Chapter 7

K awoke late in the day. She wasn't entirely surprised by it, but it did bother her. She hated sleeping the day away, even if she didn't have anything to fill it with.

When she sat up in bed, K felt pain radiate through her back. She growled loudly and fell back into the mattress. The bullets were still shifting and trying to find a way out of her body, but there wasn't one. Her organs and muscles were pushing them around, healing where injured and trying to get rid of the obstructions, but there was literally nowhere for them to go. She could feel them grinding against her bones…

Rolling over in her bed because bending hurt, K reached for her phone. She brought up the maps features and typed in the name of the vet clinic. She didn't have Deaton's number. When she found the business's phone number, she called it immediately.

"Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, how can I help you?" A female voice answered.

"Hello," K said in the same high pitched, chipper tone that would make anyone who knew her roll their eyes. "I'm looking for a Doctor Deaton. Is he there?"

"Yes he is. Give me just a second. I'll get him for you."

"Thank you."

The fake smile K had plastered on her face to speak like that disappeared the moment she was placed on hold. She listened to the horribly grating music that played on the line and found herself holding the phone away from her ear as a result. The music itself wasn't bad, but whoever was in charge of 'calibrating' it should be fired. It sounded like someone put the phone right against a radio. Awful.

The music suddenly stopped followed shortly by a click. K put it back to her ear.

"This is Alan Deaton. How may I help you?"

"Hey doc." She greeted with a sigh. "It's Kalli."

There was a brief pause that let her know it wasn't going to be a normal phone call.

"Give me a second." He told her.

Again she was put on hold and again she moved the phone away from her ear until it ended.

"Seriously," she sighed. "That music is awful."

"You're not alone in thinking so." He replied with a smile in his voice. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"Ever taken out a bullet?"

"Of course."

"How about thirty?"

There was another pause and she wondered briefly if he'd hung up.

"I beg your pardon?" He asked in obvious shock.

"It's a long story." She sighed. K pressed her hand to her head. "I just need these things taken out. Can you help me?"

"They didn't come out on their own?" Deaton knew that most of the time, as a muscle heals; it pushes out whatever obstruction had injured it making it unlikely anyone else had to intervene. Evidently K hadn't been so lucky.

"No." she answered in the same tired tone. "The bullet holes healed too quickly I guess. If any of them made it out at all…"

"I can't imagine that's comfortable."

"It's not." She replied, ignoring his teasing tone. "Can you help me?"

"Of course. I have appointments through most of the day, but I should be free around four this afternoon. Will that work for you?"

She grumbled. He could tell she wasn't excited about having to wait so long, but K was just happy to have the bullets taken out.

"I'll be there."

"Good. See you then."

And they hung up.

K's arm fell unceremoniously onto the bed beside her. She growled under her breath at having to wait another few hours, but she had no choice.

Slowly, and rather painfully, she stood and made her way to her bathroom to finally wash the blood from her body. She found herself scuttling across the floor like a ninety year old woman, hunched over and unable to take complete steps.

When she passed her full length mirror, something caught her attention. K paused and stepped back in front of the reflective glass. A trickle of what she assumed was blood was slowly making its way down her upper lip. K touched the stream and pulled her finger away to examine the substance. It was dark, darker than it should have been for blood, but there was no denying that's what the substance was.

Her nose was bleeding…

K's brows came together. She had to get the bullets out quickly. It looked like they were tainting her blood. It wouldn't shock her if her body was trying to fight them like an infection and in turn it was tingeing her blood the odd color.

"Damn it…" she sighed.

She quickly turned on the shower to bathe so she could get everything out of her as soon as possible.

~~!~~

By the time four o'clock rolled around, K was already at the clinic. She took a cab for one simple reason; her car was at the hospital still. In her condition, K couldn't run and she wasn't about to race to the hospital to pick up her car nor run to the clinic. So, instead, she called a cab and made her way there.

