A/N: Warning: This story will contain graphic depictions of violence, mature language, abuse and lemons in later chapters.

Chapter Two

-The Burn-

The hospital was in a state.

Nurses and techs whispered and gestured emphatically behind closed doors, even doctors pausing beside their huddled groups to listen in on the gossip. Most of what was repeated was an exaggeration to be sure, some witnesses to the event claiming the mystery man's eyes had rolled back in his head as he fought the tranquilizers, one after another slamming into him as his body fought onwards and towards the armed officer. His long black hair whipping around him in snarls of shadow, white teeth gnashing at the air as the snarl ripping from his throat deepened and echoed in the drizzling night air.

Dad, to his credit, had stopped by briefly to check in on me after the excitement and madness had died down. Blood had stained through the knees on his Levi's and my head spun for a moment before he took my hand and reassured me it wasn't his.

It didn't help.

I heard small snippits and details here and there from what had happened yesterday in the parking lot. It was easy enough to overhear otherwise restricted conversations when most people viewed you as either a vegetable with no discernable intelligence, or sometimes worse, a child incapable of understanding. Disability was a strange thing to most and often you could easily find yourself being set aside in a conversation the way a glass of wine might lay forgotten beside a dance floor.

"He's been sedated. Even with Dex onboard he's fighting through it. The fever too… it's like it's burning up anything they put in him."

"And you heard Eric didn't you? He said after the seventy-two hour hold they'll have to release him… after he signs the AMA of course."

The nurses by my feet muttered back and forth as they lifted my hips with practiced ease and sponged down my legs. Another joy of becoming weak and broken. Showers, hot baths… all had become a thing of the past. My privacy had long been forgotten and my body stopped being my own as it became more and more a piece of machinery to maintain, rather than an extension of myself.

My eyes rested on the ceiling and I fought against the questions bubbling up in my throat. The raw and jittery part of me last night that had awoken and sputtered to life had never quite settled. It was frustrating and I felt the urge to fight back, to prove to some invisible force that I was too far gone for curiosity and concern. That I belonged in this state of hollowed depravity and that the fate of the shifter could not and would not matter to me. That the universe should just give up and move on and leave me be.

The nurse to my left, red haired with mossy green eyes snorted lightly as her freckled nose crinkled. "He's already declined all radiology. All labs… hell he wouldn't even approve a catheter placement. We can barely touch him. He's got the straps on, but he's broken through four sets already." A swipe of lukewarm water over my lower belly, followed by a quick towel to chase away the wet.

"Psych can only keep the hold on his tranqs for so long. Do you think he'll need an escort?"

The sponge moved between my legs, quickly cleaning me up then moving along, clinical and swift. I couldn't be bothered to feel embarrassed from the nudity anymore and focused on counting the tiles lining on the ceiling, trying not to imagine those golden amber eyes drooping and fighting off the same drugs they had used on me to keep me docile before and after my many surgeries.

I remembered those days. They still came up often enough. The PT always got worse right before another procedure, causing the old pain to bubble up towards the surface and thereby increasing the need for the painkillers and sedatives. But I didn't mind.

Anything to take the pain away.

Hot, red, wet pulsating pain.

Crimson eyes, a furrowed auburn brow and white skin. A decadent scent turned sour, feeling the cold seeping into my bones, a breath at my-

No. Stop it. Stop.

They dried off my lower half once more, finishing the bed bath and reaching for the unscented moisturizing lotion to lather me up. It wasn't the same as Rhonda's warming cinnamon and their hands felt not unsimilar to most other medical professionals these days. Cold, glove covered and far too busy and overworked for the time required for softness.

"He'll be lucky if he doesn't get a walk-out, honestly. After he shakes off the sedatives, who knows what he'll do. Glad I'm off this weekend. Jose is taking me to see his Aunt in Quebec."

The conversation shifted away from the mysterious stranger from the night before and the thread of interest I had held within their conversation snapped. I tried to keep focus on the tiles above me instead.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…

The brace was chafing the underside of my chin and it burned a little as I moved. I arched my neck back slightly to move away from the hardened plastic rutting out from my jaw. I knew a rash was building and although these two hadn't seemed to care enough to report it, I knew Rhonda would.

I wondered if she had seen me in the turmoil last night. Likely not. I didn't think she'd let me sit there for so long if she had.

