Chapter 11

Shocked into stillness, it took Annie a moment before she pulled her earphones out of her ear. Moving slowly, as if sudden movement may draw more attention from whoever was watching, Annie made her way over to Antonio's bed, setting her laptop down before him. He glanced up at her questioningly before setting aside his book in favor of her computer. Antonio's eyes jumped to Annie's as soon as he had finished reading the email. Almost immediately Antonio began trying to sit up, but Annie forced him back down.

"You're not moving. You weren't ready for fighting this morning and you sure as Hell aren't ready to fight now." Annie insisted as she removed her laptop, placing it on the table.

"Annie someone is here. For you. Maybe even multiple someones. You can't fight them alone." Antonio challenged, trying once more to raise himself off the cot, only to have Annie force him back down again.

"I'll be fine Antonio," Antonio didn't fully believe Annie's assurances, watching hesitantly as Annie filled a syringe with morphine. "I won't play by pack rules. Today, I'll play by Mutt rules." It was obvious what Annie meant: She was going to fight the Mutt using the syringe. If she managed to stick him, he would pass out almost instantly with the undiluted morphine.

"Don't unlock this door unless you're sure it's me." Annie added as she turned the lock from the inside before closing it behind her. She knew a locked door wouldn't keep a Mutt out for long, but it might stall him enough to give Antonio a chance to grab something to defend himself.

The house seemed eerily quiet as Annie crept her way from room to room. She wanted to make sure no one was already inside. When the second floor checked out she was about to make her way down to the first floor. That was when she heard it, the slight creaking of a floor board downstairs. Whoever it was, he was in the house. Inhaling deeply, Annie tried to pick up on a scent. Eventually it hit her, very faint under the smells of the house. It was unfamiliar to her, no one she had smelt before, but it was definitely Mutt. When she heard footsteps heading up the stairs Annie panicked slightly, slipping into the hall closet in hopes to achieve a sneak attack when the Mutt moved by it to the next flight of stairs.

Peeking through the crack Annie saw a shadow pass by. Just as he passed by the door Annie jumped out of her hiding spot, flinging herself onto the back of the man. He cried out in surprise before Annie was pulled off of him from behind by a second Mutt who grasped her tightly by the throat. She hadn't anticipated there being more than one. That had been her first mistake.

"Go take care of Antonio. I've got her." The Mutt ordered as his grip on Annie tightened. The other one followed orders, starting back up the stairs to find Antonio. It had Annie fighting against her captor harder. She couldn't let Antonio get hurt. Not after she had just managed to save him. Remembering the syringe Annie reached down to pull it out of her pocket. It took some finagling but she finally got the cap off and managed to twist so that she could shove it deep into the Mutt's arm. He cried out in pain but didn't let her go until the morphine worked its way into his system. As soon as he dropped her Annie ran after the other one, gasping for breath.

She caught up to the other Mutt at the top of the stairs, flinging herself onto his back once more. This time, there was no one to pull her off of him and he lost his balance. With a wave of arms, both the Mutt and Annie fell backwards down the stairs, both of them screaming as the tumbled down the flights until a violent cracking sound rendered the Mutt silent. He had broken his neck on the way down, and somewhere along the way Annie had been knocked unconscious, bleeding from a wound in her head.

"Annie?!" Antonio called once the sound of a scuffle abruptly stopped after her screaming. Struggling to sit up, he winced in pain until his feet were hanging off the cot. He ripped the IVs from his arm, took a deep breath and rose to his feet, bracing himself on the table. After a few moments the pain went away and he slowly made his way to the door. There was no sound from the other side of the door and as Antonio unlocked it he found the hallway empty and silent. It only worried him more. Had they taken Annie?

Inching his way to the stairs, Antonio almost collapsed at what he saw. Lying at the bottom of the flight was a very dead looking Mutt, but that wasn't what worried Antonio. What made him almost double over was the sight of Annie lying unmoving, half underneath the dead Mutt, blood soaking her hair from a gash on the side of her head. Fumbling for his phone in his pocket, Antonio finally managed to dial the correct number, cursing in Italian until Jeremy finally picked up.

"Antonio," Jeremy greeted. "You're on speaker. We're just heading out. Koenig is dead. We have some injuries, but nothing fatal."

"That's great, but Jeremy, we have a problem." Antonio's voice was shaking which wasn't a good sign. "Annie got another email, ending in a picture of her and me at Stonehaven."

"Someone's there?" Jeremy asked anxiously.

"Someone was. Annie went to fight him off." Antonio could hear Nick cursing in the background and almost didn't want to continue. "He's lying dead at the foot of the stairs."

"And Annie?" Nick asked before Jeremy could. It worried him that she hadn't been the one to call and inform them, that he couldn't hear anything from her in the background.

