Prey Drive by Jen Stevens
Chapter 53
the wolf
The sound echoes throughout my otherwise empty mind, its pace quickening as I grow more irritated with it. I attempt to open my eyes, but it feels like they’ve been glued shut.
Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.
The noise grows faster and louder as I quickly fade back into consciousness, my chest tightening in panic. My arms feel like lead weights at my sides when I try to lift them, and I finally pry my eyelids open enough to see that I’ve been strapped down with various cords and restraints. I begin fighting against them, rattling the entire bed I’m lying on. White blankets slide off my legs, falling onto the white floor in a heap.
White, white, white.
Everything here is stark white.
“Someone call the nurse for room 1122. Our John Doe is awake,” a male voice calls from somewhere out of my vision. In the next breath, he’s standing over me, holding my shoulders against the bed to incapacitate me. The beeping noise picks up a dangerous speed.
“Calm down, sir,” the man urges into my ear. “Or I’ll have to sedate you.”
“What’s going on?” an older female voice asks from somewhere behind him. She briefly steps into my line of vision long enough for me to see her pulling on a pair of blue gloves. Then, she moves back out of my sight.
“Not sure. I heard the machine going off, so I came in to check on him and he was fighting against the restraints. Might need to pop a sedative in there to calm him a bit.”
As he says the words, I feel the woman’s gentle touch on my wrist and stop fighting for a brief moment. I turn my head to watch her twist my arm around, examining the maze of IV lines shooting out of me.
“Are you going to chill out on your own, or do we have to drug you?” she asks me, her brows raised above her pointed stare.
My gaze lazily slips back over to the man who still has his hands wrapped around my shoulders, sizing him up. He doesn’t make any moves to let go, and his stare remains hard on me, prepared for any outcome.
Resolving myself to the fact that I’m too weak to do anything, I shrug out of his touch.
“Let go of me,” I tell him, relaxing my head against the pillow.
“Sir, do you know where you are?” the woman questions from my other side, but I don’t have the energy to look at her again. Instead, my eyes shutter closed, my body already exhausted from the fight I put up.
My head gives a weak, negative shake.
“You’re at Cottage Hospital in Cherry Grove, New York.”
Cherry Grove. That’s just outside of Styx. What the hell am I doing in Cherry Grove?
“You’ve been in a coma for about six weeks now, sir,” she tells me, all sentiment gone from her face. She knows better than to get emotionally involved in a case like this. “Can you tell me your name so we can call your family?”
My name?I’ve been here for six weeks, and no one even knows who I am?
Instead of answering her question, I ask, “Why am I restrained?”
Instinctually, my arm raises and fights against the straps. The skin they’re wrapped around stings and burns from the fabric rubbing into it before.
“You were brought into the emergency room with gunshot wounds and zero identification. It’s hospital protocol until the police can rule out that you’re a threat to our other patients or staff,” the nurse calmly explains, and the man shifts uncomfortably from my other side at the mention of me being a potential threat.
“Sir, if you remember your name, I could expedite the process for getting those removed from your wrists and call your family. I’m sure they’re worried about you.”
My mind races with possible scenarios for what would happen if they call my father in here and he realizes I’m still alive after he shot me. I’m trying to muster up any memories from that night that would explain why I was found an hour from the last place I remember being, stripped of all my identifiable belongings.
Did my father try to dump my body after he thought he killed me? Is he such a colossal fuck up that he didn’t even check to make sure I was dead before leaving me behind to be found?
Maybe I should play dumb for now until I can gather more answers…
But then, my mother’s face pops into my mind. How worried she must be. Unless he’s convinced her that I’m gone. Then, she’s likely gone into cardiac arrest from the sorrow of losing both of her children. Sienna’s death almost killed her.
She doesn’t deserve any of this.
“Sebastian Lancaster,” I finally answer the nurse in a strained voice.
She and the guard lock eyes, a silent conversation crossing into the space between them before he nods his head once and walks away. Probably to look me up.
When his wide form disappears out of the door, she rubs her fingers over the medical tape that’s holding my IVs in, and then pats my arm.
“Well, Mr. Lancaster, you’re very lucky to be alive. If that civilian hadn’t pulled over on the side of the road when they did, it may have been too late. We’re going to contact your family right away and let them know that you’re safe.”
I drift in and out of sleep in the next few hours, my rest constantly interrupted by the slew of doctors, nurses, and police officers who want to update me on my condition and ask me questions about how I got here.
