Treasure Ch. 31-35

He put his riding gear in his locker and changed into scrubs and a lab coat, arriving at the main desk five minutes early. The Center was a psychiatric teaching hospital, so he was working under an Attending Psychologist in patient care. The two would be walking down the patients on the floor today, covering any details on treatment. Of course, it was also time for his Attending to probe his knowledge of diagnosis and treatment options. They day would start hard and not stop until the next night at seven.

Most of the patients had been there since his last shift, so those were easy, but two new patients had arrived overnight. The first was a suicide attempt by pills, a veteran who struggled with PTSD. The second was more interesting.

"This one arrived on a seventy-two-hour psych hold last night. She was found by police in an alley, naked and covered in blood, with the remains of a raccoon around her. When she woke up, she had no idea what had happened." The offgoing attending had that look to him, like he was going to show me something new and different.

"Rabies shot?" He looked at his iPad which had her patient history summary. "This has happened before. Psychotic breaks, paranoid schizophrenia, she's spent months in institutions." Chase skimmed through the pages; an otherwise innocent girl with violent outbursts she couldn't remember. "Drug treatment was partially successful."

"Apparently, but the drugs would seem to help, and they would turn her loose. Now she's eighteen, so she can't be held beyond the 72 hours without a judge authorizing it."

"And that will require us to determine she is a danger to herself or others."

"Correct. Without regular medication she will continue to have these episodes, I'm afraid. The tragedy is that the patient doesn't want the side effects, so they don't take them. An easily controlled psychosis then grows to significant, even violent episodes. She's lucky she wasn't attacked or raped while she was out, and the man who found her called the police."

They reached the door to her room, and his wolf suddenly was forward in my mind. He opened the door and the scent hit me like a train. "MATE," his wolf said in his mind.

She looked up at him, the most beautiful woman Chase had ever seen. Red hair, wide eyes, and no recognition of him as the one Luna made just for her. He stepped into the room, his eyes fixed on hers while his wolf pushed to be let out. "Let me go," she said.

Never.

Ch. 34

To say Rori wasn't happy was an understatement. She had been pumped, poked, prodded, given injections and had been strapped to the gurney for hours. The doctors wouldn't listen to her when she said this had happened before, and she just needed to take another dose of her medication.

Worst off, they refused to let her call or talk to anyone. The Chapter must be going nuts; she could only hope that the bad men hadn't hurt any of the others in the van. She couldn't handle it if Mighty Elk was hurt, or Nuke. They took her Mom's cellphone number but wouldn't tell her if they'd talked to her. Instead, she had been sedated and left strapped to a bed in an observation room. She had to beg them for a bedpan before she soiled herself.

She tried to relax and take inventory of her body as she lay there in the dim light of her room. Her left shoulder ached, it was heavily bruised and protested her movement. She moved her head side to side slowly, feeling the stitches and the sharp pains in her neck. Her arms and legs felt stretched, like she'd overexerted herself in yoga. Overall, she'd had worse.

For a mental hospital, they didn't do anything to help her cope with the boredom. No television, no radio, nothing on the walls- it was like they wanted her to retreat into her mind. She closed her eyes, going back to the drive from the airport. She'd only had a glance at the men, but she forced herself to concentrate, to see their faces and commit them to memory. She was proud of herself for getting past the man by the door; she had taken the initiative from him. Their battle was short and decisive, proving what Taco had taught her last year. The weakness of a big man was in his knees.

"Trust me," the voice had told her. Could she?

"You should. I am you, just as you are me. We need to work together," the voice said to her.

"What are you?"

"I am what you dream of. When you are ready, we will meet." The voice didn't come back, and she was shocked to find the pressure and the pain hadn't occurred this time. Was it because she had sought the voice out? Because she didn't fight it? Or was it just all the drugs they had pumped into her since she arrived?

She didn't have time to think of more because she heard voices outside her door. Her hearing easily picked up the conversation that wasn't meant for her ears. "This one arrived on a seventy-two-hour psych hold last night. She was found by police in an alley, naked and covered in blood, with the remains of a raccoon around her. When she woke up, she had no idea what had happened."

