Chapter 19 - Lena

The shift in the guys' mood is extremely noticeable. Every one of them looks intense and worried. I push myself up from the table and head over to where Cyrus and a few of the guys are huddled. Orion and Evander split off and Cyrus turns to me.

"Hey, what's up?"

His eyes look haunted. There's a pain in his eyes that makes my stomach clench. I reach out, trying to put my hand on his arm, but he pulls back, shaking his head.

"I need to get the guys moving and get Milo back here ASAP."

His rejection stings a little, but I can tell something is going on. I was thinking we were finally getting somewhere. I just nod uselessly as he brushes past me while texting on his phone, absorbed in whatever it is he's trying to do.

Sarah joins me with a concerned look on her face.

"Hey, what's up with all of them? Something going on?"

"He's not telling me anything. Something is definitely up. Can you help me get everyone cleared out of here? Just tell them I'm sick or something."

Sarah nods and starts making the rounds, getting all the ladies on board with ending things a little early. I wave weakly at the girls as they pile into Georgia's car and Sarah rejoins me.

"Okay, truth time. What's going on with you? The shop has been closed for a few days, and you never close. You kept it open the week Gram died and when you had pneumonia. It's not like you."

I don't know how Cyrus manages these lies. It's eating at me not being able to tell her the whole truth. I want nothing more than to pour my heart out to my best friend and have her there to reassure me that my new freakish ability to electrocute people when my mood swings will be totally fine, even if it's not.

"I think it's just been a lot with all the adjustments right now. I'm still trying to process. That stuff with Tom really got to me."

"If it makes you feel any better, he's gone. His office is closed and the house is empty. Looks like he took off in a hurry."

"It does a little, actually."

"Okay, well, hopefully that helps you ‘process' enough so you can reopen this week. I miss our morning coffee. I can't fend off the bridge ladies all by myself. Don't make me be a clingy, needy platonic life partner. Because I absolutely will."

I give her a small nod as she pulls me into a tight hug. She's the closest thing to family I have left, and I hate that I can't tell her everything. She turns to her car, and I am left with my awkward feeling of not knowing what to do with Cyrus's reaction and the guilt of lying to my best friend.

I wrap my arms around myself and look over at him and the guys huddled together. There's a lot of worry, head shaking, and tension. I turn and head back into the house, not sure what else to do with myself. I guess I need to do what he's asked and give him some time to figure out whatever it is. I just thought we finally moved past that barrier of keeping secrets.

I start washing dishes once I get into the kitchen. The sound of Rosie's music thumping through the walls and the rush of water lets me space out and focus on the task at hand.

I look up when the door creaks and meet Cyrus's eyes as he walks in. There's a brief moment where he stops, but then he crosses the room quickly with his long strides, pulling me into a kiss and wrapping me in his arms. It is such a brief but sad kiss. The soapy sponge is still dangling in my hand as he squeezes me tight again and rests his head on top of mine. I can feel his heart pounding in his chest.

"Cy, what is going on?"

"I don't even know yet. I just know it's bad." His voice breaks. I have never seen him like this. I push back, trying to look up at him, but he just pulls me closer, and I can feel him shake his head.

"What can I do?"

"Just stand here for a minute. I have maybe five minutes before I have to tell my brother that more than half our family is dead, and I don't even know which ones."

"Oh God."

I can't even wrap my head around how this could happen. What kind of an accident could lead to this?

"We're going to have to balance how to triage everyone when they get here. We may need your help with some of this. I am assuming there will be some injuries."

"Everyone? What do you mean?"

"They were under attack, which is why they didn't answer. I don't know why she couldn't contact me sooner. My sister thought she might have ten or so people she could get out. I sent the guys to meet them, but the line went dead while I was talking to her. We'll know more in the next few hours once the guys return with whoever they can get out."

My mind is reeling, trying to process what he is saying. I know he had told me they had about fifty people, including families with kids and older members of their clan. The loss of Gram had gutted me, but I can't imagine what he's trying to cope with right now.

"Okay, we can at least get some things ready once Milo gets back. The special sutures he had me use last time, why those?" It's the only way I know to cope with this, focusing on logistics and the next step forward.

"We heal too fast for normal ones. The ones we use are made by our healers to dissolve more rapidly and avoid nastier scarring."

"Okay, good to know," I nod as he seems to be calming down a fraction. The tension is still there, but he seems to be holding onto something actionable to do like I had hoped. "We need those. Stuff to clean wounds. We can get started; it'll help to keep busy."

His body is rigid with the tension, and there is so little I can do to help ease that for him right now.

"Hey, we got this. We will figure it out," I offer softly as I push up on my toes and plant a light kiss on his cheek. A muscle clenches in his jaw and his eyes look far too glassy, like he's fighting back tears.