When she walked through the door, Deaton seemed to be ready for her. He appeared in the doorway and waved her through before his secretary could even ask why the young woman was there. She followed him without hesitation.

The back room was set up for another operation, though the supplies were a bit different. He had a simple scalpel, what was supposed to be a ribcage opener that he'd likely use to keep her skin parted so it wouldn't heal again, and tweezers to remove the projectiles. He motioned to the table and she took a seat to wait. Deaton regained his seat at his desk and returned to writing something.

"I have to finish this paperwork, but it won't take me long." He explained. "I just have this last piece of paper."

"That's fine." She sighed. K slowly laid down on the table with her legs hanging off. Deaton heard the satisfactory groan that left her lips when she was flat again.

"Are you experiencing pain?" he asked, returning to his work.

"Yup." She nodded. K's eyes drifted shut while she waited. "It's like they're still moving around, trying to find a way out or something. Right now, I think they're all around my spine."

Deaton nodded. As he finished the last line –a description of what he'd done for his last patient- the back door opened. Scott walked through the threshold for his shift and hesitated when he saw K on the table.

"Kalli," he said. She opened her eyes and saw him holding his motorcycle helmet in one hand and backpack in the other. "What are you doing here?"

"Bullets." She said simply before closing her eyes again.

"Oh yeah…" he muttered. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I was shot." She replied with a hint of a smile.

Scott laughed nervously. He wasn't entirely sure it was a joking matter, but smiled regardless because she seemed so at ease.

"She's fine, by the way."

K opened her eyes again and this time shifted to see the young man setting his things down. When he came back into the room and her line of sight, he noticed she didn't seem to understand.

"The nurse, Maggie." He clarified as he took off his leather jacket. "She's doing fine. She didn't even get hit."

"Good." K nodded. "I was wondering if one made it through me."

Deaton had been listening in passing originally until Scott mentioned someone else.

"You were shot protecting someone else?" Deaton asked from his desk.

"Kind of." K said. She turned her gaze to the curious doctor. "They were aiming for me, but the poor girl came outside at the wrong time. Seriously, who shoots up a hospital?"

"That shooting was you?" Deaton was well aware of the Breaking News from the night before and most of the day. No one knew who it was or why, but they had shot up the place considerably.

"Well I didn't shoot anyone." She mumbled under her breath.

"Well, it seems the assassins are getting bolder." He sighed to himself. Placing his pen back down, Deaton stood and approached the young woman. "Let's get some x-rays, shall we?"

K groaned to herself. It meant she had to stand up again and she didn't want to do it.

Eventually, she laid down on the platform where the x-rays were taken. He had her lay on her back and on the side to be sure he could see everything. Scott stood beside him, curious as to what might be inside the young woman who'd taken the brunt of the assault.

"Whoa…" Scott said under his breath.

K glanced to the pair and saw shock on Scott's face while Deaton remained nearly blank. His eyes were narrowed though. Whatever he saw he didn't like.

"What?" K asked.

The pair looked at her over the monitor and neither expression was inspiring.

"You wouldn't happen to know how many times you were hit, would you?" Deaton asked.

"Sorry, no. I was a little preoccupied at the time." She told him sarcastically.

He mused to himself before gripping the top of the monitor and turning it around so she could see. K slowly and painfully sat upright while Deaton and Scott joined her on the other side of the computer.

"Whoa." She muttered, sharing Scott's surprise.

"As you can see," Deaton pointed to a large mass near K's spine. "The majority of the rounds are localized near your liver. It wouldn't surprise me if they're between your liver and spine."

"Wonderful." She replied sarcastically. "So that explains why sitting hurts."

Deaton cracked a crooked smile which Scott mimicked.

"And the others," he pointed to a few that were lingering elsewhere. "Are still scattered around, but luckily, they're all relatively accessible. It shouldn't take long to retrieve them."

"How many are there?"

