CODE GREY

CHAPTER 5

“Can I buy you a coffee?”

I looked up from the tiled flooring beneath my feet at the question. Officer Easton Thatcher was staring intently at me, a thoughtful expression on his face. 

“No.”

“No?” The poor officer looked so abhorrently shocked that I found it hard not to laugh at the guy.

“No. I have no reason to entertain your temporary infatuation with me, Officer Thatcher. If that’ll be all?” I replied, short and to the point. I hardly gave him time to think of what to say before turning on my heel and heading away from the man.

It seemed my rejection wasn’t enough to deter this werewolf as footsteps echoed quickly behind me. 

“Infatuation? Is that what you think this is? You do know we’re fated, right? The Moon Goddess and the other half of our souls and all that jazz?” The unreasonably tall man scoffed, easily catching up to my stride out of the hallway.

“Sure, fated. Listen, I don’t have time to be gallivanting around with someone who’s soon going to realize how unfortunate his luck is to be mated to me. Go find someone else.” I petulantly ignored the sting in my chest at my own words and waved a hand toward Easton in a ‘shooing’ gesture. 

“Don’t you think I should be the judge of that?” Abruptly, Officer Thatcher cut right in front of me and I just barely stopped short of running into the man. 

I looked up into his brown eyes as he bent his head down to look at me. The reflection of my face in his stare—sunglasses over my nose inside of a building and the contact lenses in my blue eyes that no one else knew were there except for me—was all the reassurance I needed to know I was making the right decision.

“You can be the judge of whatever the hell you want, but it takes two to tango and right now? I’m telling you I have no interest whatsoever in taking up dance, so if you’ll excuse me.” I easily sidestepped the man and praised the Gods that he was too stunned to try catching up with me a second time.

After an hour or two of avoiding Jax’s patient room—and that entire section of the hospital—I found myself sitting alone in the on call room with a warm cup of bitter coffee between my palms. 

I never once felt bad for being short with people, yet today was different. I just had to remind myself that I was doing Officer Thatcher a favor by turning down his advances. He had no idea what he would be getting into with me. 

My baggage was so heavy I struggled to carry it on my own. I had no desire to bring down my fated mate with me. 

It was much easier to just be rude to him than make him think he actually had a chance with me. Or worse, give him a chance and then have to watch him leave after he finds out the truth. 

I had just taken a sip of my coffee, the bitterness helping slightly to ease frayed nerves, when a buzzing on my hip stole my attention. 

My pager. Looking down, my stomach dropped at the message. 

CODE GREY IN PATIENT ROOM 7, big letters across the small screen stared back at me and I jumped into action. 

Jax was in room 7. 

I gulped down another swallow of my coffee and then left the mug on the table as I sprinted toward Jax's room.

On arrival, I gaped at the scene that was played out before me. It hadn't been more than two hours after I explained to Aaliyah—who I'm sure passed it along to the rest of the hospital staff—how vital it was to keep the people going in and out of Jax's room ones he'd already interacted with. 

Instead, nurses that didn't even regularly deal with hunter victims were crowding the room, trying and failing to hold the little boy back from throwing medical equipment at staff. 

 My stomach dropped. Jax was screaming bloody murder, tears streaming down his bright red face and his eyes were glazed over. He wasn't with us consciously and the people I worked with every day couldn't even see how much worse they were making the situation. 

I spotted Officer Thatcher trying to talk to the nurses but Aaliyah was nowhere in sight yet, so no one was there to actually put them in place. 

On getting closer to the scene, I heard Easton sharply state, "Hey! Let him go! Can't you see that you're making it worse?" 

And Goddess bless him because not a single nurse quit trying to manhandle Jax at his insistence. I'd had enough.

"What the hell is going on here?" I spoke up over the raucous, jamming myself into the doorway to put an end to this mess once and for all. 

"Dr. Hope! He's lost it, just started throwing stuff at us out of nowhere!" A nurse replied with messy curls pulled back into a topknot. She tugged on one of Jax's arms as she answered me and kept shifting her gaze between the kid and I. 