Reluctantly, I step out of the circle of his arms and drop my sponge in the sink. Before I can step away, he pulls me back for one more kiss. His hands on both sides of my face. It feels like he's just trying to anchor himself in the moment, searching for something to hold onto and I'm happy to be that for him.

I reach one hand up and lay it on his chest, the other gently pulling him closer as it threads through his hair. If I could fix this for him, I would in an instant. I know I can't, but I genuinely wish I could take that hurt for him, but this may be the best I can offer. I pull back, breaking the kiss gently, and give him a small hug.

He turns at the sound of the door pulling open as Milo walks in.

I excuse myself from the tension of the room and head upstairs to explain the situation to Rosie while avoiding the whole "dragon shifters" part of the context. I am not ready to break that news to her.

"There's an emergency. I don't really know the full details, but you know how Cyrus and the guys are part of that organization? Their main base was attacked. They don't have many people making it out, and he's sent everyone to bring back who they can. Think you're up to giving some medical help?"

"What?" Her eyes go wide, and I can see the gears trying to turn and catch up.

"I know, it's a lot."

"They're coming here. Are the people who did this going to follow them?"

"I think it's the same people who we've been seeing come around. Cyrus and the guys aren't going to let anything happen here, that I know. But we need to be able to help everyone else right now and keep that as our focus."

"I don't like this, Mom. This stuff isn't exciting anymore. It's freaking scary."

"I know. I know, Kiddo. Let's just focus on one thing at a time, okay? You've helped Gram and me with triage sites before. Remember when we had to help with that church fire a couple of towns over? It's not easy, but you focus on one thing at a time."

I reassure her as best I can, and we head back downstairs. We find Milo already working on laying supplies out in a couple areas around our small house. Tension written in the features of his face. I give his shoulder a squeeze as I pass him to go start preparing the kitchen and he pauses just long enough to squeeze my hand in return.

We all set about with various small tasks without knowing exactly what we're dealing with. Time feels like it's moving painfully slow. I know they had told me it takes a couple hours to get there and back, but I wasn't sure how precise that time was or even what time the guys had left.

The sun is long past set, and snow is softly falling when we finally see movement through the trees. I breathe a sigh of relief to see it's Rufus emerging from the trees, but my heart drops when I see how young the person he's carrying is. They can't be much older than Rosie. Shit.

There's a massive flurry of activity as everyone descends on the small house. Milo is trying to triage, sending the people with minor injuries inside with Evander to help themselves to the stuff we had laid out in the living room. He sends anyone moderate to Rosie and Orion in the kitchen, where she's at least able to stitch up minor issues. Milo and I take the porch and the worst injuries.

He keeps three out on the porch with us, and Cyrus stays with us to help hold people down as needed. There's a man with a dislocated shoulder that needs to be reset, a young boy with a nasty burn covering his arm, shoulder, and neck, and a young woman with several large gashes and an arm hanging away from her at an impossible angle.

Milo starts cleaning the burns immediately while trying to talk the older man through what he needs to do about the shoulder. I step over to the young woman. Her eyes and the shape of her face resemble Cyrus and Milo so much that there's no disputing that this must be their sister. Her hair has the same black and silver streaks as Milo's, but a large portion of it is matted with blood.

I reach out to inspect her arm and she snatches it back, her bright, green eyes flaring wide.

"I'll do my best not to hurt you. Please just let me take a look."

"Don't touch me," she snaps, "This is all your fault anyway."

"Amelie… not the time."

Cyrus closes the small distance of the porch and puts himself between us. I lean around him with a frustrated sigh.

"Go away. I'll figure this out. I can't help her if you're in the way."

"How can you let her talk to you like that? It is all her fault. Stupid human."

I step around Cyrus and give him a brief shake of my head as I hear the low growl building in his chest and focus on Amelie.

"One, I'll talk to my husband however I damn well please. Two, from my limited human understanding, you have a pretty brief window for me to get this arm set and these cuts dealt with before you can heal, or they will stay this way. So, unless you'd like to pull Milo away from a child… maybe you stow the bullshit and let me help you. Think you can handle that?"

Cyrus barks out a laugh behind me. She looks like she had just been told she'd need to eat dog food for dinner.

The fact that anything could get him to laugh in the middle of all this chaos tells me that I've at least hit the mark. Amelie sneers at me but sits back and holds the arm out for me to take a look. I don't acknowledge her; I just focus on trying to see if I can stop the bleeding enough for me to take a look.

"You married her?" Amelie throws the question at Cyrus like it's the worst insult she could think of.

