Just a Rogue

Dominic

Evan grabs Corinne and pulls her back away from the edge before she tries to jump over and catch them or something, thank god. The rest of us peek over. Nothing down there but waves crashing onto the rocks, far, far below. And no way for us to get down.

“I think if you go a little south there’s a way to climb down,” Amelia tells me through our link. “Here, look, Theo says he’s climbed that cliff before, he will show you.”

He will? She can, like, conference call him in or something?

Then I see what she’s doing. She’s staring at a map of the cliff, and I see Theo’s hand come into view over it. His finger points.

“He says that’s where you’re standing. You need to move down to find this little trail.” I’m squinting at what I’m seeing in my head, a brown finger along a map, and I look over to my left and think that I see where he means.

“Um, this is weird,” I tell her, and I sense a tiny giggle, but this is far too serious a moment to really let loose with it. “Okay, thank Theo for me. We’re heading down.”

Evan has been holding Corinne, who is shaking and clearly traumatized, and I wish I had time to check on her, but I know he’ll take care of her. I tell him, “We’re going down there.”

“Okay,” he says, “I need to get her back to the packhouse.”

Amelia is eavesdropping, and she says, “Tell him to go to the parking lot for College Cove, we’re sending someone there with a car to pick them up.”

I relay this, feeling like I’m a human cell phone or something, then start leading the other guys down the path.

When we get to the bottom we have to cling to the edge of the cliff and make our way around to where the rogues fell and I’m expecting to see a lot of body parts splatted everywhere, but there’s nothing. “Are we in the right place?” I ask Amelia.

“We think so,” she says, “keep looking.”

So I get right down in the water, buffeted by the surf, giving up on keeping my shoes dry, and kneel against a rock, clinging with my fingertips, staring around. The other guys are doing the same. A wave smacks me in the face and almost knocks me over, and I’m spitting out salt water and shaking my head as it recedes back to the ocean.

That’s when I see something underneath me, in the water below the rock that I’m clinging to. “I see something,” I say out loud to the guys I’m with and mentally to Amelia, take a breath, and dive in.

It’s them. Wedged between a couple of sharp rocks, I see a guy, and I grab him, then realize that another guy is underneath. I pull the top one free and start lifting him up out of the water, and somebody else grabs the other one.

When we get out of the water I take a look, and oh boy what a mess. The water has washed away what has to have been a lot of blood. I don’t think this one is Xavier.

“I think it’s Seth,” Amelia says, “he matches Corinne’s description.” Or he would have, we both think, before his face was completely smashed in. He’s gotta be dead, right? I mean, who could survive this?

I glance over at the other one also being hauled up, and he’s in even worse shape, and furthermore is a weird purple color so he’s for sure dead.

“Do you see the third one?” I ask the guys behind me, but we have only found these two.

Well, we’ve gotta get off these rocks, we can come back and look again in a few minutes.

“Go back south around the side of the cliff,” Amelia tells me, “you can get to the beach at the cove down there.”

It’s grueling and awful to carry these heavy rogues across the rocky base of the cliff, and the Pacific Ocean clearly hates us and wants to pummel us to death with waves, but eventually we drag what are probably dead rogues with us to the beach.

Gah. We have to take a second to try to catch our breath before looking again at the rogues. Yeah, that big one has got to be dead. If that’s not what death looks like I don’t know what is. He’s drowned or something, purple and splotchy, his tongue sticking out, huge wounds everywhere.

The first one, Seth I guess, at least looks like a more normal color, although very pale, and I put my ear to his chest and realize that I think he’s still breathing. Damn. I have no idea how, half his jaw is caved in where he must have hit the rocks, and now that he’s out of the water he’s starting to bleed again.

“Um, I don’t know enough first aid to even know where to start,” I say.

“River Moon paramedics are on the way,” Amelia assures me, so we just sit and stare at the two sorry bodies, hoping humans don’t come and start trying to interfere. Four of our guys go back to the cliff to try to look for the third rogue, but they haven’t found her by the time the paramedics show up.

I think she’s just gone, washed out to sea I guess.

