"I got shot," Braeden said, her voice pressed, clearly in pain.
All drowsiness forgotten Peter sat upright in bed.
"Come again?" He asked but he knew that he'd heard her right the first time.
"Dammit, Peter," she cursed. "I got fucking shot."
"Peter?" Stiles came up to a sitting position as well. He did look drowsy and his voice was hoarse from how Peter had used his mouth earlier but he most likely had heard what Braeden had just said. She'd been loud enough.
"I have to take this," Peter said and scrambled out of bed. The only place he had some privacy was the bathroom so that was where he went. He closed the door with an audible thud, cutting Stiles and his questions off.
"What happened?" With his free hand, he ran a hand through his hair. This was not supposed to happen.
"Ennis," came the pressed answer. "Came here, looking for trouble. Things escalated."
"How bad is it?"
"I think I'll live but I need a doctor." Braeden made a pained noise as if she'd moved wrong but she did sound confident about her current state. Or it was just wishful thinking. Peter wouldn't know. He was standing here, buck naked in the bathroom of his hotel room while Braeden was God knew where, bleeding out for all he knew.
"Can you get yourself to the ER?" Peter asked. "Tell them a mugging gone wrong."
"I would rather not."
"Why not?" Peter dared to ask.
"Because Ennis is dead, somebody heard the gunshots, and now the police are crawling all over the warehouse," Braeden summed up the situation. "I got away in my car but I don't think I can get much farther."
"Can you hold up for a while?" Peter asked. "Don't take any chances if you have to go to the ER …"
"I'm not actively dying," Braeden assured him. "I fixed myself up as best as I can but I'm not a doctor."
"Okay, stay put, I'm coming." Peter wanted to rush to her rescue but right outside the bathroom door was Stiles waiting for an explanation. Peter had no idea what to tell him, he'd never intended to bring this into his relationship with Stiles and Derek. He had not attended their wedding for this very reason.
"Peter?" Stiles asked through the closed door, he must have heard that Peter had ended the call. What else he'd heard Peter didn't want to think about.
Peter opened the door and stormed past Stiles in search of his clothes.
"Sorry, I have to go."
"What happened?" Stiles asked again. "Somebody got shot?"
"Nothing serious." Peter tried to play it down while he searched for his underwear. "But I gotta go, sorry."
Five minutes ago he'd been lazily dreaming about what he would do with Stiles for the rest of the night, what kind of noises he could coax out of him, but the harsh reality had burst their little bubble.
Peter felt Stiles' eyes on his back when he shimmied into his jeans. He needed to get to Braeden, he just hoped that she didn't die on him. Then he needed to get her fixed up. Where and by whom he had to figure out on the drive out to the warehouse. He had just begun to branch out into the New York area, he didn't have this kind of contact around here yet. He could ask Deucalion if he knew a doctor, he guessed. Peter huffed out a laugh at that thought. He needed more details but one of Deucalion's guys was dead in his warehouse, he doubted that Deucalion cared about the reasons. Most likely he would just shoot them. Or order somebody to shoot them. Deucalion was nobody to get his own hands dirty. Besides as a blind man his aim was probably shit.
Peter glanced over to Stiles who was still watching him. He should have never come here. If Stiles or Derek got dragged into this …
"Do you know somebody who can patch up your friend?" Stiles finally asked.
"What?" For a second Peter's head got stuck in his v-neck. How much had Stiles heard? And what had he concluded himself?
"The door is paper-thin and you were not exactly whispering," Stiles pointed out. "I didn't even have to put my ear on the door to catch most of what your friend or whatever she is said."
"I have to go." Peter tried to walk past him but Stiles blocked his way.
"Here." Stiles put a piece of paper in his hand.
"What's this?" Peter caught the logo of the hotel on the top and what looked like an address below. Stiles must have written whatever this was while Peter had his back to him when he'd gotten dressed.
"If you don't know where to take your friend, go to Deacon." Stiles tapped the piece of paper. "He's a veterinarian but he has plucked bullets out of people before. Tell him I sent you."
"How do you even know somebody like that?" Peter narrowed his eyes at him. Stiles was a professor of mathematics at the local university, he shouldn't know people like this Deacon guy.
"How do you know people who get shot and don't want to go to the ER?" Stiles countered but it didn't look as if he expected an answer to that. Instead, he made a shooing motion to get Peter going.
"What are you going to tell Derek?" Peter asked. He should leave, Braeden was not getting better but he needed an answer to that.
"Nothing." Stiles locked eyes with him. "What happens in this room, stays in this room."
Their agreement had been about sex but it looked as if it extended to this as well. Whatever this was.
"You owe me some answers," Peter said on his way out.
