赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Bell did her best to swallow down the panic.

“Yes… well, I didn’t really think you were here for a friendly chat….” Bell said nervously.

Caleb’s mouth tilted in a half-smile before he spoke.

“Three years ago, I made a recommendation to every pack, an emergency medical station. Did Winter implement this suggestion?”

Bell was confused.

“If I remember correctly, the recommendation was accepted. But when we offered to furnish them, we were rejected,” Caleb said.

“I wasn’t involved in any of those kinds of decisions at that time,” Bell replied.

“No, but you should still know the answer. Do you have emergency medical stations?” Caleb asked.

“We have a few first aid stations across patrol routes,” she answered with a sigh._.

‘What is he getting at?’ she wondered.

“Have you ever been to Autumn?” Caleb asked, holding her gaze.

Bell felt her heart stop for just a moment, a crushing wave of anxiety descending over her.

‘Why is he asking about Autumn?’ Bell thought to herself. She tried her best to keep her heart steady.

“Yes,” she replied calmly, “I have been to Autumn.”

Caleb nodded.

“I would like to tell you a story,” he said.

Bell looked away, grabbed her glass, and quickly brought it to her lips.

“Go ahead,” she replied, taking a large gulp from her glass.

“Four years ago, I visited Autumn,” he began, “my father was Alpha at the time. He sent me as a representative. It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission. I was meant to visit for a week and keep the peace between our packs.”

“As is the duty of any member of an Alpha’s family,” Bell commented. Her tension eased as she thought of Axel. All the times he had been scolded by the Alpha and Luna for his lack of diplomacy.

“Indeed,” Caleb smiled before continuing. “That’s what the trip was supposed to be. But, unfortunately, that’s not how it turned out.”

Bell recognized the look on Caleb’s face, the sad resignation of having witnessed something so tragic a scar was left on his heart. A look she had seen many times in her life. On the faces of her patients, friends, and most often in the mirror.

“What happened?” she asked.

Caleb looked back at the fire before speaking.

“I had been there for two days. I was tired of the ‘royal’ treatment, so I snuck out of my room. I explored the city, ate, drank, and gambled. Autumn is a different kind of place; I had heard about it for years. The only other times I visited had been with my father and a full complement of guards. Not exactly the best way to find what I was looking for.”

“What were you looking for?” Bell asked without meaning to. She was at the edge of her seat, interested in his story, while scared of where it was leading.

“The truth,” he said quietly.

He looked back at her. Their eyes met for only a moment, an understanding with unspoken words. She looked away.

“While I walked the lower levels, the alleyways, I found people starving, dying. It was hard to see but not entirely surprising. My father had made me painfully aware of the fact that each pack had its own hierarchy, and it wasn’t my place to judge it.”

Bell pushed away from the dark memories that scratched at the edges of her consciousness.

“I thought I had seen everything I needed to. But as I went to return to my room, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A moment, a curtain being pulled back just enough for me to see into the room. The smallest glimpse of a small arm, a small body, an innocent face.”

His voice was a blending of grief and anger, a low growl remaining just beneath the surface of his words.

“I moved toward the curtain. That was when I realized that I hadn’t gotten away from my room unnoticed. The Autumn guards had simply allowed me to walk where I wanted until I saw something I wasn’t supposed to.”

Caleb clenched his jaw. He thought back to that moment, three men walking towards him, two behind him, and at least two more around the corner. His hand absently moved to the side of his body, where he knew there was a deep scar beneath the fabric of his shirt.

One of the men had shifted, clamping their jaw down on him and tearing through the flesh. Caleb had almost died that day. He took a deep, cleansing breath.

Suddenly, a glass appeared before him. Caleb looked up into Bell’s gaze. He saw sympathy and understanding.

‘You have made a wise choice Galen, but a difficult one,’ he thought to himself.

Caleb took the glass, taking a small sip of the water.

“Thank you,” he said. Bell nodded in return.

He cleared his throat before continuing.

“I made my way to the curtain,” he sighed, “what I found… it was a young boy. Only seven or eight. He looked… deathly. His features were sunken in heavy dark circles. The look in his eyes… flat, empty.”

Bell brought her feet up on the couch, pulling her knees to her chest. Then, hugging herself tightly, she looked away from him.

“His arm was outstretched on a table with a tube sticking into his forearm. It took a moment for me to understand what I was seeing. The man on the other end of the tube asked who I was and why I was there. I looked up at him, and only then did I understand. As I watched the blood flowing from the boy’s frail body into the arm of this strong young man. A man who sat reading a magazine as the boy across from him was clearly dying.”

Caleb finished his sentence with a deep snarl. Bell squeezed her eyes shut, stopping the tears from flowing out.

“I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, I know I attacked the man, but I was suffering from blood loss and lost consciousness. When I woke again, I was back in my room, healed.

“A woman entered my room, a nurse. She said she needed to check my stomach. I knew I had a large wound, but the damage was almost entirely healed when she pulled the bandage. I asked how long I had been asleep. When she told me it had only been a day, I didn’t understand.”

Caleb gripped his hands in tight fists. The memory was painful, and even more than that, it still infuriated him.

Bell understood. She knew the rest of the story without him telling her. It gripped her heart. Anger, sadness, and fear fought for dominance in her mind.

“Alpha Tomas entered the room then,” Caleb began again, his voice laced with a sadness that had remained with him all these years, “he told me they couldn’t let me die. They couldn’t tell my father how close I was to death either. So, they treated me. They used their most ‘advanced’ healing techniques.”

Bell pressed her forehead against her knees, stifling a cry.

“That was when he took me to see the boy’s body.”