My phone had just enough power to send the text then it turned off. I shoved it in my pocket. My body laid in the snow, so weak I might as well have been dead. Maybe I was dead. Or, perhaps, paralyzed. My eyes took control of their own, and slid shut.
***
Slowly, my eyes pried open. Bright lights blinded me, and ice froze my limbs. I was still outside, and had a pounding headache. My ears picked up voices, maybe one or two.
The fuzziness disappeared, and I made out the figure hovering above me, "Sheriff... Erwin?" I shouted weakly as I coughed. My head continued to pound.
He jumped, "Adena?" He asked
I gave a small, weak smile. "That's me..." I slurr.
"What the hell happened to you?" He hissed. I watched his face change, like magic, from hard as stone to soft as a cloud and become more sympathetic.
Sheriff Erwin crouched to my level, and placed a hand on my neck and forehead. "You're ice cold!" He quickly wrapped his arms around me, and picked me up, bridal style. His eyes caught sight of my bag a few feet over, so he grabbed that too. I tried my best to use my strength to hold myself up around his neck, but I simply couldn't.
My voice and head felt like fire, but I spoke anyway, "I was bitten."
He stops a half second, but continues on. "Where?"
I rose my arm up, and pull up my shirt, showing him.
Sheriff Erwin gave me an odd look. "I don't see anything." He scrunches his eyebrows together. "You sure you're okay, kid?"
I looked at my thigh. It was gone. The blood was still on my shirt but the wound was gone. My brain fuzzed and fogged up.
"What the hell?" I murmur. My eyes met his. "I-I'm fine,"
Sheriff Erwin carried me to his car. He sat me in the back, and gave me my bag. He rummaged through the trunk, and pulled out a box of some sort. I caught sight of a blanket, which he wrapped tightly around me. He turned his sirens on and sped through the streets to the hospital.
Doctors and nurses met us outside the front, as if they were waiting for us. My head continued to spin, and felt like I wanted to sleep. Someone else picked me up and carried me onto a stretcher.
A female shouted out, "Someone page Doctor Parker."
Sheriff Erwin hollard, "Hurry!"
My bed was pushed into the large front doors, and up to a desk. Everyone there scattered around, and began poking me and checking me out. A nurse got to a pager, and shouted into it.
"Doctor Parker you're needed in the main." Said a nurse.
I heard Mom respond.
Mom...
It crackled twice, "Why? Interns here need to watch a surgeon perform this surgery." She explained.
There was a hesitant pause, "It's your daughter."
Another pause happened. "I'll be right there."
Moments passed before I saw my mom burst through the elevator doors. She looked angry, confused, and worried all at once.
Her eyebrows furrowed together. "Where the hell were you?" She asked.
"I..." I knew I'd get in trouble. " I... took the woods... home." I mumbled. Cold sweats coated my body, and I suddenly felt exhausted.
She squeezed my hand. "Someone take her to a room." She felt my forehead, neck, and stomach. "And get her a heated blanket."
Then she looked at me, "I'm sorry baby but I've got to go back to surgery." She kissed my forehead. "And because you're my daughter, I can't take your case. But you bet your ass I'll check on you constantly, and overlook everyone's work," She chuckled softly. "I love you."
She rushed off back from where she came from. A mass of people surrounded me again, and pushed me into a room fairly close to the entrance. Then Sheriff Erwin was a family friend, so that probably meant he felt obligated to become my dad for a few hours. He tailed the bed, and was the one to grab the blanket.
"Is this too hot?" He asked.
"It's too cold."
Moments passed, and I began feeling warm, well, feeling.
"Want me to call Lola?" He questions.
I nodded. He smiled and quickly left. I was finally in the room alone. I was left to look at the wall and lay in silence.
****
Lola came in through the door. She had her hands on her head and was pacing. She looked anxious, and as if she were about to pass out. She was guilty about all of this.
"This is all my fault." Lola spoke suddenly.