"She fell with him. She's unconscious, knocked out with a pretty bad head wound that's bleeding profusely. She's trapped underneath the dead Mutt, I can't get to her on my own." Antonio answered softly, desperately. Jeremy answered that time, claiming they would be there soon after revving the engine. Jeremy then inquired if Antonio recognized the Mutt, but he didn't. It wasn't any of the Mutts that had had a previous run in with the pack.

Not able to do much else, Antonio retrieved some gauze before easing his way down the stairs until he sat beside Annie and the dead Mutt. Gingerly Antonio pressed the gauze against her gash in an attempt to, at the very least, slow the blood flow. The first pad soaked through in a matter of seconds, but all Antonio could do was apply another pad and hope the others arrived sooner rather than later.

Faster than Antonio thought possible, he heard the sound of tires squealing to a stop outside. As expected, Nick was the first one in the house, barreling up the stairs and calling out for his father and Annie. When he came across the jumble of bodies on the landing, taking in the mess, Nick's body began shaking in both anger and worry. It wasn't until Jeremy put a calming hand on his shoulder that Nick was able to rein in his emotions. It took both Nick and Clay to move the dead Mutt off of Annie. As soon as Annie was free Nick was the first one beside her, brushing the hair out of her eyes and murmuring her name. Jeremy went to check her wound, and once he gave the okay to move her Nick gently scooped her up in his arms while Clay steadied her head.

"What do we need to do?" Nick demanded after gently setting Annie down on one of the cots. He needed to do something to help, something to keep him busy so he wouldn't dwell on the possibility of losing Annie.

"We need to sterilize the wound then stitch it up to stop the bleeding. After that she'll most likely need a blood transfusion." Before Jeremy could even finish Nick was across the room, gathering supplies as fast as he could. In the process he ended up knocking a table over, thankfully nothing of importance was on it.

Jeremy was the one that cleaned and stitched up Annie's head. Nick was too keyed up to stand still for very long, resorting to pacing the length of the bed and back as Jeremy went to work. The others were in their own state of nerves. Clay, who was never one to pace, simple stood forebodingly at the end of the bed with his arm's crossed and tensed. Elena was wringing her hands beside him, completely forgetting about her own wound. When it came to the blood transfusion all three of them volunteered. Though Nick was persistent, he had already given a lot of blood to his father. In the end it was Clay who was hooked up to the transfusion while Jeremy moved to work on Elena's bullet hole.

"Fortunately LeBlanc's bullet just grazed you." Jeremy murmured as he stitched up Elena. Once everyone was patched up he would start in on Antonio, questioning him on what went down at Stonehaven while they were gone. It unnerved him that a Mutt had been in the house when Annie and Antonio were practically defenseless. For now, he would get answers from Elena about her injury. "I still feel responsible. You shouldn't have been separated from us. What exactly happened out there?"

"I was hiding under a car, trapped. I panicked and it triggered the change." Elena started explaining, wincing as another stitch was pulled through. In one way Annie had been lucky, she got to be unconscious when Jeremy stitched her up. The thought that maybe Annie would never regain consciousness sent a wave of guilt through Elena at her previous thought.

"When we found you, you were human." Jeremy commented, tying off the stitch.

"I know. I focused, and it stopped." Elena admitted reluctantly. It had Jeremy glancing over at Clay, sharing a look with him that showed they were both as confounded at that possibility.

"It stopped?" Clay clarified, sounding disbelieving.

"I never heard of that happening before, once a full change is triggered it is impossible to reverse it." Jeremy added, trying to recall any instance where it might have occurred before. He couldn't think of any other time a wolf had been able to halt the change. Although, it might be for a lack of trying. Normally once the change starts it's less painful to ride it out then try to stop it.

"How did you do it?" Clay was intensely curious. The kind of control it would take to stop a transformation was immeasurable.

"I don't know. It just happened." Elena was tired of being interrogated about it. That was exactly the reason she had been hesitant to let them know about her stopping the change. She knew they would have never ending questions about it.

"When you're mid-change you're very vulnerable. LeBlanc could have easily killed you." The gears in Jeremy's mind were reeling as he processed everything that had happened in a span of just a few hours. If one tiny thing would have gone differently, they could have lost their two female pack members today.

"Yeah, but he didn't." Elena insisted gruffly, causing Jeremy to pause in his bandaging of Elena's wound. After a beat he switched topics, not wanting to push Elena's patience too far.

"I'll just disinfect your other scrapes." Jeremy stated calmly as he grabbed another gauze pad and poured isopropyl alcohol on it.

"No I'm fine, okay. Just tired. Let me know if Annie wakes up." Elena spat out, grabbing her shirt and jumping up before Jeremy could start in on her other cuts. Apparently he had already pushed her too far.

