I was so tired; it was all I could do to stay awake long enough to get ready for bed. When my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep instantly, without any further dreams.
The next morning, I got up late. I was well- rested and wanted to get to the hospital to check on Kyle. I quickly got dressed and ready for the day, before I headed for the stairs.
I was half- way down the staircase when I sensed something wasn't right. The tension, stress and anger in the air was something I could sense. I didn't like it. I also didn't like the shouts I could hear coming from what sounded like the living room.
As I carefully stepped closer, I could tell the shouts; one voice male and one voice female were Father and Mother's. But they were mates; I had never heard them fight like this before!
He sounded like an angry alpha male, and she sounded like she was desperately pleading with him.
At the bottom of the stair, I took a few steps closer and now I could clearly hear them.
"…but I don't think you understand what I am saying…" Mother said
"No. You don't understand what I am saying. It is just too many coincidences in a row for my liking." Father growled. "We know the rebel shifters created this. They knew we would be there. My son is sick because of them! But he would never have had this happen to him if he hadn't left the building. And why did he leave the building? Because of Sam."
"But…"
"Sam, a shifter, told him she was in trouble. But was she ever in trouble? Or did she just lure him out there? She isn't suffering at all from it; and he has to stay in a coma for the foreseeable future, just to stay alive. And we won't be able to wake him from the coma unless we find more of the poison to create an antidote from."
"You know that…"
"I don't know anything! My son is in a coma and the child you insisted we adopt has something to do with it!"
"That's not true!"
"You don't know that! He went out there because of her. It's her fault. He wouldn't have gone if it wasn't for Sam!"
My heart lurched into my stomach. I almost felt sick. I put a hand over my mouth. I held back my tears as I silently snuck back the way I had come.
I had the intention to try and reason with them and stop them from fighting. To tell them that they were mates and loved each other too much to be having a screaming match like this. But then I had heard what they were yelling about. Things that kept repeating themselves in my head and made me sad to my core.
'Did he really never want to adopt me in the first place?' I wondered. 'It seemed like he didn't even think of me as a daughter.'
That was when I realized he had never called me 'daughter' before. He only called me 'Sam'.
'And he even thinks I purposely put Kyle in harms way. He thinks I did this to him!' I thought bitterly.
It was all I had in me to make it up the stairs without tripping as the tears already begun and clouded my vision. At the top, I fled towards my room, away from the distant yelling below.
After I shut the door behind me, I flopped onto the bed. For half an hour, I cried and cried until I couldn't cry any more tears.
I sat up, wiping my hands on my face to try and dry it a little. As my sniffles subsided, I wondered what I was going to do.
What were my options, really? I could stay and hope that the angry Alpha who blamed me for his son getting shot wouldn't make my life a living hell. It sounded like Kyle was going to be in a coma for a long while.
Or I could leave. But where would I go?
Mike couldn't take me in, that I knew. But he was the only one I trusted at this point.
'Should I talk to him about this?' I wondered.
I lay there for a while, feeling emotionally numb and exhausted. Then my mind formed a plan.
Suddenly, I pushed myself up off the bed. I found my evening clutch and my regular purse. I still knew how to put together an emergency 'go-kit' in under 20 minutes, all because of 'Mom's' training. But I shoved my shifter training books in the backpack too, which wasn't strictly 'necessity'. The Swiss pocketknife, all ID, cash, pocket hand sanitizer, candles and lighter were though.
I made sure to write down some contacts' phone numbers in the cover of one of my books, putting Mike's at the top of the list.
I changed my clothes to black jeans, black t-shirt, black zip-up sweatshirt, and my good running shoes. The last thing I did was break my phone's SIM card in two, throw my battery across the room into the closet and leave my phone on the bed.
Opening my bedroom window as wide as it could go, I climbed onto the sill, focusing my attention. After I shifted a pair of wings on my back, I shoved off the sill holding my backpack in front of me.
I flew carefully, as far as I could, before I dropped to the ground, rid myself of my wings, and walked. My first stop was the bank. I took out as much money as I could.
My second stop was a corner store to buy a burner phone.
On my walk to the Outdoors Equipment Warehouse, I decided to call Mike.
"Hello." Mike said.
"Hi." I was aware that my voice sounded gruff. "Don't bother coming to the house on Monday. I won't be there."
"Sam?" He asked, "What are you talking about? What do you mean?"
"I left the house, and I won't be going back." I sighed. "The Alpha blames me for everything that happened to Kyle. He even suspects me of purposely hurting him. He's even screaming at his mate about it…"
"Sam! This is not something you should do out of haste. He's probably just hurt and angry about the situation…"
"No. I can't live there anymore." I felt the tears start to build in my eyes. "I'll talk to you later."