Boundaries

Grant: ripple effect

{Grant}
Conor's mangled body convulsed on the table, but instead of being able to help him, I wrapped my arms around Tish as she shouted at Victor. She was stronger than I was, but I held on tightly, trying to calm her down.
"Shh," I soothed. "He can't help Conor any faster with you yelling at him."
"I promised Susie I'd look out for him," Tish said, hysterical. "And now..."
"Stop," Ralph cut in. "Victor, we can't help by being here. We'll be down the hall."
He rolled to the door and beckoned for Tish and me to follow. I dragged her out of the room. She finally pulled herself from my embrace and stood by the door.
"I'm staying," she told us. "I won't yell at Victor, but I'm not leaving. If I go, I will hunt down who did this and kill them, and no one needs that."
"That's very true," Ralph said. "You have Grant's number, call us if anything changes."
I nodded, and Tish ducked back into the room, sitting in the seat closest to the bed. Ralph let out a sigh.
"If the situation were less serious, I would make fun of her," he mentioned. "Because a month ago, she was trying to kill Conor in his sleep."
"Being a place where people genuinely care of each other is addicting," Grant admitted. "We talk about the hunters being a family, but it's just talk. The second anyone was bitten, we were supposed to gun them down like they didn't matter. At your farm, you and Mel showed us that we could be supernatural and still better people."
"We'll see if we stay better people before this day is out," Ralph remarked. "Let's find your father first. I'm less likely to tear into him."
Before yesterday, Ralph and I hadn't spent a great amount of time together. He was usually with Keith, fixing something, building, tinkering. But I had gotten to know him better yesterday. I was glad for his cool -headedness, though Ralph would be the first to admit that the human reins on his temper only held it back for so long.
It was early, and I decided to veer towards my father's living quarters rather than his office. Ralph followed through the apartments of various hunters. Given what had happened to Conor, this was probably not a safe place to be.
I knocked on the door, hearing my father get up from his desk inside, look through the peephole and then open the door with puzzlement.
"Yes?" he said.
"Conor's been poisoned," I said. "I'd like to find out who did it and get them as far away from myself and Tish as possible, wouldn't you?"
Peter groaned. "We can't have a normal day in our lives, can we? Let me get dressed. Call your mother?"
"Sasha knows what's happening," I pointed out, tapping the glasses on my face.
"She doesn't watch the feed 24/7, Grant." Peter shut the door.
"I don't like calling Sasha," I grumbled and pulled the glasses off. The alert when off in my pocket and then again in my neck a moment later. My phone rang a minute after that and I replaced the glasses on my head.
"You could just call me yourself," came my mother's voice.
"Then I'd have to call you," I replied. "Conor's been poisoned. Tish thinks one of the hunters did so at dinner last night."
"Okay? Is he all right?"
"No. Victor doesn't think he'll pull through."
"Well shit." My mother sighed. "Fine. I'll call Gayle, and we'll investigate."
"I'm already with my father, we're headed to you," I told her.
I could hear her groan. "Fine," she said again. "See you in Gayle's office in five."
She hung up on me, and I pocketed my phone.
"Does antagonizing your mother make anything better?" Ralph questioned
"Of course not," I huffed. "But if I don't do something, then who knows what else she'll do to me. I really don't want to spend my extended life as a guinea pig."
"Every time you say something like that, it makes me question why I'm still here," Ralph mused. "Because I worry that Conor is right; he's gone one minute, and I'll wake up in a lab looking at my own organs."
Peter emerged from his room and walked with us quickly down the hall, getting out of the living space of the hunters. Ralph kept up much better than I thought he would given how new the wheelchair was to him.
My phone chimed, and I glanced at it.
"Any update?" Ralph asked.
"Tish says they're getting the reserves of Conor's blood hoping that the clean blood will give him a chance to purge the silver from his system," I said, texting Tish back. "It's worth a shot, anyway. Conor has more blood on hand than anyone else."
"I can't believe that someone would poison Conor," Peter seethed. "Sasha knows?"
"Even she isn't happy," I agreed.
"Well of course not. She needs his blood to power her research into you. Speaking of, how are you handling all of this?"
He gestured to my neck. I shrugged the opposite shoulder.
"I'm fine," I lied.
The nerve stimulator had been going off so constantly that I was surprised that it still had battery power left. I was angry that someone would do this to my friend, angry that I couldn't help him in any way. Angry that my private reactions were coursing pain up my spine and my mother hadn't noticed that something was wrong until we had conversed.
