Chapter 6

As soon asthey were gone, I returned to Bree's side and whispered. "Those are Kyle's bodyguards. He's had to take on the mantle of King and their Eldership—I guess it's like a council—aren't taking any chances because they assigned guards to him. I get the feeling they're not only watching out for him, but also watching what he's up to. So don't say anything important in front of them."

"Oh, that makes sense," Bree said. "Anyway, so I had booked this expedition of eight. Mother, father, twin teenaged boys, adult daughter and her husband, and two family friends. They wanted a four day immersive hike, and they claimed to be highly experienced. None of them looked like couch potatoes, so against my better judgement, I booked them on one of my more difficult hikes. I should have known better. I should have listened to my instincts. Inevitably, when I don't do that, I end up sorry." She rolled her eyes.

"So, they weren't experienced?"

"People are good at doctoring their accomplishments."

"Uh oh, slackers?"

"Not so much, no. So, I give them the itinerary, and I give them the list of what to bring. Experienced hikers know enough to listen to their guide. I didn't check whether they complied, and I should have. It's not my responsibility—they sign liability waivers—but I consider it an ethical move to double check. Especially since we were trekking the Lake Constance Trail."

I put down my coffee cup. "You took an inexperienced group of hikers up the Lake Constance trail?"

"That's what ended up happening," Bree said. "You know I'm conscientious. You know I'm good at my job. People trust me for a reason. I would never take anybody I thought couldn't manage it. But this time, I didn't do my due diligence. I believed what I was told and I paid for it, dearly. I'm just lucky that nobody was hurt."

"I believe you. I know your work ethic. But that's a rough hike. I'd be done in less than halfway through." I was in decent shape, but I was all too aware of my limitations.

Lake Constance was in the Olympic National Park, and the hike into it was legendarily difficult. It was frequently commented on as ‘hard as fuck' and, as a result, attracted the weekend warriors who fancied themselves more capable than they really were.

The trail was poorly maintained, and the elevation was steep and rough, with few resting points. And when the Dosewallips Road had washed out awhile ago, the washout added an additional five to six miles of hiking before you even approached the beginning of the trailhead. Those extra miles were easier than the main hike, but the extra distance took its toll.

Once you reached the actual trail—which was about two miles long—the hike became vertical, and hikers ended up digging in with both hands and feet to claw their way up the mountain. The hike was notorious for the rocks and downed logs, and brambles and nettle that covered the sides of the mountain, turning what was already a difficult climb into a veritable obstacle course. One slip could send you tumbling down the side, though no doubt a tree would stop you the hard way.

The lake itself was gorgeous. With a tropical sea-green hue, the lake was surrounded by steep topography. The pictures were luminous, but everything I had heard made it abundantly clear that I wasn't in any shape to take the hike on. I could probably make it, but I'd be laid up for weeks with sore muscles afterward.

"So what happened?"

"The first few miles were fine, though that's when I began to suspect they weren't nearly as fit as they claimed. They were starting to huff and puff though we were still on an easy gradient. I asked if they were all right, and the entire group got bristly. After awhile, I asked if they wanted to stop off and make camp earlier while we could still see. I should have insisted. But they kept saying no."

"Let me guess. Things went from bad to worse?"

She rolled her eyes. "Things went from bad to impossible. We managed to cover the easy part—the five miles or so to the main trailhead, but by then it was already one pm. The two miles to the lake is a misnomer. Most of it's vertical, and takes more time for those two miles than the first five. Not to mention, the toll the climb takes on the body. Walking on a slight gradient for five miles isn't nearly as difficult as attempting a hard scrabble up the side of a mountain, while getting beat up by the environment along the way."

Part of me wanted to laugh. It sounded horrible, yes, but also the thought of a group of wannabe weekend warriors insisting they could make such a trek and then failing because they refused to work within their limitations was enough to make me crack up. More people were tripped up by their own egos than any other outside force, as far as I was concerned. But given they were threatening a lawsuit—that wasn't so funny, after all.

"Did you ever make it all the way to the lake?"

She frowned. "No. I finally convinced them to camp out on the most level area we could find. We were about a quarter way up the trail. They complained about everything. The ground beneath the sleeping bags was too hard. It was too cold, though I built us a safe campfire. The night was too noisy. I have no idea how the hell they expected to manage the hike in the first place. I warned them about how difficult it was going to be."

"I assume you started back down the next morning?"

"No." Bree stared out the window for a moment. The parking lot was sparse, a good thing considering we were at a hospital, and the blustery morning had turned a stormy afternoon. "I hope Kyle can find something with a lot of protein in it."

"I'm hungry, too." I glanced at my watch. "Grams should be pulling in to town soon. I should text her and let her know where I am, but I don't want her coming directly here and I think that's what she might do if she knows where I am before arriving at the house. May's going to tell her where I'm at, so I guess I'll leave well enough alone."

Bree nodded. "That sounds about right. All right, long story short, the next morning I led three of the group up the rest of the hike. The others opted to return to the parking lot and though I didn't want to let them out of my sight—you do have to look out for your group despite waivers—I knew it was better if I go with the three who wanted to make it to the lake in order to try to keep the idiots from killing themselves. They threatened to go on by themselves."