Nineteen, twenty…

I could remember the growl, the low echoing rumble from deep within his chest as he had pushed off the encroaching nurse. His eyes flaring and burning with pain, the gold simmering with life and vitality.

"Don't…touch…me…"

My thoughts weaved around the memory as my own nurses redressed me, lifting one leg into a pair of old sweats Dad had brought me from home, the waistband cinched around my waist awkwardly but I didn't glance down.

Was it the agony he must've felt? Or was it fear of discovery from the humans lurking so close. Why go to a hospital if you didn't want help tending to your wounds?

I knew the answer already, I realized, remembering the sleek and sexy car that had dumped him unceremoniously from the rear and sped away. He had been pushed out hadn't he? But whoever had left him there must've known his true nature, right? Knew what the lab techs would find if they got a vial of his blood under a microscope. Is that why he declined the lab work the doctors had recommended and psych couldn't force?

Or was that not it at all? Maybe shifter blood was identical to humans until the shift occurred, protecting him from discovery from the inside out.

But maybe… maybe he wasn't anything paranormal at all. Maybe he was just an extremely large and powerful man with the most otherworldly eyes I had ever seen and in his fear and pain his movement and sound had turned animalistic. Maybe I was just reading into a situation of my own creation.

Maybe I really was just a stupid human after all.

The thought rang hollow in my gut and I felt my mind nauseate at the suggestion.

I knew monsters and men. Had learned the hard way to listen and heed the intuition inside myself. Now on my own, without…him… all I had was my gut to lead me. What I had learned… who knew how much of it was true, how many lies I had been fed for the sake of submission.

But I had that inkling every baby is born with, I just had to listen to it.

His eyes had seemed similar, yet so different from Edward's. Where Edward had initially kept his blood red eyes hidden behind tinted lenses, or simply just thralled a human to forget his abnormalities, this creature had not tried to hide himself last night. He was fighting, and bleeding, but his face was not intentionally obscured. He shared the same curse of discerning and frightful eyes, but in place of steaming blood… it had made me think of an amber rock held up to soft morning light. Of a glow from within, rather than a reminder of the injuries yet to come. His long black hair seemed to soak in the light from the clinic and wafted over leather clad shoulders rippling with electrified muscle.

I shivered, and the red headed nurse glanced up at me, as if to remember I yet lived. She asked me something softly, but I ignored her. I wanted her gone. And more than that, I wanted to continue the charade she seemed eager to indulge in.

That I was nothing and no one.

After my bath, I was left to myself once more. TV left on to some game show network, droning on in the almost empty room. I closed my eyes, wishing for sleep. There was too much in my head. Too much in my otherwise still body.

Sleep wouldn't come.

Alex Trebek continued to laugh and talk to guests as I squeezed my eyes shut harder. That irritation inside of me scratched up into my throat, clawing up my body as the questions came faster, the bubbling inside my head now popping and expanding. Questions I did not want to seek answers for demanded attention. Why couldn't I just drop it? I had been happy in my numbness. Why couldn't my body allow me that once more? I had done my job. I had told Dad about the gun, pushed him to step in, in a jurisdiction that wasn't even his. The man was safe and would soon be released.

So why couldn't I let this go?

A frustrated breath left my lips in a rush, causing a lock of hair resting on my brow to be lifted up and once again fall, this time over my right eye.

Perfect.

I blew again. It didn't budge. With rising irritation, I flexed my arm, trying to shift the muscles in my wrist to lift the limb. God, it was so heavy and it shook as I raised it upwards about an inch off the bed.

But this was good, this was momentum. One big push and I might-

My shoulder spasmed, an electrical current of pain rippling down my arm, progress failing me as my wrist limply fell back beside me. I squeezed my eyes shut, a hot spring of frustration and tears bubbling up in my chest and I forced it back down, gritting my teeth.

I laid there panting softly through my clenched jaw, as the lock of hair gently fluttered against my now parted lips.

Fine. Just…fine.

I let my bones sag and melt back into the mattress below me.

I felt more then heard Rhonda enter the room and as usual I didn't acknowledge her. She greeted me, then I felt her pause by my side. Her voice stopped.

Slowly, her warm cinnamon and shea scented fingertips swept across my now sweat dusted brow, pushing the hair from my face in a gentle touch.

"Baby, are you alright?" She murmured, and I heard the small screech of metal on linoleum as she sat next to me.

