Chapter 3

11.11.2007-12.11.2007

Morning came with a burst of sunlight shining through the windows that almost made me lose my lunch. I shielded my eyes with a hand and someone was kind enough to hurriedly draw the shades shut. I sighed with relief. When the spots faded from my vision and I could see something other than whiteness, I saw a very sleepy Alicia in the chair next to my bed. Dark circles ringed her eyes and she looked exhausted.

"Did you come back here last night?" I asked, astonished.

She nodded and stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. "As soon as my shift was over, I headed back this way." She gave me a suspicious look then. "And I ran into Aros on his way out as I was coming in."

"Oh?" I made it a question, so I could pretend I'd been asleep when he visited me again. Maybe she wouldn't catch on... I should have known better. Alicia was many things, but stupid was not one of them.

"Yeah. He looked pretty shook up at seeing you all plugged in to the tubes and stuff. I think he feels like it's his fault you're here."

I shook my head. "It's his fault for the first fist I got to the jaw last night. The second guy was completely unrelated."

Alicia nodded. "But still... The guy's worried about you, Jules. You know he's paying for your hospital bills."

"What?!" I exclaimed. "Why the hell would he? I've only seen the guy like four times in my entire damned life! Who the fuck does he think he is?!"

Lish gave me a smile then. A wicked smile. One of those grins women get that says without words "I know something you don't know!"

I shrank back from it. "I don't like that look. What the hell's running through that head of yours, Alicia?"

That Cheshire Cat grin again. "Why so defensive, Julius? If you barely know him, why not just graciously accept the charity?"

"The only people who graciously accept charity are cheats, cheapskates, and lazy assholes." I responded vehemently.

She snickered and lightly patted my arm. "I was just thinking that maybe you and Aros have a little somethin' goin' on. He shows up at your room in the middle of the night, you don't need your I.V.s anymore... Your bed's obviously had some serious remodeling done to it," she added, gesturing to the perfect impressions of Aros' fingers from when the scent of my blood had freaked him out last night.

I looked away, crossing my arms and feeling a slight tug on the small wounds on my arm from the needles. Alicia leaned in close and said so softly I almost couldn't hear her, "You've got the hots for him, don't you, Jules?"

She's lucky she's a woman or I would have punched her in the face. Instead, knowing that women take outbursts as admission of guilt, I shrugged nonchalantly. "He's a good looking guy, but you know I don't swing that way."

Alicia almost pouted, as if she was sure we had some hot affair last night in this hospital room. Far from it. "Damn," she said aloud. Her face widened into a grin. "It would be wicked hot if you two made out, just so you know. I could even sell tickets..!"

My eyebrows almost touched as I frowned. "You're a fucking pervert. You know that? I'm stuck in a damned hospital bed, in excessive amounts of pain, and here you are thinking about me and some lanky blond stud sucking face. What the hell, Lish?" I'd been hoping to make her feel guilty, but I hadn't chosen my words carefully enough and my statement had the opposite effect. She laughed at me, instead. "What's so funny?"

She smirked and leaned in again. "You called him a stud, Jules. You are so busted!" She laughed some more before the mirth ran its course.

I was not amused. "Look... Do you have something important to say, or are you just here to rag on me?"

"Oh, I have something important to say. Mainly that you should be wondering how in the hell Aros managed to crush those steel support beams like they were made out of cardboard. Mickey might think it's a crock, but..." She lowered her voice, as if there might be someone listening in on us. "What if Aros and his entourage aren't human? I mean, have you ever seen a single one of them out and about during the day time?"

I nodded. "Wulf and Red."

She rolled her eyes. "Aside from them!" she hissed. "If they're werewolves, sunlight wouldn't bother them. But if Aros and Lina are vampires..." I sighed and opened my mouth to interject but she held her hand up for silence. "Just listen to me for a second, okay? Seriously, think about this... If they are what I think they are, then they're a lot more fucking dangerous than you can imagine and you need to watch yourself." She sighed and petted my already mussed black curls. "Just be careful, okay? Promise me that much."

I nodded. "I would be careful anyway, Alicia. You know that."

She smiled. "I'm gonna head out now, I suppose. I've done all I can to warn you, and I am starving. " She stood and kissed me on the forehead, leaving with one last look of warning over her shoulder.

When I was sure she was gone I rolled my eyes and picked up the remote, preparing to flick on the TV when I heard voices outside my door. Low, murmuring, two males and one female. After they conversed for a moment, my door opened again and Wulf and Red entered, speak of the devils. They came in with twin smiles on their faces, lots of teeth showing. Sometimes it made me think they couldn't decide whether they were disgusted or ecstatic, always appearing to snarl as they were.

"How're you feeling, Jules?" Wulf asked as he took a seat on my left, Red on my right.

I shrugged carefully. "My ribs are healing faster than they anticipated and my lip still stings, but everything else is superficial. Little things that only deter from my naturally enchanting good looks," I added the last with bitter sarcasm.

The two big men joined me in laughter. Red was the first to regain his composure, his green eyes still glittering with humor. "You can't be too badly hurt if you're cracking jokes."