She knew everything, she remembered being woken up naked, but didn't know the blood was from a racoon. What the hell? "Dinner," the voice said. She shuddered, suddenly thankful her stomach had been pumped.

A new voice picked up. "This has happened before. Psychotic breaks, paranoid schizophrenia, she's spent months in institutions. Drug treatment was partially successful." It was low and powerful, it made her want to hear it again.

"Apparently, but the drugs would seem to help, and they would turn her loose. Now she's eighteen, so she can't be held beyond the 72 hours without a judge authorizing it." That was a handy piece of information to remember.

"And that will require us to determine she is a danger to herself or others."

"Correct. Without regular medication she will continue to have these episodes, I'm afraid. The tragedy is that the patient doesn't want the side effects, so they don't take them. An easily controlled psychosis then grows to significant, even violent episodes. She's lucky she wasn't attacked or raped while she was out, and the man who found her called the police." She shuddered again, they were right. She'd woken up helpless a few times, it was a miracle she hadn't been raped or captured.

She heard a key in the door, and four doctors filed in. "Let me go," she said, but she was ignored again. The oldest one had seen her twice since she had been brought in, he was dismissive of her and arrogant. The younger one that was with him didn't say much, clearly he was a student, and was there to listen. It was the new doctor who caught her eye, and what a man he was.

He was tall, broad-shouldered and handsome. His blonde hair was cut short, military style, and you could cut glass with that chin of his. His eyes were a clear, Artic blue, and they were staring into hers. "MATE," the voice in her head said. "MATE MATE MATE MATE!"

"Hello, I'm Doctor Nygaard," the man said, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Mate? He doesn't sound Australian!" She couldn't take her eyes off him as he walked to her bedside. "No, he's OUR mate," the voice insisted.

He reached out and took her hand, sending tingles and warmth up her arm. She kept staring at his eyes, not understanding what was going on but not wanting it to stop. "Hi," she said, cringing inside at how weak she sounded.

"I'll be taking care of you overnight, Miss King," he said as he checked the chart, finally over the shock of seeing the person he had been studying for over a year was his mate. He couldn't do anything with all these humans around, so he pushed his wolf back and put on his professional demeanor. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore and overly restrained," she said sweetly. "My episode is over, I've taken my medication, why am I still like this?"

"It's our policy when the patient has a history of violent outbursts," the attending said dismissively.

"If you'd read my record properly, the violence was against a man who tried to stick his hand in my panties while I was sleeping," she said. "And I bit his fingers off when I was restrained just like this." She normally would be getting mad, but it all seemed to melt away when the Doctor touched her hand or forehead.

"We'll have to discuss that," Doctor Nygaard said. "Do you need anything right now? I'll be back later to talk about what happened last night after I get these guys out of here."

"Chick-fil-A spicy chicken sandwich with waffle fries and a vanilla shake?" She looked at him hopefully.

"We both wish."

"Let me make a call and I'll have it here in an hour," she said hopefully.

"Sorry, no phone calls, it's the rules. We'll see what the kitchen is serving tonight." He got up and smiled at her, then they filed out and the door was locked again.

She listened to them talk about her again. "She seems lucid, are the restraints necessary now?" His voice did things to her, making her feel all warm inside.

"Let's get through more of the evaluation, and contact her doctors in Florida," a new man said. They moved on, leaving her to her own thoughts.

Thoughts that soon went to the doctor with the light hair and blue eyes, and the voice that made her melt. His touch woke something in her that she hadn't felt before. "What did you mean he is our mate," she asked her alter ego.

"He was made just for us, he is our soul mate," the voice responded. The voice didn't come back, leaving her there to think about what it meant. Was there such a thing? What did it mean? She fell asleep pondering the question, her inner voice no longer wanting to talk to her.

-

Wolfman sat in the IHOP booth with Mighty Elk, Possum and Roadkill. "I can't believe they won't let you visit your own daughter," he said as he poked at his pancakes.

"There is no visitation during a psych hold," Donna said. She was cutting into her chicken-friend steak with some latent aggression. "I'm going to try and talk to the doctors again tonight, see if I can get it ended."

