65. Chapter 65

Chapter 65

L ayla knew she looked insane as she paced the lobby. Her thoughts were becoming less coherent the longer she stayed up.

At any other time, she would have thought she was having a mental breakdown because all her crazy thoughts were mixed in with the weird voices that got her into trouble when she was younger. But she knew this wasn't anything related to the red wolf or her usual delusions. She wasn't herself just because she was tired.

Hell, she'd been walking around in a ‘packhouse' surrounded by werewolves, and she hadn't had the good sense to feel afraid. She felt like a zombie, and trying to understand anything around her was futile.

Trying to understand how she felt and why she felt it was also futile. It was like she was thinking someone else's thoughts and feeling someone else's emotions, as insane as that sounded.

She would probably need therapy when she went back home because none of that was normal.

Faith had fed her, and she'd felt calmer in the girl's presence, but her anxiety had returned and forced her to leave the kitchen. Diedre was taking too long. Maybe everything was her fault for waiting too long to get him to a hospital.

But something else had occurred to her as she'd eaten with Faith.

She didn't know who Jackson had fought with that morning, but the door had been locked when she'd called Dylan and Diedre to help him. Maybe Jackson had fought his own people. Perhaps he had kicked them out, causing a divide, so they didn't want to see him back on his feet. She'd handed him back to his enemies.

She had been stupid to trust people when she didn't know their relationship. For all she knew, whatever they had been doing made him worse instead of better. She had to stop them.

The men at the stairs were watching her closely and seemed relaxed, but she felt they wouldn't hesitate to hurt her to make sure they followed orders.

"I need to get back up there," she said to them.

"We have to follow orders, Miss. Layla."

"Who's orders? Why does Diedre get to tell you what to do?"

The lack of sleep and the mixed-up emotions swirling inside her made her forget again that she was talking to werewolves. When she saw their hardened expressions, she stepped back and remembered. If she antagonised them, she could end up in the same situation as she had in the woods. And Jackson wouldn't be able to save her this time.

She sighed and marched back to the kitchen. There was hardly any activity because they had already finished the lunchtime tidying up. Faith was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island reading a book while a woman with the same hair colouring wiped down a few counters. That had to be Faith's mother, but she wasn't up for introductions at that moment.

"Faith?"

The girl smiled and closed her book.

"Would you like something else to eat?" she asked as she stood up from the kitchen stool.

"Is there another way upstairs?" she asked without answering. "They won't let me back upstairs, but I'm not sure I can trust them with Jackson."

She hadn't meant to say that out loud. There seemed to be no filter between her mouth and these crazy alien thoughts. But her feet felt like lead; she was dead on her feet and just wanted to get back to Jackson's bedroom.

That thing that told her she needed to go back upstairs was getting louder and louder in her head. Intuition? A gut feeling? Voices? Schizophrenia? Whatever anyone would call it, it was forcing her to go back to Jackson's side and protect him.

How it thought she would protect him was beyond her. She couldn't fight werewolves.

"You can't trust Diedre and Dylan with Jackson?"

Faith looked at her as if she had said the craziest thing. Maybe she had. But Jackson hadn't wanted them in the house for a reason.

"I just... I'm the one who has to take care of him," she declared.

"Maybe you should get some sleep first," the older woman said as she came to stand with Faith.

"No, not yet," she said as she looked around the kitchen.

She wasn't just seeing double now but three of everything. She didn't think she would last on her feet for much longer.

"I need Jackson."

She meant to say she needed to take care of Jackson, but Faith and the woman exchanged looks before Faith smiled at her and took her hand.

"There are stairs from this side of the house, too. Come on," Faith whispered.

Before she knew it, she struggled to put one foot in front of the other as she went up the back staircase. Faith helped her without complaining until they reached the top, where she opened a door. Briefly, she remembered when she had blindly followed another girl and then ended up unconscious in the basement. But Faith seemed too pure to do anything like that.

When Layla walked out, she recognised the hallway. She hadn't misplaced her trust after all.

"Thank you," she said to Faith before she tried to quicken her steps to Jackson's bedroom.

Dylan had to have finished messing with the door because it was closed. She reached for the door handle and then paused when the most agonising sound hit her ears. Jackson's quiet scream. The pain he felt was obvious in the sound, and it tore out her insides. It hurt her like she was the one lying on that bed.

She didn't care what made sense or not anymore as she opened the door and rushed into the room. Her vision swam, and all the things scattered on the floor didn't make sense at first until she focused on them. There were bloody towels and dressings everywhere. And she could smell some herbs burning as if Diedre's big plan had been to use herbal medicine.

Also, there was a strange light glowing all over Jackson. Unless that was just another symptom of her exhaustion? She ignored the light and looked at Jackson's face. It was contorted in pain, and his back arched. As he groaned in pain, Dylan held him down. That heart-wrenching quiet scream came again, and she couldn't take it.

"Leave him alone," she said as she stumbled forward. Dylan let go of Jackson, and Diedre turned around to face her. She had no idea what the woman had been doing standing over him like that. "You're making him worse. Leave him alone, please."

"I've been trying to help him," Diedre said, but from the expression on her face, she hadn't been succeeding.

She brushed past Diedre and slipped back onto the bed. She didn't care that they were still watching as she laid her head on his hot chest and put her arm over him. She didn't dare to look down at the wound because she knew it would upset her. There was too much blood on the towels on the floor. They had been cutting him without the doctor present. They had been hurting him all this time while she had been downstairs.

His heart was beating erratically, unlike that morning when she had woken up on top of him and her fluffy cloud. Everything had been so calm then.

"Shh," she said to him as her eyes started to close.

All she wanted to do was sleep.

Obviously, the voices in her head were full of shit because she wasn't thinking of protecting Jackson now. She just wanted to close her eyes and take her mind off his pain. Maybe when she opened them again, her head would be clear, and she could decide what to do.

Jackson stopped groaning; he stopped making the pained noises. A shudder went through him, and his heart started calming down. It felt like music in her ears as it soothed her. The tight feeling in her chest loosened when his heartbeat evened out. His breathing became as calm as it had been before she had panicked and called Diedre.

And those stupid voices in her head disappeared.

When she woke up, she would tell Diedre to stay away from him, but for now, sleeping was all that mattered.