Nightwolf

“But she’s alive right? She’s just in a coma. The doctors will fix her, they’ll fix her.”

“They’re going to give it everything they have,” Solon says, and he sounds so strong that it lifts me a little. “We’re at Zuckerberg, the General Hospital on Potrero. She’s got a good team it seems like. I told them you’ll be right here.”

“Wolf is driving like a speed demon,” I comment absently, looking at the speedometer, which reads 105.

“I’ll allow it,” Solon says, forced amusement in his voice. “Only this once though. If you get pulled over, get him to compel his way out of it. I’ll see you soon.”

He hangs up just before the reception bars go back to zero.

“She’s in a coma,” I say after a moment.

“I heard,” Wolf says. “That’s a good sign. Means she’s alive. And we know she has people looking after her and she’s healing. She’ll be okay.”

I look over at him, his strong jaw, refined cheekbones, his distinctive nose and brooding brows. “Do you really believe that?”

He swallows and nods. “I’m choosing to. I think it’s the only thing we can do right now. Positive energy creates positive energy.”

I almost smile. “You sound like a new-age crystal bitch.”

He lets out a laugh. “Yeah well, them bitches are right about something.” Then his expression grows serious as he glances at me. “Keep staying positive, okay? We’ll get you to your mom soon.”

It was the longest drive of my life. Even though Wolf was driving at light speed, overtaking every single car on the highway, and the traffic near Petaluma and San Rafael wasn’t that bad, and we didn’t get caught by any cops, the minutes ticked on like we were slogging through quicksand.

All I could think about was what Solon had said.

My mother was in a coma.

She had a good team.

She has internal bleeding.

It was a hard hit.

I spent most of the drive on my phone Googling comas and brain bleeding and traumatic brain injuries and I came across every single scenario, from people who recover in a few days, to people who take months, to those who never recover at all. Some end up brain dead, on ventilators to keep them alive, others die right away. The only thing I could find as a constant was the fact that the older you are, the less likely you are to make a recovery, and that being in a coma naturally was different from being in one medically induced.

But my mom is only fifty-three. That’s young. That’s not old at all. It’s not like she was a senior in poor health when it happened—that I could understand as having a more negative prognosis. She’s young and healthy and full of life.

So much life. She has so much life ahead of her.

The more I told myself that, the better I felt. Maybe it was naïve, but age does count for something. Sure, most of the people in the articles I read about who came back from comas were in their twenties, but still, my mom was in such good shape, and she was, IS so strong. The strongest person I know. Surely she will come out of it, it just might take some time that’s all.

“It’s just going to take some time,” I say to Wolf as he pulls the Mustang down Van Ness, heading toward the hospital. “She just needs to be in a coma for a bit. To heal. She needs to heal. Her body knows what it’s doing, it just needs time to process and heal and then she’s going to come out of it. She’s going to be fine.”

Wolf nods, giving me a quick smile. “That’s the attitude. She’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.”

But even though he said that, even though I’m latching onto the positive in quiet desperation, I’m still a barrel of nerves as we pull up alongside the hospital and try to find parking. Even though I’ve driven past this sprawling place a million times, I’ve never actually been here, and finding parking takes a lot more time than you’d think.

Eventually, Wolf finds a spot, close to the front doors too, and I have a feeling he may have used some supernatural vampire prowess to get the car in front to vacate the spot. But whatever works, I’ll take it.

We pay the meter and then head into the hospital through the main doors.

It’s chaos in here. People are everywhere, wheelchairs, hospital gowns, people in masks.

“I’ve never been in here before,” I say to Wolf.

He looks down at me and holds my hand. “Believe it or not, neither have I.”

Of course not. Why would he have ever been in a hospital? He’s a vampire. The thought is so shocking, repelled by the current situation, that I have to do a double-take. Ever since the phone call this morning, I haven’t thought once about the fact that he’s a vampire and what that actually means in these situations. Vampires don’t get injured, they don’t get diseases, they don’t grow old. And unless they’re friends with humans, they’ll never have to set foot in a hospital.