"Same to you." Stiles nodded. "And Peter?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't you dare and ghost us." It sounded like a threat. "Derek wants you in his life."
There was so much Peter wanted to say to that but he didn't have time. So he just promised to stay in touch and then he hurried to the elevator.
He had a few hours on the road ahead of him, lots of time to ponder about Stiles. Peter wasn't sure if he'd heard the part about Ennis being dead but even if not, this was not the reaction Peter expected from a professor.
"Who are you, Stiles?" Peter wondered aloud. Derek was the one with the dark past, he was the one who'd brought secrets into their relationship. Peter didn't know when Derek had opened up to Stiles. Had Stiles stumbled over it like that student had the other day or had Derek told him on his own account? Either way, Stiles knew about Kate and the fire. Did Derek know about whatever kind of baggage Stile had brought with him?
Peter wouldn't get answers to those questions any time soon so when he reached the area Braeden was hiding in he put Stiles to the back of his mind. He would deal with him later.
It was the middle of the night, more early morning if he was honest, the streets were empty. He just hoped that he would find Braeden's car quickly and that he would not find her corpse in there.
Throughout the night Peter had called her periodically to check on her and in the beginning, she had answered. She had stopped picking up over an hour ago.
At least she had told him where she'd parked the car but it still took Peter awful long minutes to find it. It was parked behind an abandoned industrial building, the whole area was littered with those and so far Peter hadn't seen anybody around. At this time of the day even the homeless and junkies who squatted in these buildings were sleeping, he guessed.
"Braeden?" Peter's car had barely come to a halt when he jumped out and hurried over to the other car. Through the window, he spotted her curled up in the driver's seat but he couldn't tell if she'd just passed out or if she was dead.
Peter opened the door ready to catch her in case she fell out of the seat but instead of her sagging body, he was met with the barrel of a gun.
She squinted at him, trying to bring him into focus.
"It's me," Peter hurried to say but it still took her long seconds to put the safety back on.
"What took you so long?"
"Have you seen the traffic in New York?" Peter joked but used the moment to have a closer look at her. There was blood but not alarmingly much. She did, however, look feverish with a sheen of sweat on her face and she didn't seem to be quite there.
"How bad is it?" Peter asked and dared to pull the unbuttoned shirt aside to reveal the tank top she was wearing underneath. The fact alone that she didn't bite his head off for that told him that it was bad. The lower left of the top was soaked with by now dried blood, looked as if the makeshift bandage was doing its job. If she had a bullet stuck in her arm or leg, Peter might have been willing to dig it out himself but this was doctor serious.
"No shit, Sherlock," she said through gritted teeth. "Get me out of here before the cops show up."
"Can you walk?" Peter asked but didn't wait for an answer. He slung her arm around his shoulders and supporting her by the hip, he helped her out of the car and over to his. It was only a few steps but Braeden was grunting in pain with every step. Cursing like a sailor she dropped into the passenger seat. As long as she was able to cuss like this Peter was not too worried about her but he better got her to a doc.
"I have the address of somebody back in New York who can fix you up," Peter said when he eased the car back onto the road. "But that's a few hours' drive."
He glanced over to where she sat slumped down in the passenger seat.
"Or we can take the risk," he suggested when she didn't respond. They could drive for an hour or two and find a clinic in a small town. Make something up about somebody trying to hijack the car.
"Just get me out of here," Braeden finally answered and with that, it was settled.
"What happened?" Peter asked, mainly to keep her talking, he didn't want her to pass out on him, but he also wanted to know what the fuck had happened at the warehouse.
"That Ennis guy came back." Braeden shifted in her seat until she found a better position. "Thought you've sorted it out."
"They didn't want to throw one of their guys under the bus for this," Peter said. He had a name and a reputation but not in the New York area. He'd only started to network around here with the decision to be part of Derek's life again.
"What did he want?" Peter asked when she failed to continue.
"He was mad. Got in trouble with someone higher up the food chain and he blamed me for it." She paused to catch her breath. "Tried to beat me up."
"He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed." Peter couldn't help an amused chuckle.
"Drew a gun when he landed on his ass. He wasn't good with that either."
"Good enough to get you," Peter pointed out.
"I'm the one still breathing," Braeden said and sagged deeper into the seat. "Make sure it stays that way."
"Yes, ma'am."
The drive back to New York was long and when Braeden fell quiet Peter glanced over to her every couple of minutes to confirm that she was still breathing.
Peter found the vet clinic without problems and he even managed to rise Braeden enough for her to more or less walk on her own into the clinic.
The lobby was empty but Braeden must have made enough noise with her grunting in pain to alert somebody in the back. A man came to the front and fixed them with a stern look.
"We're closed."