I let out a small choked laugh.

How absurd.

What a silly, stupid, insane question.

Was I alright?

No, I'd never be alright again. I was doomed to lay in this bed for the rest of eternity, suffering through useless surgeries and irrepressible hatred for the life that had been taken from me.

No, not taken.

Given freely.

I had let him seduce my mind and body. I… I had given him the pieces of me I had been harboring within myself. For the right man, for the right moment. I had handed it over willingly to a monster.

But it all had been shredded in violence.

I had been violated.

A fat, hot tear slid free from one of my eyes and I let out a small croak of distress. My hands shook at my sides not from the wrench of a sob but from the fruitless effort of will. I wanted to wipe that stupid line of heat from my cheek before she could see it.

But I was weak and useless and-

"Okay… deep breaths, now. Here, hold my hand." I felt Rhonda's fingers take hold of mine again, and that flicker from yesterday, now inflamed from the night before, roared to life inside of me. It consumed and ate. It devoured my flesh and singed my mind and I lay gasping in its wake.

I couldn't name what I was feeling. Only that I was and that I had not been able to quell it inside me.

No more tears came, but I gripped Rhonda's hand in a fierce, tight grip. If I had been stronger I would've worried the hold may hurt her. But she took it all, and reminded me that she was there. With me.

The fire began to fade… leaving room for the hollowed cave inside me once again. But it felt…different. The numbness crept up towards me again, but the pain of the fire remained a close reminder.

I sighed, my body going limp once more, and my eyes flickered open as I maneuvered my chin towards her, meeting her gaze with hooded and tired eyes. She had remained silent in those moments, letting me find a safe path through my mind.

She smiled at me, eyes silver rimmed and watery. And she raised her hand to my cheek, gently, as she smoothed my hair from my red tinted skin once more. She didn't speak and I appreciated the space as I blinked and came back to earth.

I wanted…I wanted…

That was what held me back from total oblivion. The raw and vulnerable want inside my heart ached and pleaded for my attention. I wanted everything I was too scared to name, I wanted my freedom back, my joy back… I wanted to laugh and dance and sing. I had been so young…so healthy… I wanted it back. God, I wanted it back.

"I…" My voice was shaky and oh so quiet. My gaze dropped from her face and I stared at her feet as another large droplet fell from the corner of one eye, sliding down and off my face, staining the sheet below me.

Rhonda didn't rush me as I searched for words. Didn't gasp at her usually silent patient suddenly emerging from the depths of despaired quiet. She had never asked me to speak. Never edged for a word or sounded out syllables to me as if I had lost all concept of how to communicate. Never talked down to me or infantilized me.

She had just talked to me. Everyday I saw her. Laughed and murmured, massaging my legs with a smile on her face and warmth in her eyes.

I took a deep breath, my lungs burning a little from the still cooling rubble of a landscape inside of me.

"I can't… I hate this… why? Why?" I stumbled over my words, boneless and withering under the fluorescent lights she hadn't hadn't had time to dim before coming to my side.

"Oh, baby." She sighed, her voice scratchy as mine. "Every man, woman and child have been asking themselves that since the dawn of time." I opened my eyes again and I felt her dip onto the mattress beside me as she sat quietly.

"You have been through more than most, I imagine. But your Daddy is here everyday supporting you. Fightin' on your behalf. You ain't alone, baby."

I shook my head, eyes reddened and wet, words once again too much for me. She didn't understand… couldn't understand. I wished so hard…so much that I could just confide in her. In just one person. Explain how I searched for his eyes in every crowd, that the scent of perfume made my stomach roil in pain and how Dad's bloodied Levi's had brought me back to that awful coppery scent of blood soaking my hair as he took from me what was not his to take, as he stole it from me.

Rhonda waited as I took my moment. Took my moment to breathe and mourn and feel. After a few long breaths, I let my lips part and let out a long, slow breath. My hand rested inside Rhonda's grip, and her thumb passed over my palm gently.

"You know, when I was in High School, my brother Reggie got into a car accident. Yes ma'am, he ran a red and flew right into a parked F-150." Her painted opalescent nails on her remaining free hand rubbed her aching shoulder. "He shattered his leg good and well. They tried to save it… but the infection made its way into the bone."

I watched her as her voice turned uncharacteristically solemn, her coffee colored eyes scanning the ceiling as if she too counted tiles when life became too hard.

