Last night after the appearance of bossy Hayley, I had to take a decision…
As the Alpha male that I am, I… (by myself and without any outside influence) decided to go sleep to the hospital, I could just walk away and ignore the fact that was Zak trying his best to not laugh while I was escorted by a couple of hunters back to the hospital. Zak was going to stay there with his unit, after all, there was nothing else to report for now.
When I arrived, I thought of go and lay down next to Rose, but I was wet and a complete mess, without a shower I was not going there… Hope was on the couch her head backward and her mouth open. She wasn't snoring, but the way she was sitting there didn't seem comfortable. I took her and helped her lay down and took a blanket to cover her.
After that I changed my wet clothes and dry myself before putting on the hospital robe, then I got near Dante who was peacefully sleeping. I petted his head, and he started to purr almost instantaneously.
"Good job buddy."
I kissed both Rose and my sister on their foreheads before going to sleep on the chair.
…
I woke up the next day on a chair next to Rose's bed, Hope was sleeping on the couch.
Her eyes closed and her black hair covering half her face. The dyeing at the end of her hair changed already from dark purple to light pink.
I didn't get to see her fight yesterday, but from what I heard she managed to attract the attention of 4 beasts for a short moment, that was what made possible for Hayley to quickly take down two of the enemies last night…
Outside it was still almost covered by clouds but the heavy rain from last night was replaced by a soothing drizzle.
I looked around and found a little black cat and a white bunny on Rose's bed sleeping with her… I also noticed that our Astral link felt stronger than last night.
I don't know much about souls and the Astral Realm, but I can remember when Lucy helped me deal with the soul poison. I thought that the reason that both pets didn't appear until now was that they were with Rose, inside her soul or the Astral Realm, helping her with something maybe an aftereffect of the use of her ability.
The fact that they were out and that I can feel the connection as strong as it was before meant that she was really just sleeping right now.
Inside the incubator, Dante was still sleeping. I had so many questions for both of them, but it will have to wait for now.
I left the room after checking everyone's aura to be sure that there was nothing wrong with them and changing to the same clothes I wore last night. I went to the gym since I wanted to talk with Cecily about her nightmare and get a change of clothes that I forgot to bring last night.
…
In the gym there was already some movement, the logistics people were in charge of the food and were distributing breakfast… now that I think about I don't remember myself eating anything since yesterday… unless you count the serum they gave me while I was unconscious.
Some law enforcers were there to keep the order as the food was distributed, while Gabriel was overseeing the situation. Zak was probably on a break, the resting time became mandatory for the hunters to avoid possible problems that were most likely appear when they get too tired or overuse their powers. They need to be in the best condition possible most of the time.
The first thing I did was to get some food for myself. I thought of eating with the rest of my group, but when I was about to go to the group, I noticed that Megan was with them. I felt awkward, after telling her that I kind of killed her father an emergency came, and I had to leave without even talking to her. It was like I dropped a bomb and ran away… it felt weird if I just went there as if nothing happened I had to talk with her first but now is not the right moment so instead of going there, I just sat near Gabriel and spoke with him.
"After the second attack did something else happen last night?"
"There were two more attacks, Tillman detected one of them while he was patrolling with his unit, so he managed to get them in time and his unit with the help of another group, that went there because of the commotion, managed to take out that group of beasts before they did any harm."
"Tillman?... that sounds familiar…"
"The guy that helped you with the traps…"
"Oh yeah! I remember now … what about the other attack?"
His face went pale when he was asked about it…
"That… didn't go well…"
"What happened?"
"After killing a hunter's units and the law enforcers a group of beasts got into one of the shelters, a couple of dozens of people died on the hands of two semi-humans and a normal looking bull. They noticed that something was wrong because a report was delayed and Blake went to see what was happening himself since most of the people were already assigned somewhere… it could have been worse, but it ended when Blake arrived and took all the beast down on his own. He is fine, but got some light wounds during his fight…"
I felt guilty… if I went back as I wanted yesterday would I have been able to make a difference?
"I shouldn't have gone to sleep again last night…"
"Tell me about it… I found out about all this just a couple hours ago, I was in my break with my sister in one of the refuges when it happened, so I knew nothing about what was happening. I wish I could have helped somehow."
"You were in your break… that same attack could have fallen on your sister's refuge, so it was good that you were there."
He seemed to recover a little after my words.
"The same can be said about you… and be to honest we all have to take breaks, but your breaks seem to happen when you fall unconscious, or when you are forced by a girl…"
He said the last part with a slight grin on his face…I hate you, Zak…
The mood was lighter, and that was good, but the Alpha cow showed his cruelty last night, we need to do something about the Alpha or this will continue to happen.
Behind me, footsteps were coming this way, and I noticed Hayley and Cecily near us when I turned my head to see the source…
Hayley had a worried face, and Cecily was clearly feeling guilty about something.
"Are you girls okay?"
"Yeah don't worry about it… why you didn't come to eat with us?"
I gave her a wry smile, she was testing me, from their superficial thoughts I knew why they have those faces…
"I have too many things in my head right now, so I have to wait until all this is finished to talk to Megan about it…"
Gabriel looked back and forth without understanding what was going on but this was something more personal, and there was no need for him to know.
I could understand Cecily's face as she was also kind of a part of the commission at the time. She didn't have a vote on the decisions, but she was still a consultant and knowing that someone close to us lost a loved one because of what we decided was hard to handle now that she wanted to do good things…
I decided to change the subject to one that was no better for her but at least would take her head out of it.
"Cecily, can you tell me about your dream?"
She grew pale as she tried to put her thoughts in order…
She described her dream step by step without being too graphic on the descriptions. The scene was the same in the beginning, and the only important change was when Hayley arrived. In the dream, the massacre started with Alfred's fall, and similarly to how it happened in real life, Dana died by a combined attack from the goat and the horn-thrower. In her dream, Cecily died soon after that, and no one arrived to help them since the beginning of the attack…
I was in deep thought after hearing the dream, I understood that it was Dante the one that changed it. If it wasn't because of his warning, Hayley and I would have never got there, and most people would have died…
The best theory I had was that Dante somehow saw Cecily's nightmare, he might have thought that it was happening at that moment, or noticed that it was a dream… but he did his best to warn us about it to help Dana… he might not even know that the dream was a vision from the future and unknowingly changed the fate of dozens of people.
I explained it to Cecily and told her that her power saved them… it was important for her to understand that.
After understanding what could have happened without Dante's intervention, I took a decision…
I changed clothes, recovered my spear and some extra weapons I had on the backpacks and started to move out of the gym.
"Hayley come with me… I need to talk to Blake…
…
..
.
…and Pinky…"