I sat up, "No it's not."
"I left you alone in the woods I could have done something."
Lola sat down in the chair.
"This thing is so uncomfortable." She complained
Lola ran her hands through her hair, and started hyperventilating.
"Lola don't worry about it, it's fine-"
She shook her head. "I looked online, a-and a human couldn't have been able to survive that long in that temperature."
"I guess I'm just lucky." I smirk.
She looked angry. "Then I looked into to it... I looked at rapid healing and stuff like that... All I found was werewolves and vampires..."
There was a long silence, and she crawled to the edge of my bed. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "So which one are you?"
The air left my lungs, and I felt angry. She was so out of it, something was wrong. "What the hell, Lola."
She bit her lip. "Come on, you don't think last night was completely natural... Do you?" Lola snapped, getting up.
I chuckled, "No, but it's definitely not supernatural." I gave a snobby smirk.
Lola glares at me. "You said you were bleeding... Where?"
I pulled up my shirt, slowly, revealing regular skin, pigmented with pink from the blood on my shirt.
"Right here, the wolf bit me right here."
She put her hands on her head again. "How the hell did that heal in one night?" Lola asks out loud.
"Dude, I don't know and I'm definitely not some supernatural freak." I say. "Chill out, maybe we imagined the entire thing."
The door clicked, and in walks my mom. She was in new clothes, well, scrubs, and smiled at us.
"Lola, may I speak to my daughter alone?"
"Yeah." She said as she walked out
Mom smothered me with a hug. She touched the heat blanket.
"Ouch, that's really hot." She laughed.
I shrugged, "I'm freezing." I explain.
Mom chuckled, "I can understand, you spent an entire night outside," She paused, "Which is impossible for any human to survive."
My eyes couldn't meet her's. "I know. Lola just told me how impossible it is, just a second ago." I told her with a smile
"I'm just glad you're alive, Sabrina is too she's at home now. When would you like to go home?"
"Soon." I mumble.
"I'll have Sabrina drop you off some clothes."
Mom left the room and at that time Lola walked back in.
"I'm sorry about that, you know me... my brain always tries to explain things-"
I cut off Lola, "I know and I don't blame you I've been told like three times at least today by three different people how impossible it was to survive that." I say
Lola stood there looking at me like I was supposed to say something.
She didn't talk for a minute. "Anyways, you missed Mr. Jasper's class, and it was a movie again, nothing learned there." Lola said
"That's good," I giggle, "you how much I hate him."
"Do you feel different at all?" Lola questioned suddenly.
"No, should I?" I ask
"I don't know. I only learned about all this stuff a while ago and I still have a lot of questions and my phone died."
"I do feel different I just don't know how to explain it." I shrug.
"Maybe you should get some sleep, I'll go check on Sabrina and get her here, okay?" Lola asks.
"Good." I agree.
Lola leaves and I go through my backpack. I get my phone and it's charger out. I take the blanket off me and my legs look like charred human flesh. I almost scream but then it heals right in front of me.
"That's new." I say to myself
I plug my phone into the wall and it starts charging. I lay back down and I turn the heat of the blanket down. I lay there for a good three hours before Lola walks in with Sabrina.
"You do not want to know what I found her doing!" Lola said
"Okay I believe you, anyway did you get me some clothes?" I ask
"Yeah." Sabrina said getting them from her purse
"I'm gonna take a shower and I'll be out." I say
I got into the bathroom and turn on the water. I wait for it to get warm then I get in.
I turn the water off and I get out I get dressed and I look in the mirror.
My eyes glow just like the wolf in the woods did, but mine weren't red they were gold. I look hard at the mirror and blink a couple of times. I back away from the mirror and I get dressed. I walk out of the bathroom and I get my backpack and my phone.
"You ready?" Asked Sabrina
"Yeah." I say
"What took you so long?" Lola asked
"I just like long warm showers that's all." I say