CHAPTER 14
Isabella's POV
Miss Sabrina didn't waste another second. She shoved me behind a heavy linen curtain into a corner filled with old medical crates.
"Stay down! Don't make a sound, and for the love of the Goddess, keep your heart slow!" her voice was frantic.
She grabbed a heavy jar of concentrated wolfsbane and eucalyptus oil—scents so strong they were almost toxic—and began splashing them onto the floor everywhere.
She was trying to drown out the " whatever disgusting smell" the Tracker and her had mentioned. A thunderous boom shook the front door of the infirmary.
"Sabrina! Open up!" It was Aleric's voice, layered with the guttural growl of his wolf. He sounded desperate, confused, and dangerously close to a forced shift.
"One moment!" Miss Sabrina called back, her voice remarkably steady. She threw a blood-stained sheet over the crates I was hiding behind.
"I'm with a patient!"
The front door was thrown back so hard the bell shattered. I pressed my back against the cold stone wall, my fingers digging into the wood of a crate.
Through a small gap in the curtain, I saw them enter. Aleric, his eyes glowing bright. My father, looking murderous.
And then, the Tracker.
The Tracker didn't look angry. He looked... hungry. The kind of hungry that wasn't for food but for death.
They all stopped moving when the toxic smell hit them, looking to the floor to see they couldn't move into the room. "Where is she, Sabrina?" my father barked.
"She ran out of the house. No crutches. No limp. Wasn't that trap laced with wolfsbane?"
"What? Isabella ran out of the house without crutches?" Miss Sabrina played the part of the shocked doctor perfectly.
"I haven't seen the girl since yesterday. I'm dealing with a septic wound on a scout—hence the smell of rot and herbs."
The Tracker's eyes moved toward the back of the room, stopping right in front of the linen curtain.
My breath hitched, my heart giving one loud, traitorous thud. The Tracker looked down to the floor; he must have figured out there wasn't any sign of the toxic spill back here.
I saw how he quickly pushed Miss Sabrina aside so hard she almost fell. His hand reached out, his fingers inches from the fabric.
Kill him, a voice suddenly whispered in my mind. It was the same voice from earlier, but sharper. More demanding.
"No," I breathed, so quietly only I could hear.
"Did you hear that?" the Tracker whispered. He pulled the curtain back.
Empty. He pulled the wrong side. I was pressed into the opposite corner, suspended in the shadows like a bat.
The Tracker stared at the empty space, a look of genuine confusion crossing his face. "I could have sworn..."
"Enough of this!" Aleric shouted from behind. "If she's not here, she's in the woods. We're wasting time!"
They turned to leave. The Tracker paused, sniffing one last time, before slamming the door behind them.
I let go of the breath I was holding. Miss Sabrina leaned against a table, her face as white as a sheet.
She quickly closed the heavy shutters and locked the door. "Isabella," she breathed. "What the actual fuck?"
"Huh?" I asked, my voice a raspy whisper as I slid down the wall, my legs finally giving out, the sheer weight of the adrenaline finally leaving my system.
"You smell so... bad," she whispered. "Like rot, death and it's disgusting"
"I don't feel like a ghost," I muttered, looking at my hands. They were pale, but they felt more solid than they ever had.
"Stand up, Isabella. We don't have time. If that Tracker has even half a brain, he'll realize the 'septic wound' story was a lie. He'll come back."
"Where do I go?" Desperation hit me like a wave. "If I go to the woods, the pack hunts me. If I stay here, I'm dead."
"You have to leave the territory," She said, shoving a leather pouch into my hands. "There is a neutral zone, three miles past the Eastern border. it's a place for the broken and rogues. If you can make it there, the pack laws won't apply."
A loud, agonizing howl ripped through the air outside. It was Aleric. The call to the hunt. My father and the Alpha were officially declaring me a rogue.
"They're starting the sweep," I said. My ears twitched. I could hear the sounds of paws hitting the dirt miles away.
I could hear the snap of branches. I could hear my father's heartbeat, fueled by the rage of a man whose 'asset' had turned into a liability.
How was I hearing all of this?
"Take this," Sabrina urged. "It's a scent-masker. Drink half, pour the rest on your clothes. It will make you smell like nothing but rain and iron."
"Miss Sabrina, why are you helping me? You'll be executed if they find out." I mean she's already helped enough by hiding me.
Why give me all this and tell me where to go when she had been reluctant. The woman paused, a sad, weary smile touching her lips.
"I knew your grandmother, Isabella. And because for the first time in years, I should do at least one thing right."
It's a trap, the voice hissed. It was closer now, more intimate. The mark on my neck gave a sharp pulse after that.
"Stop!" I shouted, clutching my head. Miss Sabrina grabbed my cheeks, her eyes full of worry.
"What is it?"
"I'm hearing voices," I whispered. "Inside my head. It's cold and dark... and it's telling me shitty things."
Sabrina's hand dropped as if she'd been burned. "What?"
"Everything is too loud," I said, the words spilling out.
"I can hear Selena whispering across the house. I can hear the birds. And my leg..." I stood up abruptly, pacing with a fluid, silent grace that made Sabrina gasp.
She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. She looked at me not as the pack's "human stray," but as a medical anomaly she couldn't fathom.
"Look at me. I'm walking. I'm running. Yesterday, my ankle was a bag of crushed glass. I should be disabled for life, shouldn't I?"
Sabrina's eyes tracked my movements, her terror morphing into professional shock. "Yes," she breathed, her voice barely audible.
"You should be. I saw the X-rays, Isabella. The silver-laced trap had shredded the tendons. I... I honestly thought you would never walk again. I was preparing to tell Aleric you'd need a wheelchair for the rest of your life."
She took a step toward me, her doctor's instincts momentarily overriding her fear of the 'rot' scent.
She reached down, her fingers trembling as she felt my ankle through my sock. "The swelling is gone," she whispered, her face going even paler.
"The bone has fused. No wolf heals this fast, Isabella. Not even an Alpha." She looked up at me, terrified. "The voice... does it feel like it comes from the mark?"
"Yes," I said, my hand going to my throat. "It told me to hide. It told me how to slow my heart. it says the east is a trap. It's saving me... but it sounds so angry. So possessive."
Another howl ripped through the night—closer this time.
"If they see you walking like this, they'll think you're possessed," Sabrina said, pushing the pouch back at me.
"We don't have time to check the mark Isabella but...." She paused, taking a deep breath.
"But if the Eastern border is a trap... where will you go? The South is a gorge. The North is the Forbidden Forest."
I looked toward the North. Through the locked shutters, I felt it—a magnetic pull yanking on the very center of my soul.
"He's in the North," I whispered. "That monster. It's him."
"Who's him?" Miss Sabrina grabbed my shoulders. "Isabella, listen to me. we don't have time for all this but from what I gathered with you coming back like a body bag. If you go to him, you are trading one cage for another. He will drink you dry until there's nothing left but a shell."
I looked at the door, then back at the woman who had spent years treating my bruises. My voice sounded strangely hollow, fueled by the cold energy in my blood.
"Ok." Miss sabrina smile, her hands shaking as I hugged her tightly before turning toward the back door.
"Be safe!" she called out.