A different nurse stood at the boy's other side, forcing an arm behind his back as the third nurse in the room tried to give him what appeared to be a sedative.

"Let him go immediately. None of you are authorized to work on Jax's case. Everybody out!" I snapped, watching as the three nurses trying to apprehend Jax all hesitated, as if they all thought I had no clue what I was talking about. 

"But, Dr. Hope, he's lashing out. What if he—"

"Out, NOW!" Fury was bubbling under my skin, just waiting to really make an appearance if these nurses didn't listen to me soon. 

Finally, all the nurses looked at each other fearfully before releasing Jax and running past me and out of the room. Jax immediately grabbed a tray from the medical cart and hurled it in my direction. I sidestepped it and narrowed my eyes at the boy. 

I could feel Easton's presence behind me, probably worried for my safety but thankfully remaining a decent distance away from the door as he let me do my job. 

"WHERE'S AIMEE? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER? Where—"

"Jax, hey. Hey, Bud, look at me." I spoke quietly, watching Jax glance around the room as if he was searching for something. Someone. 

I approached slowly and hunched in my shoulders, doing everything in my power to seem as nonthreatening as possible. 

"Jax, listen to me. You're not with them anymore. You're safe. I promise no one here wants to hurt you, okay?" The second time I said his name got a small reaction, just a hint of a glance in my direction and I knew I was headed in the right direction. 

Once I was no more than a foot away from Jax, I exaggerated my breathing. "Hey, take some breaths with me. You can do it, come on." Finally, Jax inhaled sharply and his eyes cleared just the smallest bit. 

"Aimee? Where's Aimee?!" He seemed more alert now, but still not fully there. 

"Aimee isn't here, Jax. She's gone. I know that's not what you want to hear, but I'll only ever be honest with you, okay? You can trust me." My voice came out strong, but quiet. Soothing. 

Something I said must not have come across well because the next thing I knew, Jax was shoving me away from him. Hard. 

"NO I CAN'T! You don't know what it's LIKE! You're NOTHING LIKE ME!"

I caught myself before I could hit the floor and glanced over my shoulder toward Easton. He seemed about ready to jump in between us but I quickly shut that down with a 'stay put' gesture of my hand.

"Jax, I need you to listen. Can you do that?" After a hesitant nod of his head, I continued.

"I had an Aimee, too. Her name was Lex. They took her from me, just like they took Aimee from you. I know you more than you think I do, and that's okay. But just know that I do understand what it's like. I do."

That seemed to have finally gotten through to Jax as his shoulders slumped. He looked at me with an emotion in his eyes that I couldn't name and before I knew it, I had an armful of the kid as he cried loudly into my chest. I gasped at the shock of his change in attitude. Not only was I not expecting Jax to initiate contact so early on into his stay here, but it had also been so long since anyone had hugged me like that. 

"It's okay, we're okay. We're gonna get through this, okay?" The boy nodded weakly against me and I slowly wrapped my arms around him in return, rubbing a hand up and down his spine as he finally came down from his episode. 

"I thought I was. . .was back there. Could hear her screaming, and then it felt like they were holding me back. I couldn't. . .she didn't. . .couldn't save her." My heart absolutely cracked open at the broken sobs coming from the kid. It sounded like he had a nightmare and woke up into a PTSD episode. I couldn't wait to absolutely lay into those nurses for how wrongly they handled the situation. 

"It's okay. It's okay, you're safe." I just kept repeating those words, wishing that I had someone to do the same for me all those years ago. 

A/N~ Things got a little hectic this chapter, huh? And wow, Finn, that was low key rude:/ Poor Easton:(  (PS: you can read chapter 6 of WiaV right now on Patreon and Ream! Things are getting interesting and Finn is not having any of it;) Link below)

QoTD: Do you think Finn will stop being such a bra- cough I mean, Do you think Easton will find a way to get through to Finn?<.<

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/wiav-ch-6-135722769?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Ream: https://reamstories.com/elikay