CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
(JPOV)
Brenner paced nervously in the living room, his back and forth movement enough to put Bella back on edge with him.
"Maybe she won't phase? It's been another hour and she's still sleeping-" He suggested.
"Her fever is worse. I bet she's as warm as I am right about now. There is no maybe about it. She's going to phase."
"What else can we do for her?" Bella half begged, gingerly kissing Clarissa's forehead and in that moment everything changed.
With a start, Clarissa's eyes flew open and she bolted upright away from me, her tiny hands shoving roughly against my chest as she tried to free herself from my embrace. I released her immediately as the ear piercing scream left her. It tore through me like glass to skin, and ricocheted violently off the walls of our home as she fell in on herself.
Bella instinctively went for her, but Gentry was inside the house again quicker than I could anticipate or register, his arms wrapping around Bella's waist as he hauled her back away from Clarissa.
"No! Bella, don't!" He ground out, his paled and pained expression falling to the ground where she was now curled up in the fetal position. "It's not safe."
Brenner went for her next, his touch alone when it reached her arm causing another blood curdling scream to fill the house, this time with a single choked name called out with it.
"Daddy!"
I sprung into action then and pushed past Brenner as he made room for me, his young face filling with the same kind of hurt that matched Bella's while she looked on in Gentry's arms.
"Clarissa."
She gasped and lifted her head upon hearing me say her name, her tear stained cheeks pushing me forward in a rush to get her out of this house before it was too late and she phased inside these walls.
I felt my eyes sting with the tears that refused to fall from the memory of how bad I hated to even be touched when I first phased. I was in so much pain then at sixteen that even my damn skin hurt. I visibly winced at this as I held her terrified gaze and stopped a mere foot from her. My tremors rocked through me with enough force to nearly knock me down there with her, but I fought them off, unwilling to phase until I knew she was safe and okay.
Panic was written in her every feature as she tried to move then, the effort pulling another scream from her and it was enough to make me nearly lose it. She pulled at her clothes, as if they were suffocating her, because to her, that's exactly what it felt like. I remembered that part of it, too. The urgent need to get free of any confining material against my fevered skin. It was a choking kind of feeling, like you weren't able to get enough air, even though nothing was stopping you from freely inhaling.
As much as I wanted to scoop her up and make this all better, I couldn't and that knowledge gutted me from the inside out.
Brenner moved forward again, but stopped when I held my hand up in warning to him.
I took a final step toward her shaking frame and hoped she would let me help her, that she wouldn't fight me like everything in her was telling her to do. It was truly disorienting to feel that kind of pain with a sense that you were all alone with it. That no one understood what the hell was happening to you.
Clarissa somehow uncurled herself from her locked position on the floor with a shaking sob and I ignored the voice in the back of my head shouting at me not to touch her.
Screw that.
She needed to know that I had her. Above anything else.
I didn't pause again before I hauled her up in my arms, bracing myself for another scream, or for her to fight against my hold like before, but she didn't do that, she clung to me instead, her muffled words through her tears telling me she knew far more than I ever thought she did.
"I'm gonna be like you now, daddy. A protector of our lands, right?"
I held her as tight as I could and made a dash for the front door as her own tremors started, my hurried steps halting when I heard what she said and it registered.
"Just like me, sweetheart. Yes, that's what's happening to you." I forced out, heading straight for the back yard with Gentry and Brenner fast behind me.
"I'm scared, daddy. Really scared." She cried, clinging to me further when another tremor threatened to loosen my hold on her.
"I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. You're gonna be okay, Clarissa. You're brave enough for this, baby. You are. I know you are, you know why?"
"No, why?" She managed through her tears.
"-...because you've been brave from the moment you were born. You're the bravest girl I know."
"I don't feel brave."
"-but you are. I've seen it. There's no challenge you back away from. Do you trust me, Clarissa?"
"I do, Daddy." She cried.
"Okay, honey. Trust me with this. I know your scared and that this hurts but you're already handling it far better than I did at twice your age, cause your a fighter at heart. There's nothing you can't do...-nothing."
She pulled back just enough for me to see her scared face, and it was then that I wished for the hundredth time that this wasn't happening.
"Are you leaving me?" She painfully questioned. "And Mama?"
"Not ever. Mama and I will never leave you, Clarissa."
"You promise?"
"Yes and I'll be right here with you, Clarissa. I promise that, too. Can you do something for me, huh- can you try?" I pleaded, as she peered into my eyes.
"I can try."
"Can you hold onto my voice? When you become like me, honey. I need you to remember that I'm still here with you. That I'm still me- still daddy. Hold onto my voice, okay? It'll be there for you. It will."
