Thanks for your review Kelly - always great to hear from you! I hope Chloe makes it out of surgery too!

The Chemistry In Darkness

Chapter Eighty-Five

Monday 3rd March 2025

Pierce sat in his hospital bed; a nurse having left his room after getting all his details so he could officially be listed as a patient at the hospital. He'd changed from his piss-stained clothes into the hospital gown provided to him.

Abby had come in, introducing herself, before getting to work on stitching up the wounds on Pierce's chest.

Pierce didn't utter a word to her. She had tried to talk to him as she cleaned the wounds then got a needle and stitches. Pierce realized she hadn't given him any painkillers or anesthetic as she stabbed the needle into him, threading through the stitches. He didn't feel the pain and he didn't want to know the reason why.

Pierce felt like his world was spinning. He kept feeling like his eyes were picking up things he'd never seen before, his hearing was outrageous, he could hear full conversations of the patients across the room from him. He felt a strength about him that allowed him not to feel the pain of the needle digging into his chest to thread the stitches.

When Abby was finishing up his stitches, two cops had come into his hospital room, telling him he was under arrest for allegedly shooting his wife in attempting to shoot Elly. Pierce found himself looking at Abby when one of the cops pulled out a set of handcuffs, he knew he had the strength in him to throw the cop across the room before they laid a hand on him.

Abby had silently shaken her head at Pierce, leaving Pierce giving in and letting his left wrist be handcuffed to the side of the hospital bed. The cops left the hospital room, telling Pierce they'd return for his statement when his lawyer was present, already knowing Pierce wouldn't admit to anything like he hadn't when they'd had him in for questioning days ago for the fertility drugs.

Abby glared at Pierce, yet reluctantly told him they'd find a way to get him out of the hospital before the cops returned for his statement, telling him as much as he deserved to be in jail for his crimes, he was now one of them, they needed to protect their secret and that meant getting Pierce free so they could teach him their ways.

Pierce took in Abby's words, trying to process the fact that his life had changed and he would now need to rely on these werewolves for him to work through what had happened to him, whilst internally arguing that any of this was really real.

It was just a myth in a book. Werewolves weren't real. Elly didn't turn into a werewolf in front of him. She didn't draw blood from him when she swiped him, nor turned him into a werewolf.

It simply wasn't possible.

And there had to be another explanation as to why his hearing, sight and strength had been impacted.

Or why Abby would want to set him loose from the handcuffs before the police came back to question him.

Abby soon left him alone in the hospital room to recover slightly from the wounds WolfElly had inflicted him with, needing to return to the rest of her family to await finding out if Chloe had survived her gunshot attack.

Unbeknownst to Pierce, Raven had returned from her trip to the other hospital with Clarke, checking on Lexa. Lexa had refused to stay at the hospital, complaining that though she felt uncomfortable and violated at been chloroformed unconscious. Lexa's memories of whom had attacked her were very foggy. Lexa signed the discharge form and even refusing to go home to the Island to relax, insisted that they all needed to be there for Chloe and Elly when Clarke had told them what had happened.

Raven stared at Pierce from across the hallway, she had figured it out that it must have been Pierce whom attacked Lexa and her confusing feelings were making it hard to work out what she was meant to do about it. Should she turn in the newest member of The Pack, knowing Clarke wouldn't think twice about ripping Pierce to shreds?

Raven pulled out her phone, calling Lexa's café, asking them if they had any info on Lexa's attack. Disappointed to hear that they didn't yet, she asked to be kept updated with any evidence for Lexa's sake. If she had to look into it herself further, try to track down anyone who was in the area or with other businesses near the café, to make sure she was correct that it was Pierce whom was responsible, before setting more members of The Pack upon Pierce, when Elly was probably still after his blood.

But for now, Raven resolved to stay with the rest of her family, awaiting news of Chloe's surgery until she could slip away to see if she could find proof that Pierce had attacked Lexa, and headed back to the waiting room with everyone else.

Pierce looked up when a woman approached his hospital room, squinting his eyes, trying to get used to the fact he didn't need to squint them anymore to see better, yet did so out of habit, "Who are you?"

