"MISS LARA!" Viola’s scream cut across the orphanage grounds as she threw open the back passenger door, where Sebastian had gone completely quiet and still, despite her attempt to keep him awake by talking the whole time she drove like a mad woman.

She had covered his body with a blanket during the drive but now she moved to pull him out and found her arms shaking too badly to manage it alone.

Miss Lara came running down shortly after, along with several of the older girls from the orphanage who had caught the thick scent of blood in the air before they even reached the door.

"What is going on? What happened to you?" Miss Lara asked, moving forward and immediately seeing the dagger buried in Viola’s back and the blood covering every inch of her, but the young woman barely registered her own condition as she grabbed Miss Lara’s arm and pulled her urgently to the back passenger door where her husband lay in the back seat, his wounds still smoking and his body barely moving.

Miss Lara’s breath left her at the sight of the man who had intimidated her so thoroughly just yesterday now lying as still as something already gone.

"Help him! Please help me get him inside, you need to save his life." Viola cried, moving to pull Sebastian into a sitting position with shaking arms. His body had gone as cold as ice and his breathing was so faint she had to watch his chest for several seconds just to confirm it was still there.

She knew coming back to the orphanage was not the most rational decision she had ever made, but it was the only place she knew in all of Nightshade, and Miss Lara had been a healer once, attending to the injuries of children and pack members alike for years. Her mind had brought her here before she had even consciously made the choice.

Miss Lara recovered herself quickly and ordered the older girls to help Viola get the man out of the car.

It took considerable effort and the combined strength of four girls working together to get Sebastian out of the back seat and into the orphanage. They brought him into Julia’s room on the ground floor, as taking him up the stairs was not possible, and laid him carefully on the floor with the blanket beneath him.

Miss Lara called for her medicine boxes and clean rags to be brought down from her room, and while she crouched over him examining the smoking wounds with a deep and troubled frown, she said to Viola without looking up,

"Dear, he is in a very bad state and so are you. I need to examine what kind of bullets these are before I attempt to remove them, and while I do that you need to let Julia attend to your back. She is learning werewolf medicine and she is capable of taking care of that. It is not safe to leave that dagger in any longer."

Viola shook her head immediately. "I am not going anywhere. Why are the wounds still smoking? Why is it even smoking?" She asked, her eyes fixed on his bare back where the blanket only covered his lower half and left every wound exposed and visibly burning at the edges.

"I honestly don’t know. I have never come across anything like this before." Miss Lara remarked with a deep frown, leaning closer and studying the wounds with narrowed eyes. "Whatever is in these bullets is digging deeper rather than staying put, and it is actively preventing him from healing. His body cannot do what it is supposed to do."

"Will...will he be all right?" Viola asked quietly, biting the inside of her cheek as she stared at his motionless body, keeping her terror and fears at bar.

"I don’t know." Miss Lara said honestly, not willing to give the girl false hope when she genuinely had none to offer yet.

Julia and another girl came in shortly after carrying a large box filled with equipment and medicinal herbs, setting it down carefully beside Miss Lara.

It took more than gentle words to get Viola out of that room. In the end it was only Miss Lara telling her firmly that she could not properly treat Sebastian with eyes watching her and needed the room cleared entirely, including Viola, that finally made her move.

Viola was reluctant to leave without seeing any progress in her husband but she pushed herself up. "I will stay outside." She whispered.

"Let Julia attend to you while you stay out there." Miss Lara instructed without taking her eyes off what she was doing.

Viola was walking out through the doorway when the dizziness hit her without warning, sudden and uncontrollable, and she collapsed to the floor before she could reach out and grab anything to stop herself.

The next time she opened her eyes her surroundings were dark and her back was on fire. She was covered in cold sweat and the sheet of the bed she was lying on was damp like she had been drenched in water, but it was only her own sweat soaking through it.

Viola was confused at first about where she was until her eyes adjusted to the lamp light in the room and she made out the bunk beds around her.

Memories of before she lost consciousness rushed back like a wave and she shot up from the lower bunk, almost ripping her back open in the process as pain screamed up her spine.

Viola barely let the pain slow her down. She climbed down from the lower bunk carefully and stood to her feet, leaning her forehead briefly against the upper bunk to steady herself.

The child lying up there opened his eyes and looked at her warily and Viola said quietly, "Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep."

"I can’t sleep, miss. That man has been making sounds in pain every time I try." The boy said, referring to Sebastian, and Viola’s head swung toward him immediately.

"Is he awake?" She asked.

The little boy shrugged. "Don’t know. We are not allowed to go and see. Emma says he is going to die. She heard Julia talking to Miss Lara about it. Emma has sharp hearing and catches things from far away, you know."

Viola didn’t wait to hear another word. She straightened up with a groan and turned to the door. She felt the warm wetness spreading across her back and knew the wound had opened again but she paid it no attention as she moved toward the room she had last left Sebastian in, handed over to Miss Lara’s healing.

When Viola got downstairs, the four older girls were all sitting on the bench outside the room with rags soaked through with blood piled up in buckets beside them. They all looked worn and exhausted. When they noticed her coming, Julia got to her feet and stepped in front of the door before she could reach it.

"You should be resting and letting that wound heal." She said. "I have put so much effort in grounding herbs to kill the wolfsbane in it and you shouldn’t move in the next five hours."

Viola was too consumed with worry about Sebastian to give that a single thought. She jerked her arm away from Julia’s reach and replied, "Get out of my way. I need to see him."

"You can’t go in. Miss Lara said no one is allowed inside." Julia gritted out, pulling Viola back by the arm without ceremony.