Boundaries

Grant: left behind

                  

{Grant}

I glanced at my phone and sighed, picking myself off the gravel to make the climb down from the roof. I was grateful that Conor's blood lets me come outside. I enjoyed the air and the solitude, especially when I had spent the morning arguing with my mother. She wanted to drug someone and use their blood to see if it would affect me. I thought this sounded unethical, even for her, but knew that if she used a werewolf's blood, then she didn't care about ethics. My mother thought it was a good alternative to the nerve stimulator, but I didn't want to spend all my time drugged if it worked. Not to mention the poor creature who would be actually taking the drugs.

The ladder up here was easy enough to access, but since the door locked behind me, I would just jump from the roof to the smoking porch, and then walk in the building that way.

I glanced down to make sure that the porch was unoccupied and jumped down, landing with a thump. I smoothed my hair and headed inside.

I avoided my mother's office and the hunters and wound my way around the building to the medical ward, which was empty. Ralph's wheelchair wasn't here, so I continued, looking for Victor or anyone else. The room smelled... wrong. Not like blood or like fear, but not how it had smelled when I had been here earlier.

My father was supposed to bring the agreement with Ralph's pack; hopefully, nothing had gone wrong, and Ralph and Mel could breathe a little easier.

Victor was in his office and looked up at me with a smile. I wondered if Conor knew he was the reason for Victor's promotion to headquarters. Victor had written a great deal about Conor's limitations, his immunity to most diseases and his ability to heal and shift at a rate that was much faster than most werewolves. I was glad that Victor had been promoted; he was kinder and more open to new ideas than many of the other researchers had been. He didn't hate vampires and werewolves instinctively like many here, even if Conor had trained everyone to call him Frank instead.

"Where is Ralph?" I inquired.

Victor frowned. "No, we were done for the day. Maybe they went to the training room with Tish?"

"Yeah, thanks," I called and headed out of the room.

I heard feet behind me, and I paused, seeing that Victor had come out of his office to walk along beside.

"I have a bad feeling," he told me. "And while I'm hoping that I'm overreacting, I'd rather come along."

We headed down a floor, but hunters were in the training room sparring one another. Victor pulled out his phone and began texting others. I called my father, wondering if Ralph was with him.

"Hello?"

"Is Ralph with you? Or Tish?"

"No, I took the contract back to Gayle to sign and send to the board. What's wrong?"

"Nothing hopefully. I just don't know where he or Conor is."

"They were in the room when I left. Tish left to talk to Sasha, I believe."

Victor hummed to himself and pocketed his phone.

"Security saw them leave with Sasha," he told me. "It's handy sometimes, dating the security guard."

"Does he know where they went?"

"Just to the elevator, but he hasn't gone through all the footage. We have a lot of cameras in this place."

I darted for the stairs. Victor was panting behind me, and I slowed down to a human pace. I burst into my mother's office who blinked at me mildly.

"Where are Ralph and Conor?" I demanded.

"Out," she replied calmly. "With the agreement signed, Gayle thought it would be good to have a show of good faith. They went for dinner, I think. You really should trust me more, Grant."

"That's never going to happen," I grumbled

Sasha turned to Victor with a frown. "Are you getting dragged into this mess too?"

Victor scoffed. "A concerned vampire came into my office looking for his friends, and you wonder why I followed him? You would have done the same."

Victor was a much better actor than I gave him credit for as he rolled his shoulder and exited the room. I glared at my mother and followed him out.

"Thanks," I told him as we headed for the elevator. "You didn't have to help."

"I have seen a lot of cruelty here," Victor sighed. "After Conor, I realized how I treated him, how we thought he was just a simple were, broken even. And Conor's nothing like that. I can't make up for what I did. I can be better now."

He glanced back at Sasha's office. I had never really taken stock of the young doctor. He was only a little bit older than me. I wasn't sure how long he had worked with the hunters, but I was glad that he seemed to be on our side.

"I just wish I wasn't the only one who saw things this way," he said.

By the time we got back to medical, Ralph and Conor were back in their room. Both of them had ice cream cones.

"Ah, Victor, come eat yours before it melts!" Ralph laughed, handing the doctor a cone. "It's just vanilla. I didn't want to get too exciting and risk you not liking it."

"We went down to your office, but you weren't there," Conor added.

It appeared that Conor also had vanilla, but his had been dipped in caramel and peanuts. Both of them seemed safe and content, and I was relieved that my alarm had been for nothing.

"I'm sure ice cream isn't on that strict diet that we've had you on," Victor noted, though accepted the waffle cone with a smile.

"Eh, take it out of my dinner. I wasn't going to watch Conor eat an ice cream cone; that would be too depressing. Anyone seen Tish? She was here this afternoon, but hasn't been back by."

"Her ice cream melted," Conor agreed. "So I ate it."

"Sure that's the reason," Ralph chuckled. "Victor, now that I have permission and everything squared away, I need to work on getting home. I know the stretches I need to do, the exercises for my arms, my hands. But if I don't go home for full moon, my wife will come here and drag me back. What else do I need?"

"When is full moon?" Victor inquired.

"A week and some change. I think the plan was to go back two days before, and then Grant and Tish would return two days after. From what we've heard, my wife has the whole place set up for me, so I don't think accessibility will be an issue. But are there other things I should be aware of?"

"I'll take a look," Victor replied. "And I'll talk to Amy about more occupational therapy, maybe, now that you're allowed, we'll go out and explore Chicago. Go to a park or something so you can test new terrain." He nodded. "Yeah, I'll call this evening, but let's plan on a park tomorrow."

"Thanks," Ralph told him.

"Well, thank you for the ice cream. I'll see you tomorrow."

Victor bobbed his head at Conor and me and headed out. I checked my phone when I felt a notification and grinned broadly.

"Good news?" Conor questioned.

"My console came in. I wanted something to do at night, thought I'd get some video games: Tish's suggestion. I'll be back, and we'll hook it up to this TV monitor here."

"I'm not good at video games," Conor confessed.

"That's why we'll have to practice," I teased him.