Dr. Hughes

I’ve gotten the two injured rogues in the cave stabilized, and there’s nothing to do but watch over them for a couple of hours while their wolf healing kicks in. Their injuries appear to be puncture wounds to the throat, consistent with having been bitten and shaken by a larger wolf as has been described. They have suffered severe blood loss but wolf healing replenishes blood rapidly. They should be fine.

I’m prepared to wait with them until they can be transported, but Alpha Kanen has gotten more information from his mate. “Dr. Hughes, three of the other rogues fell off the cliff at Elk Head and our pack has two of them on the beach at College Cove. At least one is still alive, but severely injured. Our paramedics are preparing to transport them.”

I nod. “All right. Have them brought directly to the hospital, I will meet them there. My assistant can remain with these two.”

The other Alpha, Ross, says “We’ll assign a team to wait here with them. We want to get the silver cuffs on as soon as your assistant authorizes it, then bring them back to the packhouse.”

I nod. Once they’re healed enough, they shouldn’t need further treatment and can go to the packhouse. Ross goes on, “I’ll come with you to the hospital, doctor. I want to verify the condition of the rogues, and we’ll need a security team there as well to control them if needed.” He turns to Alpha Kanen. “And I know that you need to get back to the packhouse. There’s going to be a lot happening there.”

It’s a complicated situation, but we’ve dealt with such things before.

We arrive at the hospital just before the ambulance pulls up with the two rogues. I stand by as the paramedics remove the first one from the back on a gurney, and I do some quick triage right in the parking lot. Severe facial fractures, probable spinal injury, no doubt multiple other broken bones, pulse thready and weak, substantial blood loss. This one is lucky to be alive after a fall of that height. I instruct the orderly to have him brought in for x-rays then stabilized for surgery.

I turn to the second rogue, whose gurney is being unloaded. He appears deceased, but the fact that the livid facial discoloration lingers makes me take out my stethoscope and listen carefully to his chest. I detect a very slow, almost imperceptible heart beat.

I look up at Ross who is standing, watching me conduct the triage, a team of pack members behind him. “He’s not quite gone,” I say. I see that his throat is constricted with a metal band, and suspect that in addition to the numerous severe broken bones and other injuries that are immediately evident, his airway is compressed. I reach out to touch the band, wanting to find a way to remove it, and instantly sense the burning pain of silver against my fingertips.

Ah, I see.

I turn to the paramedics. I know they have equipment to extricate victims from car accidents, they can probably take care of this. “Do you have tools to cut this off?” I ask, indicating the silver band. “Careful not to touch it, it’s silver.”

One of them immediately goes to a tool compartment in their ambulance and brings back what looks like a pair of sturdy garden loppers. He is able to wedge a blade between the back of the rogue’s neck and the collar, trying not to create additional pressure against the windpipe, which is probably severely injured already.

In a moment the collar has been snipped off, and the rogue seems to take a shallow and raspy breath.

“Well, he’s alive too,” I say, and Alpha Ross looks more disappointed than anything else. I suppose because this means that we’ll have to treat him also. The pack would never summarily execute anyone without due process, so we will have to find every way to heal this man before that can happen.

I tell my staff to do the same with the second man, x-rays, and stabilize him for surgery.

Ross frowns. “I’ll guard this one personally,” he says. “He’s too dangerous to leave alone.” I look at the rogue dubiously, more dead than alive, unlikely to survive surgery, but I nod. The Alpha follows behind as the staff wheels the gurney inside.

Ruby

I haven’t disliked my time in this jail cell one little bit. I had the most wonderfully restful nap, simply tuning out the grumbling from across the hallway. I don’t care what Wyatt is complaining about. Then after I wake up feeling more refreshed than I have in a long time, someone from the pack brings in trays for lunch, and slides them under the bars, and I enjoy the most delicious meal I have had since I can remember. Grilled cheese sandwiches, a really nice salad, some chips, even cookies. I could get used to being a River Moon prisoner. Wyatt grumbles his way through the entire meal, but I don’t see him refusing to eat it.

