Wild and Free

(Mason’t POV)

“Oh my god,” Cassie sobbed when she saw her friend. She rushed to the other side of the bed from where I stood, resting a hand of the sleeping girl’s shoulder.

She glanced up at me, “How did this happen? Where you guys find her? What did she-”

“Cassie!” I cut off her rambling. “One question at a time and maybe I’ll get the chance to answer them.”

A tear rolled down her cheek but she nodded nonetheless, “Just tell me everything.”

I rubbed my eyes but gestured to the couch on the other side of the room.

I suppose when Kenzie ran in the infirmary originally she told Diana that it was serious, that’s why they brought Auden to one of the private rooms that were reserved for Alphas, Betas, Gammas, and any other high ranking pack members.

Normally, if you came into the infirmary for something like an injury during training or something, they would put you in the main room which was a big long room with beds lining the walls. Whereas the private rooms were about standard bedroom size and had a single bed, with a seating area for family or visitors.

We all gathered in that area, away from Auden to let her sleep in peace.

“I don’t know where she was,” I started, running my hands down my face. “Kenzie got some kind of vision this morning about in her apartment parking lot so we figured we should check it out to see if Auden turned up. When we got there the entire apartment was demolished and she was sitting on the floor with her legs covered in broken glass shards.”

Cassie buried her face in her hands and my sister rubbing the girl’s back gently.

“She was freaking out, none of us could get a word out of her,” Kenzie explained. “I guess somehow Mason got her to talk but that was after Greyson and I left to give them some space.”

The blonde human looked up at me, “How did you get her to talk?”

I raised a single eyebrow at her tone, “You sound surprised.”

“Auden isn’t a very open person, even around Holden and I she keeps things to herself,” she replied. “If she was breaking down like you say, it just seems impossible to think that she’d speak to anyone let alone you.”

My expression didn’t change, “What makes me different?”

She gave me a look, “You guys didn’t really meet under the nicest circumstances and let’s be honest, haven’t been the closest the past few months.”

“I’ve tried!” I defended myself. “You said it yourself, she’s not an open person.”

“Whatever!” Riley interrupted. “What did Auden say to you after you got her to calm down?”

“I basically asked her who destroyed her apartment and she said she didn’t know. I guess the lock was broken when she got there and she hadn’t seen anyone,” I answered.

“And she didn’t say where the hell she’s been for the past two days?” Cassie asked.

I shook my head in reply, “I didn’t really get the chance to ask. I saw the glass in her leg and tried to get her to come here but she didn’t want to. We… argued and I finally got her to agree but only because she was losing way to much blood and the wound was to severe to be able to fix herself up with that silly first aid kit she has.”

Cassie looked at me suspiciously but shook it away quickly, “Sounds like Auden…” she muttered, looking down at her hands.

I felt kind of bad for the girl. It definitely wasn’t easy walking into a room to see someone you cared so deeply for hurt. It was the way that I felt when came into to see Kenz after the attack with the grey wolves.

The difference was, when I went in to see my sister, I had already seen a lot of what was done to her. Sure that didn’t make it much easier to cope with but I couldn’t imagine how Cassie was feeling. Not only was the thick, white bandage from the large shard of glass daunting to see, the unconscious girl also had dozens of other cuts on her hands and legs from smaller pieces of glass that didn’t make the sight any prettier over all.

All of that piled on top of the fact that the first time she was seeing Auden since she went MIA, was in the hospital. None of it could be easy for her.

“There was one, kind of weird thing I noticed,” Kenzie said after we were all silent for a moment.

“Oh only one thing?” Greyson countered.

I elbowed him in the ribs while Kenzie continued.

“When Greyson and I were in there with her for that second, we wanted to take her to the hospital but she refused,” Kenzie shared, peering over at Cassie. “Why would she do that? I mean I get it being some sort of a knee jerk reaction because she was freaking out. But she was so serious.”

We all looked over at Cassie. She was stiff and tense. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was stressed or nervous for some reason. From what I’d learned about Cassie so far, I didn’t think she was a very good liar.

“She’s had a bad history with hospitals and adults in general,” she answered vaguely. “I’m surprised she even let you drag her all the way here.”

“What do you mean bad history?” Riley asked.

Cassie shrugged and stood up from the couch going over the window and looking out, “I mean you guys have heard the kinds of rumors that get spread around school, right?”

We all nodded and she glanced over at us, “They’re nothing compared to the kinds of things that get spread around town.”

“Why’s that?” Kenz asked.

“Auden has been here way longer than you guys. Time like that gives students time to tell parents. Then parents tell others. It doesn’t matter what age you get to, gossip still spreads like wildfire,” she said solemnly.

I knit my brows, “But what does that have to do with her so called bad history with hospitals? You make it sound like whatever it was, didn’t happen here in White Chapel.”

“Because it didn’t,” she answered. “It’s like she told you, she wandered around for almost an entire year after her parents… you know, and before she found White Chapel. People in the real world are not kind, especially to a teenage girl on the streets.”

My stomach twisted at her words.

“So naturally, she got hurt a few times,” the blonde continued. “Auden’s not stupid, she wouldn’t walk around hurt and vulnerable so she went to some hospital in whatever city she was going through. It didn’t end so well.”

“I still don’t understand,” Riley said, confused.

She looked at him, “What’s the first thing they make you do when you go to the hospital? And I mean a human hospital.”

“Sign a shit ton of papers,” Greyson scoffed.

I went to hit him for his stupid, blunt response but Cassie nodded at his answer, “And what is one of the biggest things for underage kids to write on those forms.”

We were silent for a second before it finally hit me as to what she meant.

“Parental information,” I cursed, shaking my head.

Cassie nodded in response, “That and insurance and payment method. So when she went in for a trip to get stitches, she was refused even though she had money to pay them. They didn’t trust a girl that walked into the ER with a stab wound, scarred palms, and no parental contact. Not even enough to help her.”

Cassie finished her sentence and her eyes widened. I guess she didn’t realize that she had said so much.

Kenzie covered her mouth with a hand, “She was s-stabbed?” she asked horrified.

Cassie came back over to us, quickly glancing over at Auden as if to make sure she was still out cold, “None of you can tell her that I told you. She doesn’t talk about it a lot, but please don’t bring in up. She’d kill me.”

“How is she okay?” Kenz prodded. “If they refused her she wouldn’t have gotten anything to help her. How could she have survived being stabbed?”

Cassie shrugged, “I guess she was lucky. The knife probably missed anything important.”

“Did she ever tell you exactly how it happened?” I asked.

“She said that it was a group of guys with, um… negative intentions,” she gulped. “When she refused, they got mad. There was a fight but she didn’t tell me how bad it was. She said she didn’t see the knife,” she looked down at her hands. “They left her to die.”

We all were silent.

Fuck. That was all that ran through my mind. Why did the list of terrible things just keep growing? Was there really anything good that had ever happened to this girl? Could having the good friends like us really make up for all that other awful shit that’s happened to her?

None of it made sense.

Even the most horrible people didn’t deserve half of what had happened to Auden her entire lifetime.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

As always, comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~your Cheshire Cat loving friend