She shook in my arms and nodded at this as another tremor took hold and forced me to let go of her, my insides screaming right along with her, and my skin crawling from the pain in it when I placed her on the ground below and backed away.
Gentry and Brenner looked as ashen as I'd ever seen them while they watched on with wide gazes of alarm, both of them ready to phase at any minute.
"Wait...-" I cautioned them in a strained tone that was barely audible.
Clarissa huddled in on herself a moment longer, before fixing her gaze on mine as a final tremor roamed over her, my words reaching her seconds before she erupted into the white wolf there in front of us.
"I'll be here, Clarissa. Right here. Don't lose my voice, sweetheart."
Her scream never finished this time, as her clothes fell in shredded pieces around us in the grass.
I stumbled back at the sight of her vivid white coat, the blinding brilliance of it stunning all of us now as we looked to her in disbelief.
I shook the fog from my head and embraced the tremors that sent me to the ground in front of her, the sound of her whine being the last thing I heard before I phased into the russet wolf next to her. Brenner followed suit, and Gentry waited, knowing the less chaos for Clarissa right now, the better for her.
The madness in her initial thoughts made my own head pound in response and her fear was so strong that it choked me at first.
She was utterly terrified and fumbling over herself as she tried to get her bearings there in the grass.
I went to her, moving closer and stopped short with a low whine when she nervously backed herself away from me, tripping as she went.
"Clarissa, you're alright, honey, You're okay." I tried reaching her through the pack mind but her terrified thoughts made it hard for her to hear me. She kept retreating backwards, closer to the woods and before I could connect with her again, she whirled and tore off into them.
I bolted after her and Brenner was quick to follow, the two of us trying to get out in front of her so we could redirect her back to the house, but that was proving to be a challenge. She was far faster than I'd anticipated and I found myself bewildered at her speed already. She could hardly walk without tripping yet, but when she ran, she flew without any trouble.
"She can move, uncle Jake!" Brenner huffed, darting out around me while trying to cut Clarissa off before she got too far.
"Yeah, I can see that." I disbelievingly huffed, reaching my full speed and gaining the needed momentum to get leaps ahead of them both then.
When I was far enough, I skidded to an abrupt halt and spun around as Clarissa headed for me, her white fur standing on end when she stopped and met my wolf gaze, as the confusion whirling madly in her mind ceased almost instantly.
"Clarissa-..." I huffed, reaching her this time as the madness quieted and she stilled. She looked me over then as Brenner stopped himself beside her, the two of them sharing the briefest of glances before she turned her attention back to me. "It's alright, Clarissa. You're safe here. You're okay. It's just me, sweetheart. See...-"
She didn't move then, as I inched myself closer and carefully nudged my muzzle into her side with another huff. Clarissa settled herself further at this simple connection, her fearful thoughts from before not returning while she moved herself into me with an ease I hadn't expected yet. She was a full three heads shorter than I was, and I soon heard the nervousness in her shuddering tone through the pack mind when it reached me.
"Daddy- it's- it's really you." She nearly cried.
"It's me, baby. It's me." I huffed to her in response, lowering my head to cover hers more as she huddled into me.
"You're voice was there. Just like you said it would be."
"This is how we communicate when we're like this. It's the same as talking- well kinda-"
"Can you understand me?" She timidly questioned.
"Perfectly."
"You're much bigger than I am, Daddy." She observed. "I'm little-"
"-but you're already fast and fierce." I encouraged. "Don't worry, you'll catch up quicker than you think. I'm so proud of you, Clarissa. You have no idea."
"I'm sorry I ran. I shouldn't have."
"Don't be. You're scared. So was I." I truthfully told her.
"Did it hurt this much for you, too?"
"Yes, it did." I admitted. "How do you feel now?"
"My head hurts and my legs are really sore, but not as bad as before." She admitted.
"It will get less and less the longer you stay phased."
"Is that what this is called, daddy? Phased?"
"I have so much to tell you, sweetheart. So much, but that will come later."
She leaned her weight more into me then, her tiredness causing her small wolf form to struggle to remain on four legs. Pure exhaustion came with the territory and her little body had just endured far more than most.
I slowly and carefully lowered us to the forest floor, bedding the two of us down there as she caved from tiredness and rested.
Brenner hunkered down close by and I nodded his way, hearing his offered thought of comfort then.
"No worries, uncle Jake. I'll keep watch right here until Clarissa can make the trip back to the Reservation again. You can rest with her. I won't let you down."
"Thank you Brenner. I know you won't. You never have before."
Clarissa's final thought before falling asleep made me curl myself protectively around her, as she succumbed to the overwhelming exhaustion.
"I love you, daddy. You're my real life superhero."
A/N: Late chapter this evening. Thank you for all your kind reviews. Love hearing from all of you.