Chapter Ten
Laura eased the office door open slowly and listened. The hallway was completely silent. She crept forward to the door she was pretty sure she had last seen Embry in.
She paused outside and listened. She couldn't hear anything, but if there was someone inside, she needed a weapon or something. She couldn't just go in blind.
Across the hall, she spied a door marked Custodial.
Better than nothing, she thought, and eased it open, grabbing the most promising weapon: a broom.
Feeling reassured, she returned to the door and listened for another minute or so. Then, with a deep breath, she turned the doorknob and rushed in, broom held high.
The lights were off, and she breathed a huge sigh of relief. Laura dropped the broom and reached out with a shaking hand to find the light.
The wolf—Embry—lay inside his cage, sprawled out on his side. For one long awful moment, she thought he might be dead, until finally his side rose in a shaky breath.
Laura felt her heart start beating again, and she started looking for the key to the cage. "Embry," she whispered, and poked him through the bars. "Embry!" He barely moved. They had drugged him.
Laura panicked. What would she do if she couldn't wake him up? She couldn't carry him outThere was nowhere to hide in here. "Embry!" she said a bit louder. "You've got to wake up. Please."
The wolf's ears twitched. She kept talking to him, even as she was searching the cupboards for a key. "Embry, hon, you've got to wake up. We're gonna get you out of here." Finally she found a set of keys, and started trying each one in the lock. She had to fumble around a lot with her one working hand. She was shaking. As she spoke, Embry slowly stirred, as if forcing himself out of a deep sleep.
Click. Wrong key. Click. Wrong key. Click. The key turned.
Laura practically threw herself into the cage, her hands running through the wolf's fur. "Embry, Embry, come on, wake up. We need to get out of here."
He was drugged, she thought and panicked. He wouldn't wake up. They would catch her here, and arrest her, or worse.
Suddenly the fur beneath her fingers changed, becoming hair and skin. In a moment she had a still unconscious Embry lying naked inside the cage. "Embry, you've got to wake up. We need to leave."
His chest rose in a deep breath, and then his eyes slowly opened. He reached out and grabbed her good hand. "Laura." His voice was rough and raspy, but his grip was firm.
She leaned her head against his chest, silently crying. "I thought you were…" She stopped, unable to finish the sentence.
His free hand cupped the back of her head and stroked her hair. "It's ok, I'm fine," he whispered. Finally his words sunk in and she picked herself up awkwardly with her good hand. "What happened to your arm?" Embry asked worriedly.
Laura shook her head. "Let me find you clothes and then I'll tell you." Her face turned bright red when she realized that she had been sprawled out on top of him when he had been naked, but he continued to look confused.
"Are we in the lab? What are you doing here?"
She waved away his questions. "Let's get out of here. Do you want to try to stand up?"
He pushed himself to a seated position and groaned. "Why do I feel so…?"
"They drugged you, I think." Laura kept looking at the door, worried someone might walk in and find a naked man where they were expecting a wolf. "You could hear if anyone was coming, right?" He nodded. "Ok, I'm going to find you some clothes. I'll be right back." He made a noise of protest. Laura grinned and showed him her makeshift weapon. "I'll be fine."
She ducked back into the custodial closet and found a white lab coat in it. That would do for now. She crept up the hallway and listened for footsteps. It was all clear. She rushed back to Embry, feeling instantly better when she saw him standing against the table. Blushing, she passed him the coat, but had to help him put it on.
"It looks like it's all clear up to the door," she told him.
He grunted in acknowledgment. "You know that after this we need to have a serious conversation about you endangering yourself."
Laura rolled her eyes. "Look who's talking, buddy." She looked away as he buttoned up the coat. "So here's the plan…"
"So then," Paul laughs as he recounted the story later. "I find Quil passed out under a tree and I wake him up."
"Hit me until I woke up, you mean," Quil corrected from his seat on Emily's counter.
Paul waved his comment away. "You shouldn't have been sleeping on the job." They ignored Quil's grunt of protest. "Anyway, we go and stake out the door to the lab in case anyone comes out. And so the door comes out and Embry comes running out without pants, and his imprint's behind him with a broom like she's gonna fight anyone off with that."
Laura hid her face inside Embry's oversized sweatshirt, which he had loaned her, as people chuckled. Apparently Paul recapping their exploits was a common thing in Emily and Sam's living room. Everyone had overloaded plates of comfort food balanced on their knees as they waited to hear the story. Laura had only gotten a precursory introduction of, "This is the pack," and had the weird feeling that they all knew exactly who she was, even though she didn't know them. Right now, in her state of exhaustion they all looked the same anyway.
"So this janitor follows them out, shouting about how he needs the broom back, and he's calling security. We left pretty quick after that," Paul finished.
"So where's the broom?" asked one of the women in the room, a tall and imposing young woman with a severe bowl haircut.
"In the car," Laura muttered to howls of laughter.
"That'll show them for kidnapping you!" someone whooped.
Laura chanced a smile, leaning against something warm. The doctor at the hospital had fixed her arm with a somewhat critical glance at Embry. He had reddened and looked flustered when he realized what they looked like, in the emergency room after midnight, her with a broken arm and him standing by the door looking imposing. It was only by her insistence that they had stopped to get him some clothes beforehand. They had given her some sort of painkillers to take with food, so she had downed them before devouring nearly an entire plate of Emily's mashed potatoes. She supposed that it was the chemicals in her system making her eyelids so heavy.
"And thus, the fierce warrior rests," Paul finished with a grand tone reminiscent of Billy Black as he raised an eyebrow at a sleeping Laura cuddled into Embry. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Paul.
"So what happens now? Do we call the cops?" Brady asked.
"On the government?" Collin asked. "Who's gonna field that 9-1-1 call?"
"They hurt her," Embry said simply. "I'm doing something about it." There was a general rumble of discordant voices debating attacking the lab.
"She can't go home." Emily's voice was quiet and reassuring. "They know where she lives. And she's safe on the reservation at least."
Embry nodded. "She can stay with me."
Quil shot him a skeptical glance that silently said, "Really? That's not going to be weird?"
Embry gave him a look that clearly conveyed, "Shut up, I can deal with living with my broom-wielding platonic soul mate." Sometimes having had your best friends in your mind all the time was useful.
"Well, I'll make you guys a casserole then," Emily said brightly.
Quil rolled his eyes with a smirk. Emily whapped him on the arm with her spoon on her way back into the kitchen. "You can help, Quil," she called.
Quil's smirk melted into a scowl as he dragged himself up to peel potatoes.