"He lost the leg, and most feeling on his right side." A braid fell to her cheek as she looked down at me, a soft sad smile on her lips. Her rosy pink scrub top seemed to dim in the somber flickering lights. She paused for a moment, looking over me. What she saw, I had no idea.

"You know what he does now?" She let out a laugh. "He became a pilot for Washington State Search and Rescue. He got a prosthetic and that man has saved more lives than any doctor or nurse in this hospital."

I felt my chest ache, watching her wipe a tear away with the back of her hand as she shook out her braids behind her.

"It was really hard. Really, really hard for him. But he made it. The tough ones always do." She squeezed my hand. "You will too."

I let out a shaky breath and wished I had the strength to rub my eyes.

"I…" My voice was quivering slightly, only more than a whisper. "I can't breathe in this bed."

Her hand over mine moved to my cheek, brushing softly. "Then let's get you out of here for a while. Somewhere you can breathe."

"What about-"

"Your PE can wait a day, baby. You can't. Come on. I heard your Daddy has been taking you out on the town, now it's my turn."

A flicker of light in my chest brightened. Just for a moment as she smiled, but dimmed again as she got up and started removing my bedding to retrieve me. She paused as she exposed my legs, pursing her lips.

"Backwards. Of course. Here baby, let me right you. Do you want to wear these or should I dress you up? You got that dress in there you never wear. Maybe we can put that on and get us into some trouble." She reached for the hanger in the nearby closet and revealed the simple white cotton sundress Dad had taken from my closet. The design was minimal, as were most of my clothes. Pale pink roses embroidered around the hem, and a sinched waist gathered by a light blue ribbon.

I stared for a moment, unsure. The last time I had worn it I had been dancing at a summer beach party, a rare warm summer night before leaving for college. Jake had kissed me in that dress, his lips tasting of warmth and cheap beer.

Pain reared its head once more.

"Too much? Okay, alright. Sometimes we need to fly under the radar. Here, how about this number? It ain't gray, so it wins points there." She had traded the dress back into the closet for a tan button up jumpsuit, white buttons climbing down the collar to mid torso. Small flecks of paint licked here and there on the fabric, an old relic from High School art class where I had attempted to take on oil painting to appease an endearing art teacher.

The memory nursed the same spot of warmth that Rhonda had activated and found myself nodding. She grinned and helped me out of the ill-placed sweats and into the layer of buttons. After a satisfied once over, she reached for my brush, untangling my bed head and braiding my hair into two sections, over my shoulders.

I watched her as she put me together. Months I had been in that bed. Months not one person, including Dad, had offered more than night gowns or sweatpants. I couldn't remember ever being asked or ever finding the desire for more than the default and standard. I still didn't if I was being honest, but it thawed my frozen heart a little to know that Rhonda cared enough to offer. That anyone cared enough.

My thoughts drifted again to the shifter. Was I his one person? The only one here who might care enough to help him? What if, like me, he was entirely dependent on the kindness of others?

She lifted me into the wheelchair, strapping me in and I felt my hands twitch towards hers. She had found the irritated patch of skin under my chin and had changed the padding to something softer, applying ointment. As usual, the only person truly looking.

She felt my hand on her wrist and paused, looking up at me. "What is it? The knees too tight?"

I swallowed and let out a breath through my nostrils. The talking was becoming exhausting, but I pushed through, determined. If there was a chance I could help, could do something... I had to try. I couldn't care about myself, wouldn't care. But this shifter… he was more than just a purpose. He was a physical reminder of the safety I had sought in the arms of his kind. Of the wounds we both bore, of different depths.

"The man, from yesterday..." I whispered, and saw the recognition flash in her eyes, followed by surprise and confusion. She must have heard the stories or talked to a few fellow nurses who had assisted in the madness. She nodded slowly, waiting for me to continue.

I gathered all my courage. That light inside me echoing in the blackness, I acknowledged it and held it in my palm. Offering it to her. To the world.

"Can you take me to him?"

A/N: Next chapter already written.

Inspirations:

"Be Like Water" By Taoist Elf

"The Devil You Know" by Unseelie Sidhe

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

"Hit By Destiny" ocdmess

Stephanie Meyer is the sole owner of the Twilight Franchise, and she owns all related characters you may see here. This is merely a fanfiction of her work.