"I don't know." He looked back to the x-ray. The area near her liver was relatively dense. It was hard to tell just how many there were. "Quite a few."

"Wonderful. So, now what?"

"Surgery." He told her simply.

"Oh this is going to suck…"

"You don't have to… you know…" Scott said, drawing her eye. "Break your neck again, do you?"

"I'm not staying awake for that." She told him as though she couldn't believe he'd suggest such a thing. "Not with that much rooting around. Hell no."

A weak smile twitched at his lips, but it disappeared quickly. While her comment may have lightened the mood, it was still ominous.

Sure enough, when it came time, K repeated her method of sedation and the surgery began. Deaton and Scott were shocked by the actual number of rounds that saturated her, but that wasn't the only thing that caught his attention. There was more wrong with the situation than he'd originally thought… so much more…

~~!~~

K awoke with a start like she generally did, but she didn't shoot up from her lying position like other times. Instead, she did little more than gasp and open her eyes. She awoke to pain. Her body hurt more than it had before the surgery and she didn't know why.

"Evening."

K sat up and noticed Deaton sitting at his desk again, but near the magnifying glass instead of his paperwork. He looked blankly at the young woman sitting up on his table.

"Is it?" she asked in a tired voice. K turned and noticed the sun had indeed set. "What time is it?"

"Nearly nine o'clock."

"What?" she asked in shock. She had reason to be surprised and her reaction added further validity to the thoughts coursing through Deaton's mind.

"I take it, you weren't expecting to be out for so long."

"No." she replied shaking her head. "I'm not completely sure that's happened before, least of all when I've fed so recently." Deaton rose a brow which she caught when she glanced to him. "That's why I was at the hospital. Blood bags." She explained.

He nodded and looked again to his magnifying glass. K took one deep breath after another to help quell the aching she felt in her body, but it barely helped. On reflex, her eyes darted around the room and that's when she caught sight of them. Not too far from the table was a metallic bowl filled with bullets.

Pushing herself off the table, K approached the container. Deaton watched her curiously. He wanted to see how she was healing.

K looked at the shards of metal inside the bowl. There were more than she thought and most of which looked like they were a bit rusted. Perhaps not rusted, but degraded. It looked like her body was trying to fight off the foreign metal. She wondered briefly if it was doing the same to the stone in her heart…

"How many did you pull out?" she asked as she pushed them around lazily with her fingertip.

"Forty-three." He replied.

"I'm sorry, what?" It took K a moment to comprehend the sheer number of projectiles that had once been in her body.

Deaton shifted his gaze from his work and to her. "Forty-three." He repeated. "You definitely took the brunt of the attack."

K didn't bother hiding her shock. Her eyes fell again to the bullets. A sick part of her wanted to keep them as trophies, as though to say not even this could kill me. That was part of the reason she kept the Berserker blade.

But as she stared at the bullets, Deaton stared at her. He could see her skin was a bit pasty, that she wasn't as sure on her feet as before and remembered how long she was unconscious. Those combined with the way her blood looked made Deaton wonder if there wasn't something more to the ammunition than he thought.

"How are you feeling, Kalli?" he asked.

She looked up and shrugged halfheartedly. He could see the lie, but didn't comment on it.

"Sore." She said when he kept eying her. "I'll be fine. I just had those things in me for too long. I just need some time to heal, that's all."

"All right." He said despite his disbelief.

Eventually, K thanked him for what he'd done for her and even asked if she could keep the bullets. Deaton agreed, but asked for one himself. He made up the excuse that he wanted to know if he recognized anything about them that might help him identify the shooters. She didn't seem to sense the deception and let him keep a single bullet for whatever he planned to do with it.

Saying her farewell, K took the baggy filled with bullets and left the clinic. When she was gone, Deaton reached for his office phone and dialed a number he'd called while she was unconscious.

"Yeah?"

"Sherriff, it's Alan."

"Oh, hey Doc. What can I do for you?"

