Chapter 7

We are lucky really.

Lucky that we have a pack doctor.

Small packs like us don’t usually have one.

Most of the time we have to rely on other packs to send their doctors.

Sometimes I wonder why pack doctors even are excluded to just one pack. Why there can’t just be a system where every pack can have help.

But packs are greedy. And they want what others don’t have.

So we are lucky.

Lucky that one of our females went to visit her cousins and came back with a doctor.

Lucky that he decided to come to our pack instead of taking away another number of our own.

“He has weakness of the lungs. It’s most likely caused by a severe case of pneumonia.”

Doctor Germain is scribbling small things down on his notepad while talking.

“But… but he’s a healthy man. He’s in his 40s. He can fight this right?”

Doctor Germain sighs and sets the notepad down. He’s not a kind doctor. He doesn’t like me. I can tell.

“Listen…,”

“Layla.”

“Listen Layla. If this had been caught earlier, and your father had been placed under my care sooner, I would have been able to agree with you. But right now his air sacs are filled with fluid and are infected. You need to brace yourself for the worst”

He pats my back, in a way that makes it seem like he knows my pain, but really he doesn’t.

And then walks away.

My legs are shaking.

I walk over to the closest seat, trying to take in even breaths.

I don’t know how long I sit there before I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Looking up I see the Luna.

“Layla, I heard what happened.”

Her voice is calm. Gentle.

It’s in that moment that I think of how great a Luna she is. How she has always been so caring towards me. When not many were.

“Doctor Germain said he…that the airway was…that there was an infection….”

“Ssshhhh,” she softly pushes me into her, closing me gently into her arms.

I exhale deeply and allow one sob to come out before I push away.

Her eyes show her own pain at my rejection to her comfort, but I ignore it.

“I need to tell Hank.”

She nods, “I can have one of the warriors-,”

“No.”

She looks surprised as I stand and straighten out my green polka-dot dress- looking down at my yellow flats, before finally having the courage to reach her brown eyes.

“I need to tell him. He needs to know from me. His family. Can you…?”

The question lingers in the air as the Luna sighs and gets up.

“I’ll take you there.”

I should probably say goodbye to dad.

Doctor Germain made it seem like he would be gone at any second.

I don’t know which room he is in.

I don’t know which room they put him in after I frantically called the pack doctor when I walked down and saw father’s limp body.

After pack warriors rushed in and put him on a stretcher, before rushing him to the small clinic we were lucky to have.

I didn’t know.

And I didn’t want to.

Because it was my fault.

And father knew it.

He didn’t want to see me.

He wanted to see his star.

His golden boy.

So I was going to go get him.