"If? Don't you mean when?" Nick chimed into the conversation for the first time from his spot beside Annie's cot, sounding offended and angry at Elena's insinuation.

"Of course, when." Elena corrected hastily before leaving the room.

Clay wanted to follow her, to find out what was really bothering her, but he couldn't. He was hooked up to Annie. Turning towards the only other female wolf in existence he took notice to how pale Annie was. It made the bruise that had started to form on the right side of her head even more pronounced. She really was in about as good of shape as she looked. There was nothing more they could do about her condition, only hope that there was not intensive swelling of her brain and that she wasn't in a coma. The pack wasn't medically advanced enough to deal with either of those situations and Annie couldn't go to the hospital for the same reasons Antonio couldn't.

As the two boys sat on either side of Annie, Jeremy went to Antonio's cot to question him about the day's events at Stonehaven. Antonio showed Jeremy the email with the pictures, then described what happened to the best of his abilities. He had only heard the commotion when the Mutt had made it to the top of the steps of the third floor. They would have to wait until Annie woke up till they found out what had happened on the stairs.

It was hours before Annie actually regained conciousness. Blinking away the heaviness of her eyes she was acutely aware of the throbbing pain of her head. Once she got her bearings straight she realized she was in the infirmary, with Nick's head on her lap and his hand in her right one fast asleep. Clay was on her right, his head lolled off to the side as he snored lightly. Though her whole body felt as though she had just participated in a WWE match, Annie managed to move her hand enough to wake Nick up.

"Annie," Nick murmured once he realized she was awake. Before she could respond he had moved his hands to cradle her face, pressing his lips urgently against hers before peppering tiny kisses over the rest of her face which made her giggle. The laughter immediately became small groans of pain as she had acquired several bruised ribs along with the head injury. It was the laughter that jerked Clay awake.

"Laughing hurts. Don't make me laugh," Annie murmured, sticking out her tongue in jest to make sure Nick didn't feel too guilty for 'hurting' her.

"Duly noted." Nick responded in good nature, though the worry was evident in his eyes. "Is there anything you need? Water, food, pain medicine?"

"Pain killers would be kind of nice." As Nick immediately went to retrieve the medicine, Clay interrupted, having been jerked awake by the commotion, with the buzz kill of no pain meds until Jeremy could question her. Jeremy wanted her to be completely coherent whilst explaining the attack on Stonehaven.

"Tell me everything you remember," Jeremy insisted as he took the seat Clay had been sitting in. Nick still sat on Annie's other side, waiting with diluted morphine until Jeremy allowed him to administer it to Annie.

"After the email I forced Antonio to remain in his cot. I filled a syringe with undiluted morphine and locked the door from the inside as I went to inspect the house." That was as far as Annie got before Nick chimed in with indignation about Annie going to face off the unknown enemy alone.

"The top two floors checked out. As I was heading down to the first floor I heard the creaky step." Annie continued once Jeremy silenced Nick. "I hid in the hall closet until he had passed by me, launching myself out of my hiding space and onto his back. I barely got a good grip before I was yanked off of him by his companion."

"There were two Mutts?" This time Jeremy was the one to interrupt. He was confused, as there had only been the dead Mutt when the pack arrived back at the house.

"Yeah, the second one had me in a vice grip, cutting off my circulation while he ordered the other one to take care of Antonio. I managed to reach the syringe in my pocket and used it against the one strangling me. Once he went down I ran after the one going after Antonio, jumped on him once again when he reached the top of the stairs. He lost his balance, sending both of us falling backwards. I lost consciousness after that."

"And you're positive there were two of them." Jeremy asked again, to which Annie slowly reached up and pulled the neck of her blood stained shirt down for Jeremy to see the marks the second Mutt had left on her neck. "I'm sorry for doubting, but we only found the dead Mutt."

"That's impossible. I gave him 5ccs of undiluted morphine, it should have been enough to knock him out for at least an hour." Annie had done the calculations herself. He should have been out cold. Unless his body mass was substantially larger than the average wolf. Truth be told, Annie never bothered to get a good look at the guy. She was too busy trying to save Antonio.

"What I find even more astounding is why he left you behind when he regained consciousness. It was you he was after." Jeremy murmured as his brain was working overtime to try and understand the Mutt's motives.

"He came to kill me and assumed I had died in the fall. Mission complete." Annie answered, flinching as the pain in her head seared.

"No, I don't believe he meant to kill you. If he wanted you dead, he would have snapped your neck as soon as he got you. I think he was trying to cut off your air supply until you passed out. You'd be easier to take that way."

"And when he came back to he fled without me because?" Annie couldn't understand why he wouldn't have still taken her, or at least checked for a pulse.