I suppose I won’t hear anything else until dinner time, but in a little while the door opens again, and I wonder if someone is coming to get the lunch tray.

But no! A couple of pack members are dragging someone between them, and I realize that it’s Hugh! He’s barely conscious, his hands are cuffed behind his back, and they quickly have him stuffed into the cell next to mine.

Holy cow! Did the battle already happen? The pack already made their move?

Then I realize that yes, that has to be exactly it. After Hugh, the pack drags down two more rogues, first Landon who is in the same condition as Hugh, barely awake. Then Amir, who is sullenly walking along, also wearing handcuffs.

Here we all are, half the rogues, reunited in jail.

My mouth is hanging open as I stand at my bars and watch them get locked up.

Wyatt across from me is of course bellowing and making a real ass of himself, demanding to be released, demanding an explanation, threatening to kill everyone in the pack.

Pfsh. What a moron. I even see Blake rolling his eyes, listening to Wyatt carry on like he has the slightest hope of intimidating the pack into anything.

I wait to see if anyone else is brought in, but that seems to be it. I suppose everyone else got killed in the battle. After the pack members leave, I plan to ask Amir what happened.

But instead, one of the men comes to my cell and opens my door. “Come with us,” he says. Oh!

Wyatt immediately begins bellowing some incoherent rant which is a mixture of threats against the pack, and against me, telling me that I’d better not break under the torture, I’d better stay loyal to Xavier no matter what they do to me.

I just roll my eyes at him as I walk past his cell.

What a moron.

Corinne

My brain will not stop buzzing. I’m caught in a tempest of thoughts and emotions, a constant stream of images of everything that has happened in the past couple of days. Most of all, I can’t stop seeing them falling. Seth grabbing Xavier, obviously determined to save me, then Grace grabbing Seth, obviously determined to save Xavier, then all three of them falling.

In my mind, I see them falling and falling and falling and never reaching the bottom, because I can’t bear to picture what happened down there.

I know they’re all dead. Nobody could survive it. And I feel more grief than elation. I feel guilty, responsible for the deaths of Seth and Grace. I wonder if I should have just done what I was thinking of earlier, stepped off the ledge myself and taken Xavier with me. At least Grace and Seth might still be alive. Both of them have tried to protect me, even Seth at the end, and both lost their lives as a result. I feel very unworthy.

Evan knows, I think, that my mind is spinning like this, but he isn’t trying to add to it. He’s just holding my hand silently, in the back seat of the car as we are driven back to the packhouse. I think he wants to let me process it, not interrogate me about it.

And it is so perfect, and so comforting, and so exactly what I need. He brings me a sense of peace and safety and, as always, kindness, like I have never known before.

When we arrive, I expect to be brought inside immediately for questioning, but instead Evan leads me to some of the comfortable patio furniture out behind the packhouse. It looks so civilized, so refined, so different from the cave I was crouching in this morning. He sits down next to me on a cushioned outdoor sofa, and pulls me to him, and just lets my head rest against his shoulder, while we enjoy the warm January sunshine. The only thing he says, in a whisper, is, “We don’t have to talk about anything unless you want to.”

I nod, so grateful to him.

For a few minutes we sit silently together, and I gaze at the blue sky, realizing how much I missed it during just a couple of days inside the cave.

Then I hear footsteps, and glance around, and jump up when I see Ruby walking up to me with a huge grin on her face!

In a moment we are hugging, and both talking at the same time, and Evan is standing back smiling with the other man who brought Ruby here to me. I want to know everything, and she wants to know everything, and this is exactly who I want to talk to, and exactly what I need. And I suspect that Evan arranged this too.

She sits next to us on the comfortable outdoor seating, and we have barely started talking and comparing notes about everything that has happened, when we hear more footsteps.

It is Lynette and Nova! No collar, no handcuffs, nothing but smiles.

I burst out into tears, of happiness and grief, because we are reunited, all of us sisters, except for Grace, the one who was in many ways our mother, and I know that I have to tell them what happened, but it will wait because we are all hugging and crying. And most of all, we are together. And safe.