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Rob’s been shot?
The news felt like a stomach punch.
“What?”The word exploded from Malia’s lips. “No! Is Rob—?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Her twin brother was everything to her.
Mom shook her head. Under her tan, her face was a sickly shade of pale.
Uncle Kenny said crisply, “You two, go to him. I’ll hold down the fort here. Let me know when you have news.”
Malia didn’t hesitate. She turned and sprinted out of the building. Mom followed close on her heels.
Trusting in the darkness and deserted streets to hide her shifter speed, Malia raced over to the Bearpaw Ridge Medical Center. It was located on Main Street, just a couple of blocks away from the police station.
At the time of its founding nearly twenty years ago, it had been the first shifter-focused hospital and clinic in the country. Even now, shifters traveled from all over North America and beyond to get treatment here.
Dad was already waiting for them when Malia shoved open the heavy glass doors and burst into the fancy lobby.
He looked up, caught in mid-pace over the polished gray granite tiles that he’d helped install all those years ago, when his construction company built the place. His expression was drawn with anguish.
Mom rushed into Dad’s embrace, and they clung to each other.
Malia was used to seeing her tall, black-haired bear shifter father being the strong, stoic one in the family. But right now, he looked shaken.
He held Mom tightly in his thickly muscled, tattooed arms, his dark head bowed and his face buried in her smooth blonde hair. She had her face pressed against his t-shirt. Her shoulders shook and her breathing sounded ragged as she fought to control her emotions.
“Dad, what happened to Rob?” demanded Malia.
Dread congealed into a cold lump that sat in her middle.
Dad looked up at her, his hazel eyes filled with pain. “I don’t know. Dr. Nika phoned to tell me that someone dropped Rob off at the emergency entrance. He was shot in the arm, and the bullet also penetrated his side. He was rushed straight into surgery.”
Malia’s breath left her in a massive sigh of relief.Not dead!
Not good, either, but if he was in surgery, and Dr. Nika was working on him, then he had a good chance of making it through. Or so she fervently hoped.
Like Dad and Rob, Dr. Nika Medved-Swanson was a bear shifter. She was also one of the medical center’s founders, and highly experienced in treating shifters. Rob was in good hands.
Gabby, the clinic’s receptionist, was a pack member. She ushered them upstairs to the comfortable waiting room that adjoined the surgery suite, then hugged each of them before going back downstairs to her station in the lobby.
After that, all Malia and her parents could do was wait for Dr. Nika to finish the surgery and report.
Grandma Malia, who lived here in town, was already sitting in the waiting room when they walked in. She was a wolf shifter and one of the pack’s council elders.
“Derek and I got the call as soon as Robbie arrived,” she told them. “Dr. Nika asked him to assist with the surgery.”
Despite being mostly retired these days, Grandpa Derek was called in whenever a particularly tricky case turned up.
Grandma Malia shook her head. “Who’d want to hurt Robbie like that?”
Malia didn’t have an answer for her. But she silently vowed to find out what had happened, and to track down whoever was responsible.
The first hour crept by at an agonizingly slow pace. All of their phones blew up with a torrent of texts and calls. News traveled fast in a small town like theirs, and by now, the entire Bearpaw Ridge Pack and pretty much everyone else had heard about Rob.
Nana Phoebe, Malia’s grandmother on her dad’s side, showed up an hour later. She was dressed and made up in her usual impeccable style, but with the reddened, watery eyes of someone who’d been crying. She sat down next to Dad and clung to his hand as the minutes, then hours, crept by.
Sometime after that, the pack’s alpha couple, Great Uncle Bill and Great Aunt Mandy, showed up to question Mom and Dad about what they knew of the incident.
Other pack members drifted in to express their shock and offer support and comfort before leaving quietly. Only Great Uncle Bill and Great Aunt Mandy and Malia’s grandmothers stayed.
