Page 61 of Broken Wolf

We ended up going to the supe hospital since they were dead when I called and she was fine with it. I could easily protect her there, and they had enough resources to get us through the basics and could transfer her if it was more serious. That would be more relaxed instead of the wait times at the ERs downtown.

She seemed taken aback at how fast she was in a gown and in a room before her blood was drawn and the intake questions were asked. She blinked at me when we were alone.

I just chuckled. “I’m Alpha. When I ask for help, people jump. Plus, most supes are good people, and a human that isn’t scared to be seen by them—we like them.” I shrugged before pulling out my phone to record the conversation. “I need to know what happened. We’re missing pieces and—it’s not adding up.”

She sighed. “I don’t know how much I can help when I’m still confused as to—David wasn’t some smart mastermind or—”

“No, we think he had help,” I cut in, seeing the panic and upset fill her eyes and threaten to spin her out. “Do you want a sedative?” One of the staff came in and I glanced over. “Can she have something for anxiety even with your tests and everything? We’re going to be talking about—she’s too down on the tank—”

“I’ll ask Dr. Sloan, Alpha,” she promised. “Probably, but right now we need to get her blood pressure down.” She smiled at Marie. “It’s more than understandable since you’ve been going through too much, but it’s a bit too high. So we’re going to focus on that right now and then give you a full workup like Alpha Sera wants, okay?”

“Thank you.”

The nurse—one of Noe’s hawks—turned to me with a look that I needed to take the hint she was going to give me. “I don’t know how long this lovely lady will be here, but I was wondering what you have set up for after in case we need to get in touch with her?”

I caught on instantly, knowing the anxiety and the stress of victims well. We needed to take issues off Marie’s plate for her stress and worries to calm a bit so she could heal. “I was just going to contact TimeQuake for a room for as long as it takes to get this settled so she’s also protected there.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell your security to handle it, Alpha. I’ll also get the doctor in here. He was hoping to get her labs, and we’re waiting on her medical history from the human hospital. They’re a bit confused why we’re asking for it.”

“Tell them to call my office if they are, but they should be used to the FBI doing things quietly and that should help,” I told her with a wink.

She thanked me and left the drink she’d brought for Marie. I wasn’t sure that was to help with her blood pressure or to simply get her to relax, but at least it was something for her to do with her hands and that seemed to help her.

“Hank died,” she whispered, getting into it while we waited. “Right after the new year. Just dropped at work.” She quickly wiped her eyes. “I was in shock but also relieved. He… You don’t need to know that part.”

“I might,” I lied through my teeth. “It might give me more background on how David pulled what he did.”

She gave me a look that she knew I was full of shit but still gave in, probably desperate for someone to listen to her.

And not judge her. Most would judge her when she said she was relieved when her husband died.

“The closer he got to retirement the more—everything was my fault,” she whispered. “That he never got a different job to have more money. That there wasn’t more in his retirement savings. Everything. We didn’t have a nicer house to sell and move to retire if we wanted.” She wiped her eyes again. “That we didn’t have more kids to take care of us.

“That was my fault. Of course, it was because I was useless and barren. It was his son’s fault that we couldn’t foster or adopt but…” She shook her head, giving me an apologetic look. “Even if we had two or two hundred more kids, if he let them grow up like David, they would never have helped us. Why should they?”

I nodded, remembering enough of the few months I stayed with them that Hank was a very hands-off parent. He put everything on Marie but then didn’t support her, which was a joke when she was David’s stepmother, and he was an angry kid who had lost his mom young.

I’d honestly felt bad for him for that.

Just not the way he’d treated Marie and certainly not me when I’d not done anything. He threw fits and hit me to show that I wasn’t welcome there and needed to leave. Hank never got involved and just blamed Marie for everything. He was emotionally and mentally abusive to the max. Even I could see that as a kid.

Then again, I’d dealt with so much abuse by that age, I knew how to spot it fast.

“He became controlling, wanting control of everything, and I finally realized… Too much.” She shook her head. “I realized too much. I was thinking of leaving him. It was bad enough that I’d let him pressure me into putting his name on the house when we got married, but last year he started pressuring me to fully sign it over to him.

“My grandmother’s house and I wouldn’t even be on it? Was he nuts? It was like a curtain was pulled back, and I started reevaluating everything.” She let out a quiet sob. “Just not fast enough. I would never have—how did David pull this all off? He was always such a—always angry and greedy but not smart enough.”

We were interrupted when Dr. Sloan came in. He greeted me first and then jumped right into it. Marie’s blood work was all over the place with nutrients and a few other things, but nothing long-term—hopefully—or that couldn’t be corrected with real meals and hydration.

He gave her something for the moment to help her blood pressure and put in a call to a human doctor who he worked with often to ask for the best recommendation given her situation for regular medication. He was honest that it wasn’t something we needed as supes, so he wanted to make sure he was up-to-date, and Marie seemed surprised a doctor would admit that.

“You have some injuries that worry me that I want to take some X-rays and more of,” he told me.

“The police got physical when they evicted me, and I couldn’t receive treatment,” she explained. “I was scared to go to the hospital because they said to live like I was dead or I would be.”

Whoa. Like… Whoa.

Steam about came out of my ears at hearing that.

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