Chapter 8 - Olivia

The moment Byron disappears into the woods, there's a bright light in my eyes, and the entire scene flicks away. The first thing I feel is his hand in mine—his long, thin fingers, like a pianist, callused from playing video games but strong from all his training.

I would recognize his hands anywhere.

My brain grapples with the reality appearing before me, comparing it to the reality of what I was just living. Byron and Rosa are leaning over me, crying and saying my name. Triste stands to the side, assessing me coolly while drying her hands.

There's some sort of paste on my chest and forehead, and it smells awful.

"What's going on?" I ask, a moment before I feel the sharp, stinging pain in my palm. I glance down at it, trying to remember when I cut myself, and then, all at once, I feel the strongest tug from the center of my body, pulling toward the left side of the bed.

Pulling toward Byron.

I look up at him and see that feeling reflected in his eyes, this insane kind of vertigo like our souls have just gotten off a roller coaster together. I open my mouth, trying to find the anger I've been carrying for him, but it's like it's been washed away.

Then, I glance down at his other hand, resting on the cot beside me, and all the air leaves my lungs. Digging my heels into the mattress, I scramble up into a sitting position, ignoring the way my head spins and nausea claws at the bottom of my throat.

"What—" I start, eyes darting between Byron's bandaged hand and mine. "What the fuck—"

"Olivia—" he starts, but I shake my head, my entire body shaking, gasping with panic and just trying to get away from him,

My body screams at the distance, and I feel like I'm going to pass out.

"What the fuck?" I say, my voice shrill, stuck between a scream and a whisper. "What the fuck? Please tell me this isn't what I think it is? Rosa?"

"I don't…" she says, her eyes following mine, clocking the bandages. "I didn't—"

"No, no, no," I say, shaking my head, touching the bandage on my hand. To my left, a monitor is starting to beep rapidly.

"Olivia, you need to calm down," Maisie says, her voice gentle as she squeezes between me and Rosa, her face coming into view through my tear-filled eyes.

"Calm down?" I shriek, still shaking my head. "Please, please, someone tell me I am fucking wrong, but from the look of it, Byron and I are—are—"

"Olivia—" he starts again, moving toward me, and I rock backward to stay clear from his touch. I see the hurt in his eyes. I don't care.

"Don't touch me!"

" Honey, " Rosa says, taking my hand, and a sob rips out of my chest so violently that I think I'm going to be sick. For the past few months, the only thing I've wanted in the entire world was to get away from Byron, to pray that the mating bond between us would weaken, relieve me from some of the pain of his rejection, and now, here I am blood-bound to the man who ran away when I told him I loved him.

"Okay," Aris says, his voice loud, commanding, my body instantly settling at the sound of his direction. He's the Rosecreek Alpha. His influence over me is natural, instinctive, but the panic inside me is still violently roiling beneath the surface of compliance. "Everyone out. Now."

"Again?" Rafael chuckles, but one scathing look from Aris shuts him up. I watch as everyone starts to clear from the room. Rosa grips my hand tightly, the pinched look on her face telling me that she's sending to Aris through the pack's mental bond that she's staying.

"I need to take her vitals," Maisie says, quietly, and when Aris nods at her, Maisie starts to move, tapping the machine, then grabbing her stethoscope from around her neck.

"I need to stay for obvious reasons," Triste says, and Aris also nods to her. Then, he looks to Byron, who looks physically pained, staring down at me as I stare away from him.

"Byron," Aris says, "why don't you give Olivia some room to breathe?"

I don't look at him as he backs away from the cot and steps out of the room, but my body feels the absence, senses that he's just in the hallway, so close, so far, not far enough—it's like my brain is at war with my body, and the casualties are endless.

"What happened?" I ask, my brain feeling blank and mushy. Why am I sitting on this cot when I was in the pavilion with Bryon a moment ago? Logically, I know that was a memory, but it felt so real and lifelike that my skin still felt wet from the rain.

"You were cursed," Triste says, her voice calm and almost musical from the lilt. "You were on assignment in Minneapolis, walking with the mayor. Someone cursed you, and the mayor tried to kidnap you, but Byron stopped it."

"Byron was there?" I ask, bringing a hand to my chest, knowing I would have felt his presence if he had.

"No," Aris says, his voice tight. "He was monitoring the mission."

"Did you ask him to?" I ask, conflicted. On one hand, I'm lucky that he was watching, clearly, but, on the other, I want to be competent. I don't want Aris to think I need someone watching over me for every mission I go on.

"No," Aris says, running a hand over his face. "But he's been pushing for a more robust tech team for a while now. I just—I didn't think it was necessary, but maybe it is. It surely helped you out tonight."

"I'm sorry," I start, my voice choking. "I didn't—"

"Woah," Aris says, holding his hands up and stepping closer to the bedside. "What are you apologizing for? You were cursed. Nobody would have expected such a strange thing to happen. And besides, I think this comes back on me for not training you longer and pushing you out into the field. Starting this agency, I just wanted to get things rolling. But it's important that we do things right. I won't put you in harm's way again."

I bite my lip, staring down at my lap and trying to work through the conflicting emotions in my body. It's like a mix of frustration and something lighter…like relief. I'm relieved he's not making me go out in the field again.

Shaking my head, I take a deep breath. This is what I wanted.

"What did Byron do?" I ask, hating how my mind immediately goes to him.

"Cut the power, locked the doors, set off the sprinklers," Aris says, shaking his head. "Bunch of stuff that seems insane to me. Apparently, he hacked into the security communications and told them there was an assassination attempt on the mayor."