"On the contrary, I tend to make better jokes the more hurt I am." I responded.

They both smirked. "Lish almost killed that second guy, you know." Wulf put in, his smirk becoming a full blown shit eating grin. "Red had to grab her and pull her off of him or she would have made his eyeballs pop out the back of his damned head."

I smiled a little. That girl would walk through fire for me if I asked her to... She's two years younger than me, but we've known each other since we were young teenagers. I was the big brother she never had after her father died. Kept her safe, beat up the people who tried to take her lunch money... Until we hit puberty and she got five inches taller than me, that is. Then she was the one beating up punk asses who wanted to take my lunch money...

"She's a good girl..." I said softly, my mind elsewhere.

Wulf brought me from my thoughts when he asked, "You two aren't... Ya know... Are you?"

I laughed so hard it made my ribs ache. When I could finally breathe again I dabbed tears from the corners of my eyes and shook my head. "Me and Alicia... Dating? Please. We've known each other since we were kids. It's really not like that at all."

Red rolled his eyes at Wulf. "See? I told you so."

"Why do you ask, Wulf?"

The brawny man shrugged his massive shoulders, his almost black eyes peering piercingly into mine. His gaze flicked to the dents in the bed frame before settling back on my eyes. "I just wondered if she liked it really rough or something, judging from the twisted and twanked metal..."

I snorted in disbelief. "I have no intentions of ever knowing whether she likes it rough or not. The girl's like a sister to me. And besides, those aren't from her anyway. They're from..." I censored myself, stopping short just before saying his name.

"They're from who, Jules?" Red pressed with quiet curiosity.

I was silent a moment, no doubt looking like a deer in the headlights. Finally, I shook my head. "It's not important."

"They're from Aros, aren't they?" Red continued on. The look on my face said it all without needing any words to be spoken.

Wulf shook his head with a tired sigh. "He needs to practice better eating habits. Then he wouldn't act all weird like he does sometimes." Red hit him hard on the arm, like he was talking too much and about things that shouldn't be voiced out loud. Wulf growled at him in response and something about the bestial noise made my blood run cold. The hair on the back of my neck stood to attention and I felt even more like a prey animal than I had when I'd been alone with Aros the night before.

Red shot Wulf a warning glance and I could have sworn that I saw Red's emerald green eyes turn a lupine amber for the barest of seconds. Wulf backed down and it seemed like whatever sort of power struggle had been going on, Red trumped Wulf although he was the smaller of the two.

Whatever doubt had been in my mind, it was all washed away by a sudden and intense fear that I knew they could both smell. "Ho-ly shit..." I muttered. My gaze flicked back and forth between the two of them. "Alicia was right about you two..."

Red was better at hiding it than Wulf, so he tried to play the innocent card with me. "Right about what, Jules?"

I had to try several times before successfully being able to say it. "That you two are... You're... Jesus Christ! You two are," I finished softly, feeling like I shouldn't expose them in case anyone was listening in, "...Werewolves."

Red looked like he was going to try to laugh it off, blame it on me hallucinating from the meds I was on the day before, but he and Wulf exchanged a glance and he sighed begrudgingly. He waved a hand at Wulf dismissively and said, "Might as well get this shit all out in the open... He was going to figure it out eventually any way."

I wasn't so sure about that one. I don't think I would have had any clue if Alicia hadn't been filling my brain with all this supernatural nonsense for the past few days. Wulf leaned in close and told me the story in a hushed voice.

"Red and I -Wulf and Red aren't our real names, you know- are, as you suspected, werewolves. I was born that way, Red was bitten, but that's a story all his own to tell you if he wants to... Anyway... Aros is a well, you know..." He gestured with his hands, like he didn't really want to say it.

"A vampire?" My voice went up an octave with disbelief and a touch of fear. Maybe that was why the guy always gave me the damned creeps whenever he was around.

Red nodded and Wulf went on. This shit was way too much for my brain to wrap around. Maybe the meds really were making me hallucinate...

"Lina is too," he added, glancing at Red as if he wasn't sure how much he should divulge. Red shrugged dismissively in response and Wulf looked back to me. "We both work for Aros, as you obviously already knew anyway. We keep an eye on him most days, you know, when he's 'sleeping' and all." He shrugged. "Aros takes good care of us, and we watch out for him in return. It's a good system, I think."
Red looked Heavenward as if asking for guidance. "Wulf... You putz."
I was silent a moment and they let me stay that way, giving me some time to mull things over. Finally, I said the only thing I could think of that didn't involve having a nervous breakdown. "If you guys see him before I do, tell Aros that I owe him for taking care of my hospital bills."
The werewolves shared a look, Red's face blank and Wulf's filled with some emotion that resembled a mixture of confusion and fear. Red nodded and they both stood. "We'll let you get some rest now, Jules. And I'll be sure to tell him when he wakes up this evening."
"Thanks."
They walked out, purposely making their footfalls heavier than usual to appear more human. The more I thought about everything, the more I wondered how I had missed the signs. I was starting to wonder how many more true things Alicia had said that I had instantly dismissed.
Maybe men really are idiots.