"That makes sense. How long did it take?"

"Oh, we never made it all the way. Two hours later, we'd barely climbed another quarter mile and the entire way, they were bellyaching about how hard it was. I decided to take advantage of that and stressed that it was going to get worse the further we went. Finally, they decided to pack it in, and we turned back.

"Although they were barely a quarter way through the actual hike, the return trip was worse because if you think going up the trail is bad, going down is harder. One of the guys—I think it was the father—sprained his wrist. There were skinned knees, roughed up elbows, Marla—the daughter, tripped face first into a patch of stinging nettle and had welts all over her…honestly, by the time we got back to the office, I was seriously contemplating starting up a new business."

Bree let out an exasperated sigh, blowing her bangs off her face. She snorted. "I know they're threatening to sue me, but damn, I wish I'd gotten some pictures."

"Why are they threatening a lawsuit?" I knew that people sued at the drop of a hat, but this could seriously impact Bree's business.

"They claim I didn't warn them how hard the trip was. I have everything in writing, including the waivers they signed that spelled out the difficulty of the hike, so I'm not all that worried as far as the courts go. But they can try to ruin me with online reviews." She worried her lip, sobering. "That could damage my business, though I can always try to respond."

She stopped, looking up as Kyle and his bodyguards returned, carrying various food containers. He handed me a plastic-wrapped sandwich, along with two single-serving sized bags of potato chips. One of his bodyguards handed Bree a box containing two hard boiled eggs, several slices of turkey breast, three slices of cheese, crackers, and a bag of apple slices.

"I thought you might like some fruit," the man said.

"Milo, let me introduce you to Bree Loomis. She's Elphyra's best friend. Bree, Elphyra, this is Milo Renshaw. And his brother, Taylor." Kyle sat down, opening his own lunch. Inside the cardboard container were several egg rolls, some fried rice, and a dipping sauce.

The bodyguards nodded to Bree and to me, then sat down with their own food on the other side of the room. But they kept Kyle under strict watch as we all fell to our lunches.

By the time we finished lunch, I received a text from Grams.

why didn't you tell me you were at the hospital? i would have understood. i'll stay here and talk to may and bran for awhile. let us know if you need anything.

"Grams made it to the house," I said. miss you. i'll be home as soon as i'm able. bree's here with me, and kyle. faron is in surgery now.

i send my best wishes,Grams texted back. i'll set up a healing candle as soon as the operation is over.

In our tradition, we never started healing spells until the wound or injury or infection had been looked at and until some form of physical healing work had been done, because—as I'd been taught since I was little—sometimes, to heal meant to die, and we didn't want to push anybody over the edge until the effort to save them had been made.

Bree asked the desk to turn the television station to the HGTV channel. The shows there were calming, at best, and innocuous, at worst. There was no need to stress out over news events or true crime shows, or anything of the sort. And it seemed kind of cruel to turn on the cooking channels, given most people in the hospital were on hospital food. As we sat there, watching a new reality show—House Reno Wars—Kyle studiously read. The bodyguards sat in silence, alert and watching.

By four, I was growing restless, and so was Bree. She didn't say anything, but I could tell that she would rather be anywhere except the hospital.

"You can go," I said. "Please don't feel you have to stay?—"

"I want to. I'm your bestie. And…Faron is growing on me."

I glanced over at Kyle, who was absorbed in his e-reader. Lowering my voice, I said, "Well, don't feel you have to be his bestie. I'm still not sure what's going on between us. Or between Bran and me. But I feel like I should be here, and I…I guess I love him, in a way. So here I am."

Bree paused, glanced at Kyle, then changed the subject. "All right. Today would have been my brother's birthday and it's always hard. This year, it's especially bad since my parents are on their sabbatical."

Bree's brother had been killed in a pedestrian-car collision—he was the pedestrian—close to Yule when she was younger. They had been close and she still felt his loss keenly. And then, a month ago, her parents had packed up and decided to spend a year traveling around Europe. They were currently in Italy for a month, and Bree was getting showered with texts and pictures from the countryside. They had asked her to go with them, but her profitable times of the year were spring through autumn, and she couldn't afford to take time off.

"Do you think you can get away to see them during winter?"

"Maybe," she said. "They're talking about hunkering down in upper Sweden for the winter, but my guess is they won't last long in that climate. My mother's a sun bunny. I can't get away until January, anyway. Last year, at the town Yule festival, I promised to pull together horse and buggy rides for the town council. We'll be running them from the town square every weekend from Thanksgiving through New Years. I'm in charge and can't drop the ball on it. But maybe I can get away the first week of the new year." Looking resigned, she went back to scrolling her My Page app.

I turned to Kyle. "I'm going to take a quick walk to get some air. I'll be back in a few minutes." As I headed toward the door, a bright flash of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the clouds with its fiery hot blue forks. I paused near the automatic doors, waiting and counting. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand?—

Boom. The room shook with the ferocity of the thunder. I backed away from the doors as a massive gust of wind streaked through, attacking the shrubbery that surrounded the hospital as it tore limbs off, sending the boughs skittering along the road.