"Why would the mayor be trying to kidnap me?" I ask, rubbing a hand over my head. "Even if he's associated with the vampires, it doesn't make sense for him to try and take me himself. That could ruin his reputation."

"It doesn't make sense," Aris says, "but we'll figure it out."

"Maybe you should just try and rest for a while," Rosa says, his hands still around mine. When I meet her eyes, I can see it all there—Rosa has, at least somewhat, been in this position before. Waking up from when Bigby drugged her, realizing she was hundreds of thousands of miles from home, screaming and crying, searching for her daughter.

"Yeah," I say, "maybe."

"I agree," Maisie says, then to Aris, "any chance you can talk Byron into taking these?"

I watch her hand Aris a bottle of pills with curiosity—what could they be for? Rosa catches my gaze again, shaking her head, as though trying to tell me I should just rest for a moment.

"I know," I mutter, sinking into the pillow and staring up at the ceiling. My body feels used up and spit out. Closing my eyes, I picture myself like a video game character, health bar flashing, a single health point away from death, hanging on by a threat.

***

"Heart rate and respiration are looking good," Maisie says, sighing, "but your blood pressure is still way too low."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that there's not enough oxygen getting to your organs," Maisie says, running a hand over her face. "I wish we had a full paranormal doctor here. This feels too serious for me to be handling on my own. I'm going to set up another drip—maybe you're just dehydrated."

"Do you think it's from the curse?"

"It could be from the shock," she says, sighing again and taking an I.V. bag from the cabinet. I watch as she hooks it to the pole and sticks me with the needle.

I've been here for less than twenty-four hours, and I'm already losing it. After sleeping, my memories of being in Minneapolis came back to me, and I've been trying to bring up the face of the man who cursed me.

Every time I think of it, of how he muttered those words and I lost control of my body, I get angrier and angrier. Before everything happened with Rosa and we had to go into hiding, I had a friend in college who was roofied. She said the worst part was just not knowing what had happened to her own body, and now I can empathize with that better.

"I want to watch the footage," I say, pushing my hands into the mattress and sitting up. "Can you tell Byron to send it over?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Liv," Maisie says, shaking her head. "Your body is still going through it. I don't want you to cause any more stress to yourself."

"Maybe the stress is from not knowing who the fuck cursed me," I say, twisting my hands together, "and wanting to make them pay."

"Maybe," Maisie says, "but not likely. I just—I'd really like to get you stabilized before you engage with any of this. Even standing up right now might be dangerous for you—you could pass out, or cause severe damage to your organs."

"Fine, Mom," I sigh, shaking my head and falling back into the mattress. "I won't get up."

Rosa brings me lunch, but it's hard for me to eat. I feel endlessly thirsty, like all the water was sucked from my body, but drinking makes me nauseous. Maisie keeps cycling through the I.V. drips, trying to hydrate me again.

"I'm here as your best friend," Rosa says, her eyes tracking the I.V. as it snakes into my arm. "But as a biochemist, I'm very interested in the curse's effects on your body."

"That's great, Rosie," I mutter, "you know what I'm very interested in?"

"Finding the guy who cursed you," she says, at the same time as I say, "finding the guy who cursed me."

"Right," she laughs, shaking her head and leaning forward. "Yeah, you may have mentioned that a time or two."

Despite the anger and frustration rolling around inside my body, I laugh.

"Yeah," I say, playing with my fingers. "Well, I get how you felt, now, the day Bigby came for us."

"That sucked," she says, nodding, "but things turned out okay. Maybe that will help you feel better about your situation?"

"I'm going to cut the guy's fucking balls off," I hiss, and when the monitor starts to beep, I force myself to take a few deep breaths.

"Good afternoon," someone says, walking into the room, and we look up to see Veronica, who has a huge smile on her face. She's been studying to become a certified paranormal doctor, which should help ease some of the stress from Maisie's shoulders.

"Hi," I say, "any chance you can make this all go away? So I can review the footage?"

"Oh, yeah," she says, snapping on a pair of gloves. "No, probably not. But I saw the footage—that wig you were wearing almost made you look like me."

"I don't see it," I laugh, "but that's what Percy was saying."

"What was I saying?" Percy asks, popping into the room, and Veronica groans, though she smiles when their eyes meet.

"I told you I'm fine," she says, glancing down at her body. "I'm barely even showing."

"You were puking your guts out last night," Percy says, pointing at her, then taking a seat on the doctor's stool. He pushes off, rolling from one end of the room to the other. "That's not fine."

"That's completely normal for a pregnancy," she mutters, but I know they're worried. I've seen the looks pass between them, the knowledge that this pregnancy could kill her.

When Veronica completes her exam, she's shaking her head.

"Maisie is right," she says, biting her lip and gesturing for Percy to stand. He does immediately, giving her the stool and placing his hands on her shoulders. "You need to stay in bed until your blood pressure evens out. I'm guessing it's due to the shock—I can't find any reason why you'd be dehydrated. If it persists tomorrow, we should do a few scans and tests to ensure there's no internal bleeding we're unaware of."

"Right," I mutter, trying not to cry. The last thing I want is to still be here until tomorrow.

"Linnea said she would come bring you something for dinner," Maisie says, coming into the room with another I.V. bag. I smile weakly, but not even the idea of her cooking improves my mood.

Linnea comes, like she said she would, bringing my favorite stew. I can only eat a few bites, and then she leaves, patting me on the head and saying she knows things will improve. An hour later, I'm still in the hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling, wishing I could just see the footage.

If I could just get a look at the guy, I'd be able to crack the thing wide open.

"Fuck it," I mutter, when another hour ticks past. If they won't send the footage to me, I'm going to it.