"Obviously he had been ordered to take you alive. You were of no use to him dead. When he thought you died, it was basically the signature on his death warrant by whomever ordered you to be taken. Not to mention there was no telling when everyone would be back. He didn't want to be seen." Antonio cut in, sounding exhausted as he sat up on his own cot beside Annie.

"Antonio, please just lay back down. You shouldn't have even left your bed earlier." Annie gritted out as she struggled herself to sit up. It wasn't the smartest move as pain stabbed its way across her abdomen and her head. The fall had really left its toll of injuries on her.

"Perhaps, but then where would you be if I hadn't?" Antonio responded. Though he was fighting Annie verbally, physically he listened to her suggestion and eased himself back down on the cot.

"He's right Annie. Dad made the right call coming to check on you." Nick murmured, speaking for the first time since Annie had regained consciousness. If it hadn't been for his father, Annie could very well be dead now. She would have lost too much blood. Surprisingly Annie didn't argue with him. Nick took the silence that followed as a cue to give Annie a dose of morphine, but before he could administer it, Annie held out her hand for him to stop.

"No morphine. It won't help with the swelling. I need ibuprofen 650 milligrams, and ice for my ribs." It was true that pain medications with anti-inflammatory properties would help her ribs healing process. However, it was not the only reason Annie didn't want the morphine. The real reason was she didn't want to be made drowsy or sedated by drugs. Being defenseless like that was one of her biggest fears. As it was, she didn't remain conscious for more than thirty minutes, her fatigue taking over and lulling her to sleep. Only Antonio and Nick remained while Annie slept, the former had also dozed off after the day's excitement.

Leaning his forehead against Annie's, Nick slowed his breathing to match hers and took in her scent. The horror he had felt upon seeing her lying in a pool of her own blood unconscious and the relief when she had finally regained consciousness were unparalleled. It made today both one of the worst and best days of his life. Adjusting his position so his mouth was beside Annie's ear Nick whispered, "I almost lost you today. With everything in me I promise that will never happen again."

…BNB…

The phone was ringing. It was just ten feet away on the desk and yet Annie couldn't answer it. That was the deal when Nick agreed to carry her from the infirmary to the couch in the study: she was not to move so much as an inch. Bed rest sucked. Now Annie knew how frustrated Antonio must have been the past couple days when she had forced him to remain on the cot in the infirmary. Though she had slightly redeemed herself by making Nick bring Antonio downstairs as well. He was currently laying on the couch across the room, sleeping through the shrill ring of the annoying telephone. Who even called the house phone anymore? There was a reason cell phones were invented.

"Thank god you're back. Please answer that thing." Annie exclaimed when Nick made his way back into the room carrying firewood. Rolling his eyes at Annie's inpatient, exasperated tone, Nick set the wood down and did as she asked.

"Hello," Nick answered, then a beat later added "thank God, I thought you were dead." It was quite possible that listening to the one sided conversation was even more annoying and stressful than the ringing. "I know Joe, tell me where you are." Annie watched as Nick wrote down whatever the mystery guy on the phone had told him before Nick claimed he was coming to get him and hung up.

"Who the Hell was that?" Annie asked as Nick grabbed his jacket and the key's to his car.

"Joey Stillwell. He was taken hostage by the Mutt's and got away. I need to go pick him up." Nick explained as he shrugged his jacket on.

"You can't go alone. What if it's an ambush?!" The thought of Nick walking straight into a trap alone did not sit well with Annie at all. She couldn't lose him. "Take Jeremy."

"And leave you and dad here alone? No way. I'm not making that mistake twice." Nick quickly refuted, shaking his head emphatically.

"We'll be fine," Annie insisted.

"You almost died last time Annie. And that's when you could fight back. Neither of you can fight off an attack at the moment. You'd be sitting ducks." There was no way Nick was taking Jeremy with him. If this was a choice between his safety and Annie's, he was choosing Annie's. He would always choose Annie.

"He's right." Jeremy interrupted as he entered the room with a cup of tea. "I'm not leaving you defenseless again." Nick sent Annie a boastful look that quickly slipped away when Jeremy turned towards him. "Annie's right as well. This could be a trap and you shouldn't go unprepared." Grabbing the rifle that was hanging on the wall Jeremy tossed it to Nick. "Make sure the safety is off and stay alert. If it is a trap, take them down."

A/N Hey my loyal readers! I am sorry this took so very long. I got sidetracked by a lot of different things. Hope you enjoy this installment! Oh and I'm posting a link to my pinterest board for Born not Bitten. I just started it, so there's only a few pics on there so far. On it are two options of how Annie might look. If you check it out I'd love to know which Annie you prefer or if you don't like either one, who you think makes a better Annie :)

lyricalheart14/bitten-fanfic-characters/