Chapter 14: Recovery and To the Wild

There was a knock at the door, "eh?" I managed to answer from underneath the covers. "Brought you some dinner," I heard Jesse say.

"Come in," and slowly he opened the door and turned on the light. My eyes squinted as I sat up. Jesse sat the tray down and took a seat in my purple fuzzy chair.

"You don't have to stay you know…" I mumbled kind of wanting to be alone, one of the reasons I hadn't left my room since getting there. It had also been a while since I looked in the mirror, but I knew I must have looked bad. Jesse stayed put though and looked up at me and watched me eat.

After finishing my salad I sighed, "what do you want?"

He shook his head, "nothing, just wanted to see how you were."

"Adam sent you..."

"No, no he didn't."

The chicken he brought was just the right temperature and had a nice sauce.

"This is good."

He smiled, "thanks."

"I didn't know you could cook Jess."

He shrugged, "I had this nanny when I was growing up, and she taught me some things." When I finished I put the tray back on the small table.

"I feel like crap," I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in and let it out.

"Adam says whenever you're ready he's got a mission for us."

"I don't know if I can do it Jess, I mean I'm out of shape, probably can't even clear a small fence," I whined.

He stood up, "well I guess it's time you got out of bed and worked out."

I glared at him but he was right, I pushed back the heavy blankets and got up. Jesse gave me a startled look.

"Val when was the last time you ate?"

"Uhm, I don't know...yesterday? Shalimar brought me breakfast think…or was it Lexa?"

He opened the door for me and told me to go to the lab. I felt a little uncomfortable knowing I hadn't had a shower today. When I got to the lab I laid in the chair and felt cold. Jesse had already left to go get Adam to check me out so I waited.

Adam talked a lot and I tried to listen, seriously I did, but probably only understood half of it. He said I needed to slowly start eating more again and I agreed...I mean it's not like I didn't want to eat before, I just didn't feel like getting it myself. I explained that to him and Adam got kind of angry because he said I should have told him.

"Yeah…I know…but I didn't," my shoulders sank and I turned away from him.

While he planned out my diet Adam also added that I wouldn't be ready in time to go on this mission he had planned. I sorta figured that would of have been the case anyways but I didn't mention that.

A month from that day Shalimar, Brennan and Jesse left in the helix for a long flight to New Orleans to retrieve some chemical based powder that Adam was interested in testing. It was just me and Lexa there with Adam, it kinda felt like old times us hanging out with the exception of Jeremy not being there.

That night I started training again since Adam said I was finally at a healthy weight and back to normal, which was great because I really was itching to get back into the dojo and even use some Brennan's weights while he wasn't there.

When the three of them came back to Sanctuary after their trip something was different. It was obvious that Brennan and Jesse weren't getting along and that was due to the large black eye Jesse came off the helix with. The only one who really knew what happened was them, since they didn't want to talk about it, but I think Adam found out from Shalimar.

The next day the fighting between them still didn't stop so Adam took it upon himself to try and get everyone to get along…his solution? He told us to pack our stuff and put us all on the helix and sent us to this forest that was pretty far away from Sanctuary. Down there in the thick brush was a small house.

"He can't be serious…" I sighed feeling angry that Adam sent us all here and not just Jesse and Brennan, since they were the one's fighting.

Once our things were off the helix it flew back home and we were now forced to live very close to each other. I unpacked my things, luckily I had my own room since Shalimar and Brennan shared a room and Lexa and Jesse shared a room.

There were rules of course, and Jesse broke the first one…he was trying to turn on a computer that was in the house, even though Adam gave specific orders not to. Once he did the whole place went under lock down, let's just say no one was happy and he spent the night on the couch.

The next day we were instructed to leave the house and journey back to Sanctuary. No one was happy about being in the jungle. Hunting for food was fun, but for some reason I didn't feel that good and wondered if I was getting sick.