Hetty strolled into Pierce's hospital room, "Heard about Chloe, wanted to see for myself what had happened to her waste of space husband before he gets carted off to jail."

"How do you know Chloe and what happened to her?" Pierce questioned with worry in his voice, then he pointed his finger at Hetty, "I know you from somewhere."

"Then I wouldn't go pointing that finger anywhere near me," Hetty chuckled, ignoring Pierce's concerns about her knowing Chloe.

Pierce's eyes grew wide and he retracted his finger, "You're the old bag who snapped my fucking finger in three places at the hairdressers years ago?"

"And you're the controlling fuckwit who was dragging Chloe out of the hairdressers by force because you were late for an event, deserved every single snap I made to your finger. Be glad I didn't snap anything else of yours," Hetty retorted confidently.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" Pierce gulped gently, feeling unnerved that he was starting to feel like he wasn't himself anymore and that he couldn't possibly be a werewolf like the monster that was Elly.

"Chloe's guardian," Hetty answered with a smirk.

"Are you one of them?" Pierce demanded with paranoia.

"One of who?" Hetty asked, pretending not to know.

"Are you one of the werewolves?" Pierce wanted to know, suddenly wondering to himself if werewolves did exist then maybe there were more werewolves out there in the world, or worse still, more than just werewolves in the world when it came to supernatural beings.

Hetty scoffed, "Me? A werewolf? What, just because I snapped your finger? I'm a dojo who specializes in martial arts…like I said…Chloe's guardian."

Pierce began pointing at Hetty once more, before withdrawing his finger for fear that she would snap it off, "No, you're one of them! I can feel it, I don't know what you are but you're one of them!"

"Little bit paranoid, aren't you?" Hetty teased, "I mean…what's more believable? That I'm a nice lil old lady who has multiple black belts in numerous different styles of martial arts…or…I'm just someone who was brought into Chloe's life to protect her…that I don't need Chloe to call me to tell me that you shot her…that I can feel Chloe's emotions when she's in trouble and can sense where she is. And that I regret…very deeply that I haven't been paying attention to my charge, Chloe, like I have with my other charges because many a time Chloe unknowingly called out to me because she was in pain…only I'd turn up to find she was spending time with you. And what's really interesting is there was a month a while back that Chloe didn't call me once…three guesses whom was in her life and she was no longer unknowingly calling out to me. Same for the past few days…quite the coincidence. So, I thought Chloe was safe…my mistake that I hope one day Chloe forgives me for…if she ever finds out about me. I should've been at Chloe's side a hell of a lot earlier than I was today…I might've stopped you and your pathetic little shotgun."

"You're Chloe's guardian angel?" Pierce's eyes grew wide, trying to ignore the digs the woman was giving him about Elly.

"Guardian angel? Pfft," Hetty laughed, "No, Pierce, you silly lil man, I'm your worst nightmare if you ever go near Chloe ever again."

Pierce sat there in the hospital bed, completely bewildered by the woman, unsure if she was messing with him or if anything she said was the truth, "You know what? I don't believe you. None of it. None of this. I'm just having a nightmare that I'm going to wake up from any moment now. Chloe's not pregnant to someone else. Werewolves don't exist. I didn't get scratched by a werewolf. You're not anyone special."

"Oh, honey…you're an idiot," Hetty chuckled loudly, "And I'm a Demi God."

With a snap of her fingers, lightning struck from out of nowhere at Hetty and she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Pierce's eyes widened further than he thought possible as the woman disappeared before his very eyes. Clinging to the bed sheets, Pierce withdrew back to the edge of the bed, pointing his hand at where Hetty had been standing just seconds ago.

"She just…she disappeared…she can't…people don't…no…that did not happen," Pierce gaped at no one, completely freaking out that his world was falling apart and that seeing these supernatural beings, like WolfElly and Hetty the Demi God, were making him feel that maybe he really had been turned into a werewolf.

Back in the waiting room, Elly was still impatiently waiting for news on Chloe's surgery. She wanted answers more than anything in the world, she wanted to know her mate and baby were safe and had survived Pierce's attack.

Bea, Mark and Aaron had rejoined everyone waiting for news on Chloe, after Elly had revealed to them that the baby Chloe was carrying was Elly's.