"Maybe on second thought, I'll just stretch," I said as the clouds opened and a maelstrom of hail began to pound against the concrete.

"I wouldn't go out there right now," Milo said, speaking under his breath. But I caught it and turned to him, smiling.

"No, I don't think I shall." I turned the other way and began to quick-step down the hallway toward the bathrooms.

The bathroom was empty—it wasn't a multi-use one, but an individual room, with room for a wheelchair and an attendant. I locked the door and did my business, then washed my hands as I stared in the mirror. I looked tired. If I was honest with myself, I was tired and feeling discouraged. I found some eyedrops in my purse and cautiously squeezed several soothing drops into my eyes, trying to avoid wetting my eye makeup. The bloodshot veins began to fade.

"You look like you've been through the ringer," I said to myself. "That's because you have," I added. Then, splashing some cool water on my cheeks and blotting it off, I took a deep breath and returned to the hallway.

I don't know what I was expecting, but at least we had the thrill of watching a live-action downpour. The lightning continued, and I hoped to hell that I'd remembered to turn off my computer. I decided to make the rounds and get a little exercise in, so I powerwalked my way three times around the circular ward. The nurses' station was in the center, and all they did was give me a quick once-over, decide I was mostly harmless, and go back to their work.

Finally, I found a water dispenser with ice and, feeling awake again, I returned to the waiting room. Kyle and Bree were still there, and they were talking to a man in a white doctor's coat. I hurried over, recognizing the man as one of Faron's physicians.

"Doctor, how are things going?" I knew I was interrupting, but I couldn't help myself.

"Elphyra, good to see you. I was about to fill Kyle in on where we're at with his brother."

Dr. Obran knew me by name. He was another one of Faron's team of doctors, although he wasn't a surgeon. He had done some important research on the brain anatomy of shifters that had won several major awards. I wasn't sure what it was all about, but he was an expert without the accompanying arrogance that often went hand-in-hand, in the medical field.

I slid onto the banquette, between Kyle and Bree, waiting.

"We're about two-thirds of the way through the operation. We found the bleeders and repaired them. Then, Dr. Sorbitz went ahead with the experimental procedure. He's just finishing up the last of it now, and then we can finish clean up and stitch him back up. He'll be on high levels of intravenous antibiotics for at least a week or two, in order to prevent any infection."

"What's this procedure supposed to do?" Bree asked.

"We're trying to rewire some of his neural pathways around the damaged areas in his brain, through implanting electrodes in several sections of the brain. We're hoping that this will take the pressure off the area of his brain that's working overtime trying to heal. The hyperactivity has caused inflammation to such a degree that it could kill him if left alone." The doctor looked ready to discuss this at length, and while I wanted to know what they were doing, I didn't have the heart to listen to clinical descriptions. It made everything feel too alien and uncaring.

"Thank you," I said. "We know you're doing everything you can."

"What surprises me is that he's managed to fight his way through till now. We've had a number of cases who took far less damage than he did, who just faded and—" He stopped at the look on my face. "I'm sorry, I know this is a difficult time."

"Yes, it is," Kyle said. "But as long as my brother's in your hands, I have faith."

"We'll be done in about thirty minutes, I estimate." Dr. Obran gave us a friendly nod and, tucking his pen in his pocket and Faron's file under his arm, he headed toward the restricted section of the hospital, vanishing through the double doors.

I shivered. "I can't believe the damage Evan did to him."

Evan Taylor, a high school acquaintance of Bree's and mine, had been stalking Bree for awhile. During a stakeout, Faron and I ran into him face-to-face. Or rather, he ran into us and knocked us both out cold. I managed to come to with nothing more than a light concussion. But Faron hadn't been so lucky. Evan had hit him over the head so hard that Faron had sustained substantial brain injuries. Hence, the induced coma in an attempt to let his brain rest. But it was now October, and this had happened two months ago, and Faron still wasn't getting better.

Kyle gently slid an arm around my shoulders—in a brotherly sort of way—and I let out a long sigh. "Thank you for being here today."

"I can't imagine not joining you. I can't imagine just waiting at home for the news. I guess they won't know for awhile, though, right?" I gave him a pleading look, though I knew nothing he said or did could help matters.

"I imagine you're right. We'll just have to see how matters play out." Kyle stretched, yawning. "I need coffee. Any other takers?"

I shook my head. "I'm still a little wired from all the coffee I had this morning. Not to mention the mess in my shop."

"What mess?" Kyle asked.

I realized that I hadn't told him what I'd woken up to. I quickly outlined everything that had happened to my shop. Kyle's eyes narrowed and he furrowed his brow.

"Do you need help? I can send over some guards. My brother would, and you know he wouldn't take no for an answer." Kyle pulled out his phone.

"You don't have to?—"

"Nonsense. I'll have three of my best men report to you this evening. I'll give you their information before you leave here today, and send you pictures, though they'll have their community badges, as well. I won't chance someone hurting you—or your livelihood. Faron would insist," he said, a warning note in his voice. "You know he would."

I let my shoulders slump. "All right. Thank you. I don't know how long it will take to figure out who did it, though."

And with that, Kyle headed off to the bathroom.