Under arrest.
I repeated the words in my head so many times that they lost all meaning. But if the words had no meaning, why did they give me this terrible, twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach? This was crazy. This was the craziest thing that had happened to me all day. Crazier than the earthquake or the car accident, or the fact that I had turned into a wolf.
How could I be under arrest? I had to be the most boring, straight-laced, obsessive rule-follower in the Western Hemisphere. I went to school on snow days. I had once accidentally shoplifted a fifteen-cent candy and felt so bad I went back to the store to pay for it. The clerk had looked at me like I was nuts.
I couldn't take this! I couldn't handle it! My brain was a swirling mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions. I tried repeatedly to calm myself down. I even attempted all those stupid exercises the school counselor had taught me. I took deep breaths and counted backwards from ten. I tried to inject my mind with calming, positive thoughts.
It's okay. Everything is going to be fine. It's not as bad as it seems. I'm strong. I'm a rock. I can climb any mountain. Overcome any obstacle. The problem is not the problem; the problem is my perception of the problem.
But I knew all of that was utter crap. I was still under arrest, no matter if I spiraled into a panic or deluded myself into thinking it was a pleasant trip to the Caribbean.
Was I going to jail? Attempted homicide was no joke. There was definitely going to be a trial. I would need a lawyer. There was no way we could afford a decent one so it would have to be one of those public defender types. The ones that worked for the state and made almost no money.
Speaking of money, who was going to pay for this hospital visit? We didn't have insurance, and my mom sure didn't have the means to pay for it. There was no telling what kind of exorbitant fees I had already racked up.
I felt my chest tightening again, the panic threatening to overwhelm me. This was going to destroy my entire future. Everything I had been fighting for, everything I had been working so hard to achieve... gone as if it had never existed. After all, I couldn't very well get into Harvard while I was busy serving fifteen years in federal prison. And what about my mom? She would be left alone with a crappy minimum wage job, a mountain of legal fees and a delinquent daughter... who she wouldn't even be able to visit because the bus ticket to the prison would be too expensive.
I spent the next several hours in a highly agitated state. In he end, the only thing that kept me from spiraling into another panic was not the exercises my school counselor had taught me, but the thought of encountering that nurse again. She was probably assigned to my room, meaning I would have to see her eventually, but I had no interest in speeding up the process. So, every time I felt an attack coming on, I would grit my teeth and hold my breath until it was over.
The evil nurse had left a small opening in the curtains surrounding my room, giving me a very narrow view of the outside world. I caught flashes of people darting through the hallways. I heard voices shouting out vital signs or asking for various types of medical equipment. Someone was sobbing close-by. A shattered, irreversible sound that sent a chill right down to my core.
There was no reason to assume that any of this was directly related to the car accident. This was a hospital, after all. People came here all the time for all kinds of different reasons. But I couldn't stop all the scenarios playing out in my head. The truck driver featured in at least half of them, succumbing to everything from massive internal bleeding to a stress-induced heart attack.
I shuddered. Thinking about the truck driver led me down a path I had no interest in taking. Just the thought of his face was enough to bring back nauseating memories of the crash. Unfortunately, the whole catastrophe was becoming clearer with each passing second. Where before it had been nothing but a senseless blur, now I was able to recall every excruciating detail.
And, one thing just didn't make sense to me. Well, okay, to be fair a lot of things about the crash didn't make sense to me, not the least of which had to do with me turning into a walking natural disaster. But there was something else that added a whole new dimension of weird to the equation: why was I not more seriously injured? That truck had hit me at nearly full speed. A thousand tons of steel and metal going at a hundred miles an hour. An impact like that should have killed me, or at the very least broken a few bones. Yet I was lying here with nothing more serious than a mild case of whiplash.
I saw movement in parking lot, drawing me away from my troubled thoughts and back into the real world. Most of the cops cars and paramedics had already cleared out, leaving it comparatively empty. But I had a feeling that the vehicle currently pulling in would have attracted my attention no matter what.
It was one of those huge stretch limo's, pitch black and so immaculately clean it reflected the trees and buildings surrounding it almost like glass. Next all the regular cars and the clunky ambulances, it looked sleek and intimidating and important. A few people actually stopped and stared as it rolled past.
I suddenly had a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The limo pulled smoothly up to the front entrance. A well-dressed young man got out of the drivers side. He squared his shoulders, straightened his tie and pulled open the passenger side door.
My heartbeat pounded in ears, drowning out any other noises. I didn't know how or why, but I was sure this had something to do with me.
Two older men stepped out of the limo, one after the other. They were dressed in matching business suits. One of them was tall and slender, with slanted eyes and black hair peppered with silver. The other one was slim as well, but his shoulders filled out his suit in a way that suggested he worked out regularly. His face was lined and hard, his eyes pale, his hair thick and dark. Though he was the younger of the two, I got the sense that he was the one in charge.
Okay, calm down, girl, I thought. They could be here for anything. Maybe they're wealthy donors. Maybe they own the hospital. Maybe...
Oh crap.
The pounding in my ears turned into a dull roar as the two men approached the front entrance and none other than my evil nurse was there to greet them.
Who the heck were these guys? They didn't look like cops. Were they detectives? FBI? Or some sort of secret, specialized branch of the government trained specifically to deal with violent, dangerous shifters?
But, I'm not violent! I wanted to protest. I'm not dangerous! I didn't even know I was a shifter until this morning! How can they blame me for what happened? It was an accident, for crying out loud!
But, I already knew the answer to that. I was in handcuffs. The nurse had looked at me like I was a freaking monster. Intentional or not, I was getting blamed for this one way or the other.
The trio stood outside the doors for a few moments. The younger man did most of the talking while the nurse nodded and gave what looked like brief, single-word responses. Then she turned and led them into the building. The glass doors slid open automatically to admit them, then closed promptly behind them.
I was suddenly overcome with a powerful and overwhelming desire to run. I had heard that shifters possessed ten times the strength of a normal human. If I could break the handcuffs and take off before the cops or whatever they were got here...
No! I couldn't do that! What was I thinking? Running wouldn't solve anything. It was just make me look more guilty. Besides, I didn't even know if I could break the handcuffs. And, even if I did, I probably wouldn't get out of here before...
Footsteps echoed through the hallway, drawing closer to my room. My heart leapt into my throat. I flinched inwardly as a hand reached in and swept the curtains aside.
"Look, I'm sorry!" I blurted, the words coming out of their own violation. "I'm sorry, it was an accident! I didn't know what I was doing! I didn't even know I was a shifter! Please, you can't send me to jail! I can't go to jail! I have a really important math test tomorrow and..."
The words died in my throat. The man standing in front of me was not at all what I had been expecting. He looked like a creature from another world. His face was unnaturally smooth, his complexion as clear and even as marble. His hair was flecked with various shades of blue. Powder blue and navy. Azure and turquoise and everything in between. His eyes were pure silver, his pupils slit vertically almost like a cat.
I recognized him immediately. In the past year, his face had featured on the news and talk shows all over the world. He was currently one of the most famous shifters on the planet.
"Cyprus Griffin?" The man said in a calm, unruffled voice.
"Y-yes?" I squeaked.
"My name is Isaac. I need you to come with me."