Leilani.
"What do you feel besides the pain? Longing? Sadness...?" An eerily chill voice pierced through my ears, tearing into the silence I have grown to love and welcome for however long I’ve lain here listening only to the sound of my heart beating against my chest.
I tried to open my mouth, to respond, but all I could feel was hoarseness. My throat felt like it was on fire but it was nothing compared to the pain in my stomach or the one in my head. I rasped; "Anger."
"Anger? Why?"
"I don’t know..." my voice trailed off. "I just feel it."
"Oh, you do..." the voice whispered against my skin, feeling like a caress, "...you know exactly what you feel. You know what you’ve been feeling for days nonstop. And you know why."
When those words drifted into my ears, I mentally lowered my head, fighting the tears in my eyes.
It was true that there was a reason behind my sudden snappy attitude these past few weeks. It was true that anger was the only thing I’ve grown to embrace, to feel... to know.
But if you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you feel the same way?
Wouldn’t you be mad that you seemed to be failing at almost everything you did, even your job which you were so good at? Wouldn’t you be mad that your half-alive half-dead wolf now seemed like the only leverage everyone has over you?
The triplets want to help me— because of my wolf.
Darius is proposing marriage— to help strengthen my wolf.
Yet, this wolf is the same reason my father— Malakai— never loved me. It was why he never cared one bit about me; and now, he’s dead without closure while I have to live through it, smiling like my life isn’t crumbling and pretending to be happy for Gavin and Maya— I was indeed happy for them— despite wanting even a little bit of what they have.
But not with my actual mates.
Now, that’s where Jarek comes in... but he’s still unwell.
I shook my head. "Nothing. I am fine."
"You need to be truthful to yourself. You need to open up to someone. For how long do you intend to bear this burden alone? For how long do you intend to be mad at the world?"
Forever.
When tears filled my eyes this time, I didn’t bother to hold back. It bubbled up from the deepest darkest corner of my heart and broke out like a damaged dam.
My body shook as they streamed down my face, and I do not know for how long I laid there crying but by the time I finally came to, the voice was gone. The floating feeling in my limbs were gone, replaced instead with a numbness I couldn’t understand.
I tried to move but I couldn’t. I tried to speak but that was impossible.
And do you know what was most impossible?
Opening my eyes.
They were shut tight as if glued together. Then a voice, familiar yet distant spoke shakily;
"She’s in a coma. She’s been in a coma for over two months now and there’s nothing I haven’t done to make her come around."
Then silence. The pain didn’t speak or move or anything.
For a moment, I thought I had imagined it until whoever it was spoke again. He said; "The doctors say that a werewolf in a coma for this long is as good as dead. They advise that we should remove the plug."
I froze.
Her injuries from two months ago were not healing. They still bled— profusely for that matter. Her wolf or Lycan had gone on hiatus, and I couldn’t sit back and watch anymore.
"Sir," a voice called out to me, snapping me out of my train of thoughts, and it wasn’t until then that I noticed the tiny nurse hovering over the door, her unsteady eyes darting from my face to Leilani’s as she whispered; "I am here for her daily routine check up."
I nodded. "Ahh, then go on!"
And with that, I stepped away from the bed and shuffled backwards until my back hit the wall, but my eyes never left her face. "I’ll be so quiet, you wouldn’t even notice me standing here."
She didn’t respond and even though I could see how her lips were downturned in obvious dissatisfaction, she never asked me to leave.
And so I watched her work quietly and efficiently. My eyebrows raised when she inserted a syringe into Leilani’s upper arm, injected a clear liquid into her body and took a step back.
"That is to keep her docile," she murmured under her breath.
"Do... what?" I snapped, almost shouting. "How docile do you want her to be if she’s already in a coma?"
"That’s for you to wonder and for me to know." She clapped back and turned to walk away.
But at this point, the alarm bells in my head were already spinning. My eyes thinned as I regarded her coldly; at her overly made up face and long faux lashes— something you’d never see on a doctor or a nurse. At her claw-like acrylic nails, at her obviously botched lips.
And I knew.
I immediately knew that she was an enemy.
I spat; "Who the fuck are you?!"

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