Having Two Mates {2024}

TWO.

HALEY

Haley can not keep her eyes open no matter how hard she tried. There were bright lights racing above. Voices she doesn't recognize overlap each other in a panic. A small flashlight shines into her eyes. Liquid still pools at her back. The voices lull her back into the abyss.

When Haley officially wakes up, she notes three things: she is in her room; there's a pounding in her head; there's static dancing across every part of her body. The latter two she assumes are expected but the first throws her off. The last thing she remembers, although hazy, was the Bonfire. The roar of the crowd rings as if she was back there. Bright field lights. It's cold. The principal's mic lets out a deafening screech.

A sharp throb pulls her out of the memory.

At her bedside, in her mother's writing, is a note telling her to take the prescribed medicine she's placed beside the note. Haley knocks them back with a sip of water. There's enough relief to get a shower going.

Undressing while the shower warms, she sees some discoloration around her shoulder that spread to her collarbone and neck. There's a wound on her back under heavy gauze. There's not a lot of tenderness to the touch. She assumes the medication is fast acting. But the pounding in her head intensifies trying to retrace the incident. She drags the tips of her fingers along the plane of her skin, fitting her fingers onto the shape of the contusions—her arm was grabbed. An image flashes—a boy, grey eyed and terrified. The bruises on her legs were from the stampede. She remembers she fell. Crawling to the field left her with a black eye—now faded with time. And then she ended up on the field—

The sharp throb pulls Haley out once again.

Haley is rinsing the blood out her hair when the water begins to pool at her ankles. She reaches blindly, trying to unclog the drain but doesn't find anything plugging it. Wiping her face so she can see, she finds it's not water pooling in the tub. It's blood. More blood than was coating her.

It rises and rises.

She can hear screaming. Growling. She feels the wet breath of the abnormally large wolf from that night. Moans and groans of people she can't see. Bloodied bodies sprawled on the bleachers. On the field. Pain everywhere. The wolf's wet breath on the back of her neck. Teeth sinking into her skin.

She screams. Thrashing in the blood filled tub. She pulls on the curtain but she can't seem to get to her feet. She cries. Her legs numb. Useless.

The bathroom door slams open. Haley is pulled from the shower.

Haley screams again.

"It's me! It's me!" Arms wrap around her thrashing body. "You're okay!"

Haley squeezes her eyes shut, trying to leave the horrific scene but every time she opens her eyes the wolf gets closer and closer. She tries kicking away, not registering the arms holding her are Alex's even though the familiar static on her back tells her so. She can't escape the wolf.

A warm hand blankets her eyes, the other holding her closer. A voice in her head pleading for her to breathe. Telling her what she's seeing isn't real. Haley complies immediately. Inhaling deeply. Exhaling shakily. Haley opens her eyes. She feels as if the panic never happened. Wiped clean. Though the bathtub, to her horror, is unstained and wet with only water.

***

Haley trusts her mother to not leave her unconscious in the presence of a stranger. Certainly a background check and then some has been done on Alex Kane. That's how protective she is of Haley, she thinks. But right now, she can't be too sure either. Her mother isn't answering her phone. Haley's messages are left on Delivered. The date on her phone tells her it's been a week since the event. Lastly, the only person that has immediate answers is this grey eyed boy sitting across from her too calm for Haley's liking.