We made it to Gayle's office on the second floor in short order and entered together. Gayle was seated at her desk, and my mother perched leaning against the wall.
"Isn't this a mess," Gayle sighed. "Ralph, I'm sure you know that this was unsanctioned."
"I doubted your master plan was to poison Conor after a week of staying here," he replied. "But what are you going to do about it now?"
"All of our common areas have cameras, and we keep twenty-four hours of footage," she said. "It'll be simple to tell who did this. I would like your word that no one is planning to kill the perpetrator."
"I can't speak for Tish, but we won't," Ralph answered. "She's not happy that Conor was poisoned under her nose."
"I'll assume that Tish knows better," Gayle sighed, shaking her head. "Sasha, tell the team captains we're gathering in the meeting hall. Grant, you and Ralph are welcome to watch from the balcony room, but I don't want you two down there. Peter, let's go figure out what imbecile thought killing Conor was a good idea."
My father nodded. Sasha tossed me a vial.
"You're almost out," she mentioned, handing me a bottle of water. "Heightened emotions I'd imagine."
"You'd imagine?" I scoffed. "My friend is dying, Sasha."
"You need to calm down," she told me.
I switched out the vial on my pump, and we all dispersed our separate ways. I guided Ralph to the small room with a viewing screen overlooking the lecture hall below. Gayle usually sat up here, instead of sitting with the rabble of the hunters. I drained the bottle of the water and tossed it into the trash. Ralph looked on with concern.
"You're pretty agile with that wheelchair," I remarked, hoping to avoid any questions about myself. "You've only had it for a day?"
Ralph spun around a little awkwardly. "Frank says it will be easier to move when I lose a little of my leg muscle," he explained. "I've been catching whispers of what Mel has done to the house for my return. I imagine I'll be fine there."
"Whispers nothing. Aidan says the whole place is ready for you," I told him. "Mel's made the doors wider, cabinets lower, the works."
Ralph smiled. "You and Aidan are able to talk?"
"Email," I corrected. "But it's been nice. He's been giving me updates on the farm and life there. Though Ralph, from what he's been saying, he's not sure that calling Mel every day is helping."
"I know," he sighed. "I miss her too, Grant. I should have guessed given Aidan's reaction to when you called. We've been together a long time; I think this is the longest we've been separated for...over a decade at least."
"Really?"
"She went off to college and came back four years later. We got married that next winter." Ralph frowned. "Our anniversary is just after Christmas. We'll be married fifteen years. When a person like Melissa Jamison says she's going to marry you, you don't question your good luck. I love that woman more than I thought a person capable."
"You were high school sweethearts, right?" I asked.
"Yeah," Ralph smiled. "I played baseball. I mean, it was a small enough school that everyone played everything you could. But I was too small for football, too slow for basketball. So I tried to be good enough at baseball that no one tried to recruit me into the other sports. Mel started showing up to the games with her best friend Micah who was dating our shortstop. You know how high school is, you get suckered into a double date because you're helping a friend out and then..." Ralph got a faraway look his eye. "And then you're sitting across the table from Melissa Jamison. She had so many older brothers most of the guys were scared to even ask her out. She didn't need the brothers; she could take care of herself."
"Did you manage to speak at all during this date?" I teased.
"Oh, we hit it off. We both wanted to farm, both came from families that lived in town and didn't really understand our want to farm. My parents were older, they both worked at the post office. They assumed I would also work at the post office, I don't know why."
"Are you an only child?" I asked.
"Yup. My childhood was much quieter than the madness at our farm now. I don't regret it," Ralph added quickly. "I enjoy having the pack there, despite the circumstances. Susie Lynn has brothers and sisters like Mel always wanted. We have enough people to really work the land. I'm a little sorry that I've..." he paused and gestured at his legs. "I wish these would work again," he said simply.
"I'm sorry, Ralph," I told him.
He nodded. The hunters were mingling below us, looking at each other curiously. I checked my phone, hoping that we'd had an update on Conor, but none so far. Ralph rolled back and forth in his wheelchair absently and then sighed again.
"I haven't eaten," he mused. "Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I'm on edge already. I can feel my temper rising, and nothing's happened. "
"I'll text Tish; Frank can send someone this way," I offered. "His assistants are probably just hovering around anyway."
"Isn't it weird? When you're human and haven't eaten, you get a little grumpy. As a werewolf, you get a little murderous."
"I completely understand," I laughed.
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Ralph clearly hasn't met me when I haven't eaten. Thanks for reading!