#Chapter 107: The Good Doctor
Enzo
I thought we were finally free at first when I watched Edward run away with his tail between his legs, but as I looked over at Nina and saw the puddle of blood growing around her, I knew that the real fight had only just begun.
She appeared to be in shock. When I picked her up, cursing under my breath for what Edward had done to her, she looked momentarily confused before she promptly lost consciousness from the blood loss.
“Shit,” I whispered as I held her in my arms. I closed my eyes and tried to teleport, but I couldn’t. Whatever poison Edward had given me must have stunted all of my abilities, just like he said it would. If it weren’t for Nina healing me earlier, I would’ve been dead by now from blood loss.
I had to get Nina out on foot. Lisa had mentioned before that these tunnels were underneath the school, where they used to transport the bodies back when the school was supposedly a sanatorium. There had to be an entrance in the school, then. I was certain that Edward had been using it to get in and out of his office without being detected.
The sliding metal door, which now lay on the ground in a crumpled heap, sparkled slightly as I carefully stepped over it from the electronics inside the keypad being smashed. The large chains, which were still hooked around my wrists, felt heavier than lead as I walked, but I couldn’t let them stop me and I didn’t have the time right now to figure out how to get them off. If I didn’t hurry, Nina would bleed out.
I made my way through the tunnels, periodically looking down at Nina’s helpless body in my arms to check if she was still breathing, until the tunnel eventually widened and began to angle upwards. Lisa wasn’t lying, I thought to myself
as I walked, picking up my pace. This
must have been where they wheeled
the bodies down.
I passed a large room that appeared to be a morgue. All of the mortuary cabinets were open, so it was empty — but I couldn’t help but wonder if Edward would have stuffed my body in there if he had gotten his way and killed me.
Eventually, the tunnel came to an end, and I was met with two double doors. I pushed on one, shifting Nina’s weight into one arm, and it opened with ease. As I did so, I heard her groan slightly, which was a good sign. At least she wasn’t dying just yet.
The doors led me into a dark room that looked almost like a storage room, and suddenly, as I heard the bubbly female voice on the other side of the door, I knew exactly where I was: Tiffany’s office.
“Tiffany!” I shouted, bursting in through the doors and causing her to screech. She leaped off of her stool, dropping her phone, and clamped her hand over her mouth as she saw me and Nina.
Quickly, she picked up the phone. “I-
I’ll call you back,” she said, gesturing for me to lay Nina down on one of the beds. “Sick student.” She hung up, then ran over to me. Her eyes landed first on Nina, taking in her bloodied and bruised appearance, then slid over to me, taking in my equally bruised and bloody appearance as well as the chains on my wrists.
“Don’t ask,” I said, crouching to cup Nina’s face in my hands. “Just fucking help her ”
Tiffany nodded and ran to grab a cart of medical supplies. She wheeled it over, then I helped her to cut through Nina’s shirt with a pair of scissors and move the fabric aside.
Nina’s stomach made a squelching sound. It was even worse than I thought, Edward had dug his claws into her stomach when he barged past her, leaving her with two enormous gashes right on her stomach.
“Holy shit,” Tiffany said under her breath. I watched, horrified and clutching Nina’s tiny hand like my life depended on it, as Tiffany cleaned the blood away around the wound. She then disinfected the wound, which made me grateful that Nina was knocked out, and began to stitch it up.
When she was finished, she ran over to
the sink and sanitized her hands. “Get that IV cart from over there,” she said, pointing with a bloody finger at a tall metal rack with wheels. I jumped up and grabbed it, wheeling it over, then watched as she dried her hands and came over. She placed a plastic bag of fluids on the rack and connected a long tube to it, then inserted the IV needle
into Nina’s arm.
As she did that, Nina’s eyes suddenly
shot open, wide and frenzied. She
began to thrash, screaming something about not wanting to take her medicine. I ran over and grabbed her by the shoulders, pushing her down into the bed and bringing my face closer to hers so she could see me.
“Nina!” I shouted. “It’s okay! It’s me!”
Recognition flashed across her face — then, suddenly, her eyes rolled back and her eyelids closed once more. I looked up to see Tiffany infusing something into the IV.
“Morphine,” she said, her hands shaking as she pulled them away from the bag “She needs to heal. Thrashing around won’t make that happen any faster”
I nodded, releasing my grip on Nina’s shoulders, and stepped away. Now, Tiffany came over to me and began to inspect me. “I’m fine,” I said, pulling away as she went to touch the wounds on my back, which had closed up into scars thanks to Nina’s healing. “I just wanna get these chains off”
Without a word, Tiffany nodded and retrieved a few bobby pins from her hair Together, we worked at the locks on the cuffs around my wrists for at least an hour, occasionally taking breaks to check on Nina, until one finally clicked open, then the other The chains fell to the floor with a crash. I rubbed my sore wrists as I stared down at them.
Tiffany disappeared for a few moments into the very same storage room that I emerged through and returned with a shirt, a bag of crackers, and an electrolyte drink. Once I had the shirt on, I devoured the crackers and chugged the drink, although I could’ve eaten a lot more after being locked in that dungeon for who knows how long
“Now,” Tiffany said, sitting across from where Nina lay “Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
I hesitated, wondering if I should even tell her anything because doing so would reveal the existence of werewolves, but at this point, I figured I could trust her… So I explained everything.
When I was finished, Tiffany merely nodded. She didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.
“… You knew, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Well, I knew about werewolves,” she said. “I didn’t know what Edward was up to down there. He said it was just research, so I stopped questioning him when he kept coming out of the
tunnels, although I started to notice that some of my supplies were going missing, and I was planning on asking him about that He’s always been a bit of an odd guy, I never thought he would do anything nefarious. And it’s creepy as hell down there, so I never went to investigate it myself Now… I wish I had.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s good that you stayed up here. I don’t know what he would’ve done with you if you’d found it. And I’m glad that you were here when Nina needed you.”
There was a long pause. Nina moved a bit in her sleep, which was a comfort.
“Tiffany?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“So, if you knew about werewolves… Did you know I was one all along?”
Tiffany nodded as a bit of a smile spread across her lips. “Of course I knew! Those PT results are way too good. Besides, I… I knew your father.”
My eyes widened, but before I could ask anything else, Nina moved again and groaned.
“She’s waking up,” Tiffany said, standing. “Let’s make sure she doesn’t freak out again. I think she needs to see you to stay calm, so stay by her side ”
I nodded and crouched down beside Nina, taking her hand in mine and pressing it to my lips as I looked on with concern. If she was going to wake up, I wanted to be here for her.