They’ve been attempting to get a hold of my parents to notify them about me. It’s been a seemingly impossible feat, since all the numbers I had listed in my emergency contacts file were out of date. Finally, I was able to pull Eliza’s phone number from somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, and the nurse left a message with her. I haven’t heard back, but I assume my assistant will be happy to hear I’m not dead.
While I’m eager to see my mother and find answers about whatever lies my father spun, there’s only one person I’m truly missing. The only one I’ll never speak to again.
My Stardust.
“Your name popped up in our database as a missing person,” the middle-aged detective explains that evening. He’s already been in and out of here three times, always with a new line of questioning that leads us right back to the same spot. I’m staring at the TV across the room, mindlessly flipping through channels while he speaks.
“The report was filed about five weeks ago by a… Sienna Lancaster. So, the timeline checks out. Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell us about the gunshot wounds? You have no idea who could have shot you?” he asks for the millionth time today.
But when I hear her name, I’m whipping my head at him so fast, it nearly spins right off my neck.
“Who filed the report?” I ask in disbelief, my brows pulled together in a scowl.
He squints down at the clipboard he’s holding in his hands, an unsure look crossing his face. “Sienna Lancaster,” he reads off slowly. He lifts his gaze back to me, eyes widening in alarm at my sudden reaction. “She’s listed here as your sister. Is that correct?”
How the fuck did my dead sister file a missing persons report?
“Yes, Sienna is my sister,” I find myself vaguely agreeing.
Before the detective can say anything else, there’s a knock on the door and my nurse—I’ve learned her name is Julie—strolls back in with a warm smile on her face.
“Good news! I finally got a hold of your family.” She walks over and busies herself with checking my IV stand again.
Since they’ve discovered who I am and my family’s wealthy background, they’ve been more than accommodating. I’m sure it helps that the potential for me being a psycho serial killer has been proven wrong by the police. Now, they think I’m just some poor victim who lost weeks of his life to a senseless attack.
“They’re in the waiting room right now, so as soon as you two are wrapped up, I’ll bring them back.”
The detective nods at her appreciatively, his eyes lingering on her ass for a moment too long as she walks away.
“I want to help you find your attacker, Sebastian. But I need more answers. If any memories or flashbacks from that night pop up, feel free to give me a call. Day or night.” He nods toward the business card sitting on my bedside table from when he offered it to me earlier with the same speech.
“Will do, Detective,” I say, lifting my hand in a wave as he turns to head out the door.
Unfortunately for him, I know exactly who did this, and I’m not going to rely on the law to take care of it for me.
Ten minutes later, nurse Julie comes strolling in with my mother in tow, her face red and swollen as if she’s been crying, but a smile lights up as soon as she sees me lying on the bed.
“Oh, thank God, you’re alive!” she cries out, throwing herself against my chest in a warm, comforting hug.
She looks nothing like the shell of a human she was the last time I saw her. Of course, her face is marred with signs of worry and sadness. But her blonde hair is still bright and freshly done, her nails painted a shiny red. She’s wearing one of her usual, flashy outfits instead of the loungewear she was stuck in when I visited her last. No longer the sullen woman who has been mourning the death of her daughter for the past year.
As soon as she moves away from me, Sienna’s face comes into full view behind her. Not the ghostly form I’ve grown used to seeing in the past year, but a flushed, full version of her I thought I’d never see again. Her lively eyes glower at me, cheeks stained red, and eyes puffed out like my mother’s.
She’s fucking here.
Alive.
“What the hell, Bash? We’ve been going crazy looking for you. You couldn’t wake up from your coma a little earlier?" She leans forward and grabs me up in a rough hug, then pulls away to assess me. “You could have spared me a few wrinkles, you asshole.”
Our mother swats her on the shoulder, quietly chastising her for her lewd language.
“How are you here? What the hell happened?” I find myself blurting out, my confusion bypassing the filter in my brain that would usually stop me from asking questions like that. Questions that might have them questioning my sanity.
“We hauled ass over here as soon as they called,” she tries to explain, ignorant to what I’m really asking her. “Dad got stuck at a work thing, but he’ll be close behind.”
“Tell him not to come.”
My mom blanches. “Come on, Bash. Don’t be like that. He was just as worried as we were…” Her head tilts to the side as she considers me. Pities me.
Who knows what bullshit story he spun about my disappearance? I doubt he admitted that he shot me because I came to kill him for having his daughter murdered.
His daughter… who is somehow standing before me.
Fuck. None of this makes any sense.