Mark and Aaron hadn't spoken a single word about their future niece or nephew been Elly's child.

Neither had Bea, but that didn't stop Elly's younger sister from been concerned about her sister, wondering how it could even be possible. Or if Elly was so determined to want to be with Chloe that she was willing to raise Chloe's baby literally as her own. But looking at her sister and how anxious she was, Bea could tell there was more going on than Elly worrying for Chloe's life. Not even Aster could bring a smile to Elly's face when she tried.

Finally, after what felt like most of the day waiting, a doctor walked up to everyone, "Chloe Brennan's family?"

Elly jumped up from her seat and was standing in front of the doctor before anyone saw how she managed it, "Yes. Are Chloe and the baby, okay?"

The doctor was distracted by how many people were waiting for news on Chloe to have noticed how quickly Elly had reached him, "All of you are Chloe's family?"

Mark and Aaron ambled up next to Elly, with Mark confirming, "Family…" then glancing a look at Bea, Abby, Clarke, Lexa, Raven, Karl, Susan and Aster, "and friends."

"Are Chloe and the baby alive and safe?" Elly didn't hesitate to ask again, frustrated that the doctor wasn't answering her.

"Yes, Chloe's in recovery," the doctor finally answered, "We expect Chloe to be awake within the next hour. Heck of a surgery, that bullet was not easy to remove from Chloe's abdomen. Surprised to hear she managed to make the helicopter trip from where she was and the nurses were telling me she was still talking when she got brought up for the operation."

"What about the-?" Elly started to ask after the baby, her relief that Chloe had survived surgery only getting her so far to attempting to relax after hours of worrying.

But the surgeon interrupted to pull out a plastic bag from his pocket, "Dr. Tanaka was checking in on the surgery for updates and he mentioned to me that Chloe's brother is a policeman…"

"That's me," Mark replied quickly, "Detective, but I'll take policeman if David forgot."

"What about-?" Elly tried again but it was like no one was listening to her.

"Then you'll need the bullet as evidence," the doctor announced as he handed the plastic bag with the bullet inside to Mark, "Never seen a bullet like it. Looks like that thing was made with pure silver."

Elly's ears perked up at the word – silver.

Chloe threw herself in front of me to take that bullet…did Chloe know? Any other metal bullet, I'd have recovered in a few hours…but a silver bullet…if that got in my system it could have poisoned and killed me! Did Chloe save my life by letting Pierce's bullet hit her instead of me…?

Mark stared at the bullet through the plastic, "A silver bullet…that is weird…we've got some questions to ask the accused about this."

Deciding to leave the bullet mystery for now, Elly finally snapped back to her initial worry, "Is the baby, okay?"

The doctor's face fell gently, "We need to do an ultrasound as soon as Chloe is awake and up to it…we don't know yet if the baby survived…we were too busy trying to get the bullet out and save Chloe's life…if we kept her under anesthetic any longer to do the ultrasound after we closed up the surgery…we'll know soon. Is the baby's father here?"

"No," Elly answered back instantly, annoyed at the assumption that she was already likely to always face at been unable to explain to anyone that the baby was hers and have them believe her unless she added the truth that she was a supernatural being and their baby could be too.

The doctor ignored Elly's tone, then looked at Mark, "We can only let family in to see Chloe as soon as she's awake and to be there with her when we do the ultrasound. Do you want to-?"

As soon as the word 'family' was out of the doctor's mouth, Mark looked over at Elly, taking the few seconds the doctor was still talking to decide, "Let her go with you."

"Are you sure?" Elly asked meekly, knowing Chloe's brothers would've missed her the past few days thinking that Chloe didn't intend to come home to them, even though it was killing her inside contemplating having to wait any longer to see Chloe.

Mark glanced sideways at Aaron, seeing him nod, before agreeing, "If you meant what you said about the baby…go."

"I meant it," Elly reassured, then to the doctor, "Can I sit with Chloe until she wakes up?"

The doctor nodded in agreement and Elly hesitated for a moment before seeing that Aster was still curled up with Karl and Susan and seemed happy to stay with them, then followed the doctor to Chloe's room, praying they would learn the baby was fine.

Next time - Will Chloe wake up from surgery with Elly by her side?