Raised by Wolves

Chapter 44

CHAPTER 44

LACEY’S LYING IN a white bed in a white room. She’s pale and motionless. It seems like about a hundred plastic tubes are going in and out of her body.

The chief gets up from his chair when we walk in. He looks terrible. He opens his mouth to say something, but then he turns away. His shoulders shake.

Is he crying?

Holo looks to me in panic. “Is she—?” he whispers.

“She’s going to be all right.” A young nurse comes into the room and walks over to Lacey’s bedside. She pulls the blankets up and gives Lacey’s shoulder a gentle pat. “We’ve given her medicine to help her sleep.”

She checks the IVs and monitors and then nods, satisfied. “She’s much more stable now.” Then she spins around to the three of us. “Who put all that stuff on the bite?”

I hesitate. Stuff? That was medicine . But maybe it didn’t look good, bringing Lacey in with a bunch of chewed-up leaves on her hand.

“What are you talking about?” the chief demands. He wipes furiously at his cheeks.

Yeah, he was crying.

The nurse looks at me and Holo.

I slowly raise my hand. “It was a poultice,” I say. “I thought—I just—”

“What was it?” she interrupts.

“Plantain herb.”

Instead of scolding me, the nurse actually smiles. Nods. “Well, you did a good thing. Using what you had and then getting her to us. Who knows, maybe you’ll be a doctor someday.”

“That’s what Kai’s always wanted to be,” Holo practically shouts. “Ever since she was little.”

“Shut up,” I tell my brother, my cheeks flushing.

“But it’s true,” he says huffily.

Then the actual doctor walks into the room, white coat and everything. She confers for a moment with the nurse while I stand there, watching Lacey lightly breathe.

“Plaintain herb?” the chief says to me, looking confused. “Where’d you get that?”

“Your yard,” I say. “There’s all kinds of medicine in it.”

When the nurse leaves, the doctor turns her attention to us. “It’s extremely rare to have a reaction like this. But the venom went into a vein.” She glances back at Lacey. “It was good luck that Ms. Hernandez got here when she did. Any longer with that venom in her and the outcome would have been very different.”

The chief comes over to me and puts his arm around my shoulder. I stiffen at first, but I do my best to relax.

“Good luck? ” he says fiercely. “You’ve got it all wrong. It wasn’t luck. It was Kai .”