All of us spent the first night in a cave we found and things were still pretty quiet. I slept okay since I wasn't too picky about sleeping on the ground. When morning came I felt someone's warm skin next to me. I groaned a little as I woke and felt him pull me closer. I smiled feeling him hard against me.

"Mmmm Jer" I opened my eyes to see it wasn't Jeremy, but Brennan. I jerked away in shock, "Brennan!" He was just as surprised and I could tell he was confused, "What are you doing in my sleeping bag?" I asked still upset and a little disappointed that it wasn't Jeremy. "And...Put your clothes back on!" I whispered and grabbed mine as well and dressed inside the bag as did he.

"I thought you were Shalimar," he repeated and I could see the anger and pain in Shal's face.

Now there was even more tension among us. I was quickly secluded amongst the others. Lexa and Jesse seemed to have made up after their fight and Brennan was leading while Shalimar had her arms still folded in anger.

It was now night five on our journey together, clouds had been moving in and they threatened rain. I was put in charge of finding dinner once again and I left my things at camp and started my hunt on the trail of a deer my nose detected. As I started move in I was seen by another animal, a wolf came out from behind a bush and stared at me. It started to circle me. I took off running back to camp afraid, my instincts wanted me to stay and submit to him but I knew better. Once I knew he was no longer chasing me I tried hunting again. Two rabbits would have to do since my hunting time was up.

At camp the next day I realized the tension was tighter. Brennan was upset because the rain had started and he was afraid to go outside, he thought he'd lose control. It was also the reason we hadn't covered that much ground. After a fight between Shalimar and Brennan, he announced that he quit and took off his ring, one thing we weren't allowed to do, and if one did they were off the team.

It wasn't much later that we heard a helicopter coming closer. In a clearing it landed and it was Adam. All of us thought for sure he was there to take us all home, but when he ordered Brennan to come with him we knew then that Adam had been serious.

Shalimar was deeply hurt from what I could tell. But then he told me to pack my things as well. I didn't really understand why he was taking me too.

"No…I wanna be on the team! What the hell Adam? This isn't fair!"

Later on the helicopter Adam told me that he needed a feral to help Brennan, because he was going to drop us back off a few miles back and we'd have to journey back to the others. I wasn't surprised to hear that Adam wasn't going to let him quit.

Once Adam dropped us off, Brennan and I started collecting food from the house that we were at five days ago, that way we wouldn't have to hunt our own. When it started to rain again we had trouble finding shelter, I literally had to hold something over him until we made it to the first cave. I was terrified that Brennan was going to lose his cool, when I looked over at him as we had been walking, I noticed small sparks coming off of him. Adam was only giving us three days to accomplish what it had taken us five days to do, and if we didn't make it we'd be off the team.

The skies were finally clearing, "come on lets go."

He was sitting down on looked scared as hell, something I never thought I'd see in him.

I went over to him, "it's okay, nothing is going to happen to you I swear, you have control of this, you know that."

He shook his head looking at the ground, "no, I don't. I can't even take a shower anymore."

I frowned thinking back to what Eckhart had done to him; a few years back Mason had captured him and did numerous experiments on him with different charges of electricity and even submerged him in water.

"Try for me? Please? I just want to get there so we can go home," I begged.

That finally got him up and out of the cave. It seemed as though we had both put that one morning of confusion behind us, or we were both too embarrassed to talk about it. As we walked faster I couldn't help but look around, my feral instincts wanted me to run and play around, that I was finally home.

Camp was finally in our sights on the third day and everyone was surprised to see us back. The area was guarded heavily by some men hired by Adam to keep the others put. I went back into the cave with my things and decided I needed some rest while the others talked. Once again that annoying helicopter came back and that meant Adam had discovered we had managed to make it back. The only reason I had gotten up was because I thought for sure Adam was going to let us all come back to Sanctuary with him, but I would soon discover that was not the case.

I was detained and put on the helicopter with Adam and it headed back to Sanctuary…