"Can you do that," Mighty Elk asked.

"It's possible," Roadkill said. "The 72-hour hold is placed outside judicial review; they have to file a petition in court to keep her without her consent beyond then and show cause. The kicker is that they aren't supposed to keep her unless she is in danger of harming herself or others. Her blackout is over, she's on her meds, they've shown before to regulate her behavior. We're going to ask them to release her to her mother before the period is up."

"If they don't, what do you do?"

"That depends on whether they file for a 14-day hold," he said. "If they do, we fight it in court. What happened here is nothing new for her, and drug therapy has been effective. We argue that she went off her normal medication schedule on the trip and that caused the relapse."

They showed up at the hospital at eight PM, but only Donna was allowed to talk to the doctors since the others were not next of kin. Even Roadkill, now married to her, was not allowed as Rori was now an adult and hadn't authorized him to receive her health information.

She entered the room where two Doctors greeted her. "I'm Doctor Thompson, the attending physician tonight, and this is Doctor Nygaard, a Resident. Welcome to Seattle," he said as they sat. Over the next half hour, they discussed her history, then walked her out. As he walked out with her, Chase passed her a note. "Read it when you are alone," he whispered. She put it in her jacket pocked and left without looking back.

"Did they agree to release her," Wolfman said as she came back to the waiting room.

"Not yet, but they promised to consider it. A lot depends on what they see of her in the next day," she said. "I liked Dr. Nygaard, he said she was lucid and aware of what was going on."

"Good, I want to take her home," Roadkill said. "She can't stay here, not when those people might still be around, and she needs her Mom and friends around her."

"I have to agree, as sad as it makes me," Wolfman said. "We didn't protect her, and we can't find the guys who tried. She needs to be safe and far from here."

"It isn't your fault," Donna said as she put her hand on his. "I don't blame you."

"I do," he said. He threw some money on the table to cover the bill. "Come on, let's get you some rest. Do you want to stay at the clubhouse or our home?"

"Clubhouse," Roadkill said. "If anything goes down, I want my brothers around."

It was hours later, as Possum got ready for bed while Roadkill was in the shower, that she pulled out the note and read it. "Not everyone who is after Rori is bad, but not all can be trusted. If you want to know who is after her and why, you'll have to trust me. Tell no one of this. -Chase xxx-xxx-xxxx."

-

The Council called in by videoconference, and Beta Carlson's brief was short and illuminating. "My team failed, and that is my responsibility alone. I underestimated both her and her wolf and ended up risking exposure to humans at the same time I failed to bring her back."

"You know where she is."

"Yes, she's on a psychiatric hold at a mental hospital east of Seattle. Our tech guy picked up the 911 call when she was found, and confirmed it was her by talking with the ambulance driver who took her from the emergency room to Kirkland."

"Wait, isn't that where Beta Nygaard's brother is doing his residency?" Councilman Forrest made it a point to talk to his staff about what was going on in their lives, and Chase had worked for him for eight weeks before returning to his own Pack.

"I can check with her," Beta Carlson said. "She's on vacation now, recuperating from her wounds."

Doctor Phillips moved into the camera, he had been sitting near his Alpha. "He might be able to talk to her, but he's a student doctor, he doesn't have authority to do anything without his supervisor signing off on it. I will talk to him and see what he has learned about her mental state."

The members contemplated what to do next. Their search had never been closer, but now she was spooked, and her family and friends were going to be even more protective of her. Her contacts within the Steel Brotherhood seemed endless, and they were fiercely loyal to each other. The Club had the ability to move and hide her in over a hundred chapters, and they kept their mouths shut.

"Clearly, we have to change course," Councilman Forrest said. "Trying to grab her hasn't worked, it's only driven her further underground and risked us getting exposed to the humans. We can't get to her in the hospital, and they'll have her protected like the President when she is released. They'll disappear her again."

"What do you suggest," Chairman Gruber asked.

"What does a child who was abandoned and adopted as a baby really want to know?" Councilman Waterman looked smug as he challenged the others.

"Who she is," Forrest said. He smacked the table with his hand. "Charles and Martin."