"I did. And you know what, given that she's the first person I've ever seen get you to shut up and listen without having to be an Alpha, I think there's no better choice I could have made, Sis. Now shut up and let her work. And I'd advise you to tread carefully. Piss her off, and it's not going to be pretty."

"What's she going to do? Poke my injuries? Come on, I just fought my ass off to get here. I'm not scared of your little human."

"I'm not nearly as petty as that," I snap, "Here's an idea, maybe stow the snark and insults and let me get done with this so that I can go back to helping anyone else who needs it. There are more pressing things going on right now than you hating me for being human. Or existing. Or whatever your drama is."

Amelie snorts in disgust and rolls her eyes with so much skill she may as well be my teenage daughter. I can't help but narrow my eyes and wonder just how old she actually is based on her behavior in the context of the moment.

"Cy, I'm going to need you to brace her now that I'm ready to work with the arm. I need to feel around that area and see what we're dealing with. Grab that whiskey, too. We're going to need it."

"You can't be serious," Amelie grumbles as I pull a stool up to sit in front of her. Cyrus hands her the bottle of whiskey.

"Dead serious, drink up."

"I don't need it. I can handle a little pain."

"Have it your way," I snap as I pull her arm toward me to start feeling the area around the bend in her upper arm. The humerus should definitely be straight, but hers is clearly bent at an unnatural angle, so I'm pretty confident we need to reset the thing. As I start pushing around the area, I can hear the telltale grating that indicates where the break is. The action causes a defensive growl to slip out of her mouth, and her face twists in pain.

I level her with a frank stare. I think she's full of shit with her so-called pain tolerance, especially if just my examination is causing her to feel the pain like that. I have had to help reset a few bones in the past when we had a terrible snowstorm and had no way to get out of the passes to the hospitals in the larger towns where they had x-rays around.

Much of my family's practice as healers in the town still resembled how we had always done things out of necessity in such a small, remote mountain town. This wasn't going to be a pretty reduction, and she was going to need something to help dull the pain until it was enough to make her pass out.

"Milo is busy. I don't have opium. This is a bit beyond my usual white willow bark. I don't even have any over-the-counter meds, and I don't know how you would metabolize them. I know enough of Rufus's drinking habits to know that a bottle of whiskey can do a little bit for a very short time. So, bottoms up, Cupcake. You're going to need it. This is going to suck."

Cyrus holds the bottle out to her, and she tries to give him a petulant eye roll, but I've about had my fill of her bullshit. There is too much going on to argue over her pride or whatever the hell she is clinging to so much. That flare of anger is enough for me to send a jolt of energy at her, but with the work I have been trying with the team, it's not as uncontrollable as it originally was.

It's enough to make her jump, and the action causes her to pull her arm slightly against my hand. Not even a fraction of the force I'm going to have to apply to get this back in place, but her body goes rigid with the pain as a scream slips out of her mouth.

"Right, so now that we've established that I'm not just your average human and that I am about to put about ninety percent more force against this broken bone, how about you quit arguing and wasting our time? Drink the whole bottle, now."

Her nostrils flare in irritation, but she reluctantly grabs the bottle and starts chugging. From what I've seen, the guys burn through it pretty quickly. But if we get enough of a high alcohol content in her quickly, I may have at least a five-minute window to get this done before she's doing it cold.

I look up at Cyrus and he's got the strangest look of admiration on his face, but I don't really have time for it. As I continue to palpate her arm, it feels like the grinding is getting less pronounced, which, in the sense of a rapidly healing magical creature, I feel can't be a good thing. I'm honestly flying by the seat of my pants on it a bit.

"This is still going to be bad. She may pass out. I need you to keep her absolutely still, no matter what. I need to align this, or she could heal wrong, and there are a lot of complications that come from that. Honestly, this needs an x-ray, but I don't think she has the time to get to the nearest hospital based on what I'm feeling. I'm just hoping this will work."

Amelie has finished the bottle. I'm hoping that her body being smaller than the men's will work in my favor and this will hit her a little faster than it would for them.

"Wow, super confident, aren't ya?" Amelie mutters as she hands Cyrus the empty bottle. Her words are already coming a little slower than they had been. Looks like this is as close as I'm going to get to a window. I look up at Cyrus and nod as he tightens his grip around her upper body.

I adjust my hands and try to tune out her protests and groans as I feel for the distinct place where the break is. It feels like it's relatively clean but caught on another piece of her bone. Hopefully, it's not splintered and I don't make it worse. There's a whole other part of this that I don't even want to think about if it shattered in there. I internally count down from three as I brace my hands above and below the break, aligning them with the angle and giving one hard push in opposite directions.

Amelie lets out a groan and passes out as soon as the pain hits from me adjusting it a second time and her head slumps back against Cyrus's chest. At least she's quiet now.