ALPHA BECK

CHAPTER 7

            When Millie got back home after her breakfast date with Beck, she figured she really ought to start some homework. Graduation was creeping up rather fast and Millie had been on track until she found out she may be part wolf. The overdrive of her mind was exhausting to say the least, the dark circles beneath her eyes were evidence enough. Finding out she may be even more different than she thought somehow resurfaced the worst of her trauma she had come to bear over the last nine years. Her fears were returning; the flinching at every odd sound or car door slam, abandonment, and pain.

Once inside her house, she went first to her room to toss her bag down and work up the courage to do her English essay that was due on the following Friday. She was not a procrastinator, nor was she disorganized. On her desk, her old laptop sat beside her tattered composition notebook full of notes from class. With a sigh, she sat down and got to work. Millie typed away at her computer until her eyes were exhausted and she couldn't stop yawning. Essays were easy for her, she thought of them as templates where she plugged in needed information, cited, and concluded. The fatigue was preventing her from finding a proper call to action in her conclusion, everything she wrote just felt phony. The clock on the desk read 4:30 PM. Stretching her arms back, she swung around in her chair and moved to stand up. Millie hardly made it a second of standing when her heart began to pound erratically in her chest and her vision ran black.

Millie collapsed to the ground, falling unconscious. For two hours, she lay there, blood dripping from her nostrils before drying on her cheek. She didn't awaken until Sandra returned home from work. After calling for her daughter for five minutes, she went to her room to investigate what she was doing.

Seeing her daughter limp on the ground never got easier. This wasn't the first time it had happened, nor would it be the last. But the sight haunted Sandra. She rushed over to Millie, pulling her away from the desk and turning her onto her back. Sandra was used to blood but seeing it on her little girl's face was horrific. Shaking her shoulders, she called to Millie over and over until her eyes began to blink open and look around with a hazy sheen over them.

"What happened?" Millie coughed, her throat dry as a bone. Sandra rushed from the room to grab her stethoscope and a cold washcloth. Millie's forehead was hot to the touch.

When she came back, Millie was still lying on her back, disoriented. Sandra placed a cool cloth on the back of her neck and began checking her vitals and listening to her heart and lungs. Millie's heart rate was incredibly fast and to her mother's horror, irregular.

"Are you cold, sweetie?" Sandra asked, pushing Millie's hair away from her forehead.

Millie simply nodded so Sandra helped her up and into her bed. Millie could hardly stand without swaying, her muscles felt completely exhausted. Sandra buried her to her chin in blankets and felt her forehead once again.

"I don't know if your medication is working anymore," Sandra sighed, her nerves showing through her nurse façade.

Millie was quiet as she let that sink in. Idly, she chewed her lower lip. There was nothing for her to say yet, she didn't have any answers. She had no idea what was wrong with her. From her experience, no one else did either.

"I'm going to go call the doctor. I'll be right back." Sandra kissed Millie's forehead and left the room. A few minutes later, she heard her mother punching in a number and stepping out onto the porch.

As she laid back in bed, she tried to ignore the way her head was swimming. After her head rushes, she always was left with a throbbing headache and some dizziness. This was nothing new. To distract herself, Millie let her thoughts drift to Beck and his beautiful face. Just the thought of him seemed to calm her racing heart. Something murmured into the back of her mind that she wouldn't ever be able to survive without him. Maybe vice versa. It didn't matter though, they had just met, but she wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything else. She replayed their kiss in her head and savored the warmth that spread through her, chasing the aches away.