Chapter 167

Alice’s POV

My question drew the attention of Aunt Kathy and Cousin Penny, who both turned to look, like me, at Cousin Tony.

Tony placed the painting back on the wall smoothly, like holding it hadn’t been a big deal. Maybe it hadn’t, though it seemed strange to me. And I was still worried he put gum on it.

I was supposed to be apologizing to him though. It wasn’t going to make a good impression if I started accusing him of things like that. So I bit my tongue.

“I was just appreciating the art,” Tony said.

Aunt Kathy tilted her head, like she was trying to look at the painting from around him, even though she was still sitting on the couch beside me. His head and shoulders blocked most of her view.

“That art, Tony? It’s not your style at all,” Aunt Kathy said.

Penny agreed, “Usually you only like those ultra-expensive naked women pictures.”

“Nudes, Penny,” Tony said. “Don’t be crass.”

Penny rolled her eyes. Under her breath, she muttered, “They are naked…”

“Regardless,” Aunt Kathy said, “That is a landscape, and just a print, not an original, if I’m not mistake. It’s not your usually type at all, Tony.”

Tony turned around, facing us, and scoffed at his aunt and cousin. “I’m not a snob, Aunt Kathy. Give me some credit. I can appreciate landscapes too.”

Aunt Kathy hummed. Penny muttered something I couldn’t hear, but neither of the women brought it up again.

I didn’t fully understand the argument. I liked the picture and didn’t care what it was worth. It was a nice meadow with tall grasses and a blue sky. There was a brown horse grazing there, and another with his head looking up, his mane blowing in the wind.

I liked the horses.

As Tony walked to the couch and took the open seat beside Penny, I continued looking at the picture, trying to see it as Tony saw it. But no matter how much I squinted my eyes or turned my head, I still liked the picture.

But, I guessed since it didn’t have naked ladies on it, like Penny said, that Tony just didn’t like it. He must not have liked horses.

Before I could ask him, Mom and Dad came out of the kitchen with a tray of sandwiches, a pitcher of water, and some sandwiches. They set the items down on the coffee table. Immediately, I leaned in, ready to have a sandwich.

Now that things were okay again, I realized I was so hungry! I hadn’t noticed before, when I’d been upset about what was happening.

Just after I grabbed my sandwich, Mom’s phone started to ring. Everyone else kind of froze, looking at her. I kept eating though. Maybe they just weren’t as hungry as I was.

Mom answered the phone. “Hello?”

As she listened to the person on the other end, her face grew kind of tight and her smile went away.

“I understand,” she said. “I’ll be right in.”

After she hung up the phone, everyone tried to talk at once.

“Is she alright?” Penny asked.

“Were there new developments?” Tony asked.

“Is something wrong?” Aunt Kathy asked.

“Is Mom okay?” Dad asked.

Mom took a breath. “There are no changes,” she said. “But there are some new developments in the research I asked the other Healers to look into. They are eager to give me the results, and I’m eager to hear them.”

Dad nodded. “You should go then.”

“Yes,” she said, but then looked at me. “But I won’t leave unless it’s okay with you, Alice? You’ve had a big day, and I don’t want to leave you alone if you need me.”

“Doesn’t grandma need you?” I asked. I didn’t have a full understanding of what was going on, but I knew Dad’s Mom was having some medical issue and Mom was trying to help. She was the best Healer in the world, after all, so if anyone could fix things, it was her.

“Grandma will be okay if I don’t hear the results immediately,” Mom said, but that didn’t sit right with me. Grandma was the sick one, not me. And I had others here that would look out for me, so I wasn’t alone.

I just didn’t want to be alone.

“Aunt Kathy, Penny, and Dad will be here,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”

Amber’s POV

Even with Alice’s reassurance, I still felt bad for leaving. My little girl had been through so much. If she needed me, I wanted to be there for her, no matter what. Instead, I felt like I was putting my efforts elsewhere, just as I’d been doing for a while, when she should have always been my first priority.

Still, I couldn’t hover, as much as I wanted to. I was needed elsewhere, and I had her permission to go.

First, though, I made eye contact with Julian. He held my gaze for a long moment. His eyes were non-judgmental. Instead, they seemed to openly display his pride and his affection for me.

“I’ll keep an eye on things here,” Julian said.

I trusted him, so I agreed to go. Moving to Alice, I gave her a quick kiss on her head. She was halfway done with her sandwich. She said goodbye to me with her mouth full.

When I arrived at the hospital, my plan was to quickly review the results and leave, so that I could return to Alice as quickly as possible.

The supervisor, spotting me in the waiting room, immediately called me directly into his office. As soon as we were both in the small, cluttered room, he closed the door behind us. Then he went to the desk and passed me a manila folder.

“I apologize for the secrecy,” he said. “But you will understand when you see the results.”

I opened the folder to find Julian’s Mom’s toxicology report inside.

On the list, I immediately spotted the very big problem.

“Wolfsbane,” I said.

For humans and wolfless, ingestion of wolfsbane was fatal. Even exposure to the skin could cause problems.

But werewolves were hardier creatures. The poison would take much longer to bring a werewolf low, though in the meantime, that werewolf would have issues with memory, experiencing confusion, as well as a series of physical ailments, like weakness and slow deterioration of the body.

“We have to get the wolfsbane out,” I said. “It will take time, but she might recover enough after to tell us what is going on.”

The sheer amount of wolfsbane in her system told me that this poisoning had been happening over a long period of time. While she had never been given enough to kill her outright, this much over so long could have caused permanent damage.

Reversing the process at this point felt more like a fool’s hope. But she at least deserved that chance.

“I was thinking the same, and have already begun that process,” the supervisor said.

That we weren’t immediately leaving the room told me there was more going on than just what was on the chart. Or perhaps we simply hadn’t talked about the biggest question in the room.

“Who has been poisoning her?” I asked. Then, with increasing dread, I realized it was likely someone in Julian’s family. Someone who could be here right now, out in the waiting room.

But… who?