Rille (Tribes, Book 2)

Chapter 2

When Brielle woke, it was to the tune of hospital chimes. The beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor and the dinging of various other instruments.

Her eyes fluttered open, closed, open, closed. In the brief glimpses, Brielle caught only small bits of information, but it was enough to make a few assumptions.

One: this must be the emergency department, because there were other beds around her.

Two: she must not be dying, because no doctors or nurses hovered over her.

Three: something had happened after she passed out. Because a pair of black-suited men stood at the foot of her bed.

Her limbs still felt heavy, so Brielle didn't attempt to move them. She didn't want to speak with the men at her bedside, but something told her that she would have to one way or another.

"Ms. Brielle Lyons?" One of the men asked.

Brielle stifled a groan. They had to work for the government. Only the government would try to have a conversation with an injured person so soon after she woke up. She had already ruled out cops, anyway. The uniforms weren't right.

"Ms. Lyons?"

Brielle forced her eyes open, catching only a glimpse of the men before her eyes closed again. "Mm?" she asked, meaning what but unsure if they would understand that.

"Ms. Lyons, my name is Agent Emerson." The man who had originally asked her name cleared his throat. "I'm from the W.I.I.D. Can I have a word with you?"

Brielle inhaled, relieved when her lungs filled without any problems. "The other guy?" she mumbled, having to work hard to push those words out.

The other man coughed as though uncomfortable. "I'm Agent Brandt from Wolf Domestic Affairs."

Okay, so that made this whole thing more interesting. W.I.I.D. would be Wolf Internal Investigations Department, which kinda made sense because of the supernatural being that attacked her. Wolf Domestic Affairs... Brielle couldn't wrap her fuzzy brain around why they might be there. The throbbing sensation at the top of her shoulder and another in her abdomen didn't help her focus, either.

"What..." Brielle swallowed, hoping to elicit some saliva so she wouldn't sound as croaky. It didn't work so well. "What happened?"

"Well, you see, that's what we would like to ask you."

Yep. Definitely the government. Couldn't they ask someone else? It wasn't like Brielle had a lot of energy to answer their questions. She had literally just woken up. What did they want from her?

"Excuse me," a nurse's voice said, "I'm going to have to ask you to step aside and wait while we examine the patient."

A shuffle of feet denoted the unwilling exit of the two shifter-related government officials. It didn't matter where they went, just so long as they left. Brielle would have thanked the nurse if she had the strength to do so.

The nurse checked the IV, then rested a hand on Brielle's arm. "You're quite lucky, you know. This might have ended much differently if someone hadn't called emergency services as fast as he did."

That's right. That familiar face that had come in and saved her from the beast. He had apologized for something he had done... Brielle summoned any energy she had left to lift her fingers toward her throbbing shoulder.

The nurse caught Brielle's wrist and slid it back under the blanket at her side. "Don't touch it."

"Did I have to get stitches?"

The nurse shook her head. "We cleaned it, though. He said it has to heal on its own."

"Who?" Brielle blinked in an attempt to clear her fuzzy brain. "The doctor?" That didn't seem right.

The nurse chuckled. "The hunter who brought you in."

Hunter? Yeah, Brielle remembered a gun being involved, but what did the woman mean by hunter? Seemed ominous, no matter how Brielle looked at it. Which is the exact reason she asked the next question.

"What exactly happened?"

"I'm not really supposed to tell you." The nurse shrugged. "But some shifter brought you in with these wounds. We stitched your side, but he refused to allow a stitch to your shoulder. Figured we should probably listen to him, since he knows what he's talking about."

So none of it had been a hallucination. Brielle closed her eyes to center her world again. Why not let them stitch the second wound? Why only the first? Come to think of it, Brielle distinctly remembered him biting her on top of the already inflicted shoulder wound. Why would he do that? Did it have some sort of significance?

Maybe she should talk to the government agents, after all.

The nurse tucked the blanket around Brielle's legs. "Now that you're awake, we'll move you to a regular room. The wound in your side needs to be observed for twenty-four hours."

Brielle agreed with a nod, because she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, but she made a mental note. When she woke up again, she had questions for a lot of people.  

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