recognized the clinic as they opened the back doors and pulled my gurney out. They rolled me straight to an exam room, and Doc took X-rays. Celeste linked me that she was with Spider Monkey and Alpha Rori in the waiting room. I told her that I’d be fine and I’d see her soon.

Doc told me they were going to have to operate on me again. They allowed the girls to see me before taking me to the operating room. Celeste was in tears as she saw me lying on the table. “Daddy,” she cried into my shoulder.

“It’s all right, my girl. I’ll be fine in a bit. I’ve had worse.”

“I don’t want to lose you. Gina needs her Grandpa around.” She held onto one hand while Spider had my other. “Spider Monkey, this is my daughter Celeste. Celeste, Spider Monkey. She’s mine.”

“She’s human, Dad.”

“I don’t care. My wolf has claimed her.”

She blinked a few times, then looked across at the tiny spitfire. “Hi. Dad told me nothing about this, so it took me a second. It’s the first time he’s introduced a girlfriend to me. Spider Monkey can’t be your real name, can it?”

“I hate my real name. Spider Monkey is my road name. I’m a Steel Lady out of the Bay Area. At least I was up until a few days ago.” Chase was cutting my clothes off in front of them, and Possum came in all gowned up. “And I’m not sure it means as much when the woman is bringing him home to have surgery without the cops knowing.”

They kissed me goodbye as the IV sedative soon put me under.

I woke in one of the hospital rooms. Doc did some checks on me and adjusted my pain medication. He then let Spider Monkey, Celeste, and her family in to see me. Spider Monkey was working on her laptop while they visited.

Beta Teri brought us dinner, though Spider’s plate looked much better than mine. She didn’t have the dietary restrictions Doc had ordered for me after surgery. Teri took the dishes away and returned to work with Spidey. Their computer talk might as well have been in Russian, for all I understood. I turned on a college bowl game while they worked.

Chase walked in an hour later. “How are you feeling, Vic?”

“Pretty good, Chase. My nurse is a big help in my recovery.”

“Possum has a good bedside manner,” he said with a smirk.

“Me, you idiot,” Spider barked. “He swears that my kisses are better than any pain pills. Now he grimaces, and I have to give him another smooch.”

Chase laughed as he checked on me. “What are you two up to?”

“Covering our tracks,” Spider said. “I’m in the Caltrans system right now. Teri is helping me copy the traffic camera archives from three days ago over the archives from the last two days. I don’t want any traffic cameras showing us driving down or back. I’ve already done the same thing for the Los Angeles cameras.”

“Is there anything you can’t do, Spider?”

“Probably not. If I run into trouble, I can find a way using Teri or my other friends.”

Chase examined me for a few minutes before turning to his Beta. “Keep her out of trouble.”

“Yeah, right. Spidey is a Steel Lady. She LIKES trouble. Why else would she show up with a hot guy and a bag of cash and immediately need me to help her hide from the cops?”

“You have a point. Spider, you really should get over to the party. You’d like it.”

“I hear. Doc said he’d give Vic a sedative that would make him sleep deep in a few hours, and we’ll go over then. In the meantime? I need to keep this big guy in bed.”

I groaned, thinking how easy that would be if I didn’t get hurt. “And keep me out of pain,” I said with a smile.

Spider came over and kissed me passionately. “That help?”

“Always.”

The two kept working until Doc gave me the sedative. “Go have fun with your friends,” I told her.

“I’ll come back later,” she promised as I fell asleep again.

“HOSTILES BY THE ALPHA HOUSE, WE’RE UNDER ATTACK,” Alpha Rori’s mental blast shouted into my head. I was awake instantly. The pain and Spider Monkey’s head on my shoulder prevented me from sitting up, but it didn’t stop my pained grunt.

“Go back to sleep,” Spider Monkey protested. The alarm tone over the public address system had her up and on her feet. “What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack,” I said. Doc pushed Possum into the room before closing and locking it.

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet,” I replied. “We’re safe here.” I listened to the Pack link as the defenders finally overcame the attackers at the Alpha house.

We couldn’t explain the Pack link, so we had to wait until someone called the clinic. “It was the Sons,” he said as he hung up. “They tried to kill Chase and Rori, but we fought them off. Possum, get the rooms ready. We have wounded.”

Shit.

The cops were coming, so the Alphas moved me and the money to Ron and Teri’s basement. We’d be safe from any searches. It would keep me out of sight, and Teri would be there to help Spider Monkey get revenge on the Sons.

They had a lot of work to do, and Spidey was pissed.