"Have you had time to examine the substance you found at the shooting site?"

Sheriff Stalinski took a deep breath and sighed.

"I got no idea how I'm supposed to explain this to anyone." He admitted honestly. Deaton understood the conflict completely. "But yeah, we've got the preliminary results."

The vet waited patiently while the Sheriff shuffled with some paperwork. Ever since Scott's father came to town, things did seem to move a bit smoother in some respects. While it complicated things greatly, having a federal agent helped get things moving through the system faster.

"Here it is," Stalinski finally said. "The residue they found in the bullet holes is mostly biological, but they found some chemical compound too."

"Do they know what it is yet?"

"No. The best they can figure is, it's some kind of blood thinner. That's the best they've got. The final results won't be in until next week." He said. "Can I ask why you're so interested in this?"

"A young woman asked me to look into it for her." He said, neglecting to go too deep into details with the Sheriff. "She was a bystander."

"Stiles told me about the girl, Kalli right?"

"Yes." Deaton replied. He reached for the bullet he kept ad began to examine it with his naked eye.

"The nurse said she could've sworn someone was shielding her from the gunfire." Stalinski said after a moment of silence. "But she was gone by the time the cops got there. That's you patient, isn't it?"

"Yes." He said. "She was hit with a considerable number of bullets while protecting the young woman who'd been caught in the crossfire."

"She's still alive?" he asked, unable to hide his surprise. He didn't really wait for Deaton to reply before adding, "Another werewolf?"

"No, Sheriff." Deaton smiled slightly.

"Banshee? Canima? Kitsune?"

Deaton chuckled to himself but didn't let the Sheriff hear it. Stalinski was still a bit new to their world and he didn't want to offend the man by laughing.

"Vampire." He answered.

There was a pause on the other end of the line for a breath or two before the Sheriff spoke again.

"Sure, why not?" he asked sarcastically. He figured, why not? Of course there are vampires too. "Why ask then if she's a vampire? Aren't they technically dead already?"

"In many respects, yes, they are, but that doesn't mean they're not susceptible to their own 'chemical warfare' as it were." He said. "I doubt the ammunition was made specifically for a vampire, so it's likely it won't affect her greatly, but I was curious. Just in case someone else finds themselves in the same situation, I wanted to be sure I had an antidote if needed."

"I get it." He agreed. Stalinski knew Deaton was speaking primarily of the large werewolf population within Beacon Hills. "As soon as the final results get here, I'll let you know."

"I would appreciate that, Sheriff."

"No problem."

And with their farewell, the two hung up. Deaton continued to stare at the bullet. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if one of the biological compounds on the bullet was a strain of Wolf's Bane. Again, the sheer number of werewolves within the city was staggering, so taking the precaution was smart. The blood thinner took care of another aspect of the supernatural too, the ones who couldn't heal like Lydia. They would be shot, infected and bleed out regardless of whether or not they received aid. But Deaton couldn't help but wonder what else might be lingering within the lead chunk. He'd run his own tests in the meantime to try and find out.

He hoped K was right. He hoped all she had to do was feed and heal. He knew the Wolf's Bane would do nothing to harm her. It wasn't the herb that could. The blood thinner was a concern, but she hadn't bled more than he thought she might during the surgery. But there was something else. A few something's actually.

K's blood had turned a dark color. It wasn't black, but it looked dead. He'd seen her blood before when she had him implant the gemstone and it was normal then. Now it seemed to be tinted a bit brown, like it was in fact dying. Secondly, she wasn't healing like she should have been. When he let go of her skin, removing the clamp that held it open, it didn't stitch itself closed immediately like it had before. When he operated on her previously, she healed so quickly it caused problems, but now the opposite was true. Deaton had watched as her skin slowly, but surely began to blend back together. Instead of taking seconds, it took nearly three minutes. He timed it. And then there was her waking up. It took five hours…

Something was most definitely wrong with Kalli, whether she knew it or not.