Chapter 39

Aria’s POV

Back at Cathy’s house, I changed into my Dr. A disguise. Cathy watched worriedly from the doorway to my bedroom as I looked in the mirror, adjusting my mask.

“I think it’s too soon,” she said.

“I can’t keep dragging my feet about Caleb,” I replied. After seeing him for myself and speaking with Matt, I was filled with renewed determination to see this case through, one way or the other.

“But after what happened with Lucian,” Cathy said, “you could at least wait a day or two.”

Lucian had once again denied me a divorce, once more without any good reasoning. The fact that he had coupled that denial with a lecture about my being out and about with another alpha made my blood boil.

After traipsing everywhere with Sheila on his arm, he had no right to tell me who I could and couldn’t go out with. Not to mention that Lucian and I aren’t together anymore. Whether he signed the divorce papers or not, I no longer considered him my husband.

That moment of weakness earlier had been just that. I had a momentary lapse of judgement, thinking Lucian had changed. I was the one who needed to change. I needed to harden myself so that I wouldn’t be so easily fooled next time.

Lucian wasn’t denying me a divorce because he loved me or wanted me. Everything was about his reputation.

“I’m done wasting time and energy thinking about Lucian,” I said. “My patients need me now.”

Cathy didn’t argue with me, but she did sigh extra loudly. “I know there’s no talking you out of something once you’ve made up your mind. All I ask is that you be careful. Take lots of breaks, and if you feel faint again…”

“I’ll already be at the hospital,” I told her. “There’s no safer place for me.”

“Not if the old healers get a hold of you first,” Cathy said. “I’ll tell Piper to keep an eye on you, but if you need anything, you immediately call for one of us before you do anything else, okay?”

For Cathy’s peace of mind, I agreed.

“Alright, I promise.”

“I’ll drive you over there, then.”

Standing at Caleb’s bedside, I checked his vitals and his chart. After running a few tests, I frowned at the results.

If these tests were accurate, which I would run again to be sure, then Caleb was truly nearing the end of his life. He didn’t have months as I had earlier presumed. Instead, he had two weeks at the most, if he was lucky.

Coming here today was the right choice. I was selfish for staying away for so long.

Well, there was no use in regretting. I could only look forward and consider how to help Caleb now.

I re-ran the tests and then ran a few more. My original hypothesis was correct. Caleb had two weeks at most. Worse, many of the tests showed that he was in a great amount of pain. If I was to extend his life, that pain would more than likely persist. He’d be in pain all of his remaining life.

We could keep him on painkillers, but what would his quality of life be then? Would he even be cognizant enough to enjoy it?

So deep in thought, I didn’t notice that someone joined me in the room until Matt walked up right in front of me. Then, I jumped so hard in shock that I nearly dropped all my paperwork.

As it was, only some of it fluttered to the ground.

“Sorry,” Matt said and immediately bent to collect the papers. Standing upright again, he handed them to me. “You are Dr. A.”

“I am,” I said, and he nodded.

“You are looking him over. How is he?”

I didn’t want to lie to Matt. “Not good.”

Matt was already wearing a neutral expression, but now it hardened further. I imagined his ability to restrain his emotions was part of what made him a good soldier on the battlefield. I felt sorry for it now, though, for this restraint seemed to hold him back from properly mourning his father.

Matt lowered his gaze to his father in the bed and for a moment, I saw a flash of sadness cross his face.

“I’ve heard he is a brave man,” I said. “A hero, who would give his life for his soldiers and his pack.”

“He’s the best of us,” Matt said. “Not just a hero to his soldiers, but also to me.”

“A good father, then?” I asked.

Matt nodded once, curt. “He insisted we eat dinner together as a family every night. There, he would ask us each about our days. My siblings didn’t always answer, but I could see he was trying. He cared, even if he had trouble expressing it.”

I couldn’t pretend to understand. I had lost my family so early in my life, that I didn’t know what it might have felt like to be neglected by them.

But to me, from how Matt described him, he seemed the type to be trying, even if his attempts were imperfect.

Perhaps Matt’s ability to see these qualities in his father helped shape him into the man he was today, where as his siblings seemed more selfish and demanding.

“Montgomery wants you to use your medicine to save our dad,” Matt said. Looking at me, he asked, “Will you?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said, though I was certainly leaning further in one direction than the other. “What would you choose?”

“That report you dropped said he was in pain,” Matt said.

I was surprised again. I hadn’t thought he had it long enough to be able to decipher it, but maybe I should have known how smart and observant Matt truly was, qualities which I was sure the military only further cultivated within him.

“If his being alive means that he has to suffer for the rest of his life,” Matt said, “then I wouldn’t want him to take the medicine.”

Glancing back at Caleb and the machines helping to keep him alive, I said, “Maybe you can speak to your siblings and convince them.”

“They don’t listen to me,” Matt replied.

That made two of us, then. Unfortunate.

“I need to run a few more tests,” I said. “Maybe then, I will have enough evidence of his continued condition to satisfy them.”

Matt didn’t say anything – at least, not until we started to hear some commotion out in the hallway.

“What is that?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “It sounds like a crowd?”

Why would there be a crowd in the hospital? Unless…

At once, the door to Caleb’s room burst open, and some protestors started bullying their way through.

Matt moved at once, barring the door with his warrior’s body.

“Dr. A! Give Caleb the medicine!” a protestor shouted.

“Save Caleb, Dr. A!” said another.

“Only a villain lets a war hero die!”

“Stay back!” Matt growled, fearsome enough to have a few protestors recoiling.

“You are his son! You should be on our side!” called one of the protestors.

“I’m on my father’s side,” Matt replied. “And you are attempting to disrupt his rest.”

His words and his presence made the protestors step back. At the same time, security arrived to help round them up.

Matt blocked the door with his body, as fiercely and completely as a steel door.

Some terror and adrenaline left my body and I slumped down into a chair. Cradling my stomach, I wondered if Cathy was right.

Maybe this was too much for me.