"Correct. They are her only living relatives, her uncle and her grandfather. She's afraid of them right now, but if she stops to think about it, they never did anything to her that can't be explained. They need to gather photographs, birth certificates, letters, anything that can show her who she really is. Hell, supply her with their own DNA. Let her run her own testing, proving Charles is her grandfather. When she gets the results back, she'll come to us with her questions." The DNA testing wasn't a problem for human labs. Being a Werewolf was the result of a curse passed down the bloodline, not the DNA itself. That was why humans couldn't be turned, no matter what the fictional stories said.

"That still doesn't tell us where she is," Chairman Gruber said.

"True, but we know where her mother is. We give the information to her and ask her to pass it on. Let her know that the estate remains in limbo, as her body was never found. It's her birthright, after all."

Ch. 35

Dr. Chase Nygaard stepped out the back of the hospital, walking past the three people taking a smoke break and out to the parking lot. His mind was racing, and his wolf was pushing to get out. He hadn't had this much trouble controlling his wolf since he first shifted. "Mate is inside and needs us," his wolf pushed into his head. "I know, but we need Alpha's help," he said.

He called the one person he trusted with the secret; she didn't answer. Frustrated, he ended the call, only for Coral's number to appear on his screen just before he put his phone away. "Chase?"

"Hi sis. Busy?"

"Healing, I was napping." She had called him before he went to work, telling him of the failed operation and how she had been hurt fighting Rori. "How are you doing?"

"You can't say anything to anyone about this," he replied. "I found my mate."

"EEEEK! THAT'S AMAZING! WHEN CAN I MEET HER!" Her excitement hurt his ears, and probably those of the guests in the adjoining motel rooms. "How did you meet? Have you mated? Does Mom know?"

"Take a breath, Coral. It's not so simple."

"What do you mean? She didn't reject you, did she?"

"She doesn't know what I am to her," he said as he started pacing.

"How is that even possible? Her wolf has to know. Did she mate another?"

"My mate is Rori King, sis." He heard clunking, like she dropped her phone. "Coral?"

"I'm here... I'm... you... Rori... shit Chase, you never make anything easy." She took a couple deep breaths. "Tell me what happened."

Chase recounted what happened, walking in to the room and seeing her, their eyes locking, the tingles when they touched and her confusion. "She's on a hold, but I think I can talk my Attending into releasing it by morning. The real question is what do I do then? My wolf doesn't want her out of his sight, he wants to bundle her onto the back of my motorcycle and bring her home. My head is telling me to call the Council and let them know where she is, but I know what Doctor Peterson said. They'll take her from me, from her family, and send her to the Bitterroot Pack. Doc told me last year that if they couldn't get her wolf to integrate, she'd never leave." He stopped and leaned his forehead against a tree. "I don't know what to do."

"Go back in there and talk to her," Coral said. "That will calm your wolf and feed the bond in her. If you can't get her to feel the mate bond before she leaves, you'll never get her to trust you enough to leave with you." He nodded to himself, she was right, plus he had to document enough to justify letting her go. "Meanwhile, I'll make a discreet inquiry or two."

"Thanks, Coral. I owe you. Even more after this."

"What?" She hung up a minute later, wondering how the hell she agreed to get up and do that when her stomach still felt like knives were sticking in it. She stood up and dressed quickly; it was a price she'd gladly pay for her brother's happiness. "Luna, if you're listening," she whispered, "I just want a mate who loves me, I don't need all this drama to appreciate him."

Chase moved back into the hospital and found his Attending near the nurses' station. "Sir, I'd like to spend some time talking with Miss King before she sleeps again," he started. "It's a fascinating case, and I'd like to see if I can help her remember anything from last night."

Doctor Bach thought about it; nothing in her records showed anyone had success with that, but it wouldn't hurt the student to spend time that way. "Keep the door open and her restrained, after what happened at the Mayo hospital you can't be too careful."

"I'd rather remove the restraints. She isn't violent, and it would go a long way to show trust. I also noted she is an accomplished artist, I'm hoping I can use her drawing as a way to break through to the memories she is suppressing."