The Alpha's Omega Mate-Chapter 101: A strange old woman.

~Dahlia POV~

It was way past noon by the time another living soul came into my hospital room, and this time, it wasn’t Sadie like I had half expected, it was Dr Ava in the company of an old woman with silvery waist-long hair and eyes that glinted with a very warm light.

My eyes widened as I took in her appearance— bloodied lips, blood strained gray dress that stopped under her ankles and a patch of filthy rag that she pressed against her lips whenever an earth-shattering cough wracked her tiny frame.

"Grandmama Lupe, can you hold still for a moment? I want to carry you to the bed." I heard Dr Ava ask the frail woman and I watched in a mixture of worry and shock as she nodded.

Dr Ava wasted no time in lifting the woman off the floor and carrying her to the bed situated by the furthest end of the room, one that I had initially thought was kept for visitors who decided to sleep over, but now that I think about it, I realized that I’d been wrong the entire time.

Each hospital room had two beds each for two patients, but why I’ve always been alone in all the times I’ve been to this hospital is beyond me.

However, despite the woman’s trembling and the way she seemed to cough up more blood, when she saw me watching, she smiled, and the smile sent a crawling chill running up my spine like a thousand spiders.

Instinctively, I tore my eyes away from her and snapped my head back onto my pillow.

That seemed to catch Dr Ava’s attention as she then turned to me with a surprised look on her face. "Dahlia, are you okay? No one told me you were here."

"Huh?"

For some reason, my mental faculty decided to leave me just then, just the same way my wolf these days seem to do.

My brain could not form any coherent thought, and my tongue felt too glued to the roof of my mouth to form a word; not even a polite ’hello’.

My face burned.

"Dahlia? Are you okay?" She asked me worriedly.

And just like that, my mental paralysis seemed to fall off. I blinked rapidly. "Oh, yes! Yes I am fine. You said no one told you I was here?"

"Yes, no one did." Dr Ava confirmed, her brows furrowing in confusion. Even I was as confused as she was.

I sputtered; "B-but I’ve been told you were unavailable these past few days. I didn’t really ask why but that what Dr Zorin—" I began to say but was however forced to stop talking when the older woman began to cough more hysterically now.

A group of younger women dressed in white and blue overalls rushed into the room, and for the next few minutes after that, the entire room was spun into a state of panicked chaos.

Everyone’s hands were on deck as they struggled to revive the woman— Grandmama Lupe— and after several minutes of agonizing screams and barked orders here and there, everyone soon stopped moving.

I held my breath.

And just like it would happen in movies or even stories, Grandmama Lupe’s silvery eyes fluttered open and a sigh of relief— even though I didn’t know her— escaped my lips.

A cheerful scream pierced the air as the nurses, even Dr Ava began to clap joyously.

My eyes drifted back to Dr Ava and my mind to the conversation we were having earlier, but right now, she looked too tired to give me an audience. So I let it go.

A final routine check up was done on Grandmama Lupe and after everyone’s probably decided that she was fine now, they began to slowly file out of the room one after the other. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Dr Ava was last to leave. She turned to me and muttered; "Please can you do me a favor, Dahlia?"

Despite the sudden tightness in my throat and chest, I still managed a nod. "Yes, doctor Ava. What do you need help with?"

"Please can you keep an eye on Grandmama Lupe for me? She’s old and may be down with some strange illness that keeps making her cough up blood and faint. And yes, I’ll send in nurses to check on her from time to time. But watch her for us when no one’s here to do that, okay?"

For some weird reason, my wrapped leg suddenly began to hurt like a bitch. A strange but intense pain shot up my limb and the gauze wrapped around it began to feel like liquid fire.

I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered; "I can do that."

And I know that I should probably tell her about the pain in my leg but I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when I could suddenly feel that weird dark power simmering just beneath the surface of my skin like the spark before a wildfire.

"Are you okay, Dahlia?" Her worried voice snapped me out of my daze and I nodded enthusiastically— too enthusiastically.

I smiled. "Yes, I am. You can go have some rest now."

She smiled. "Thank you, Dahlia."

My hands balled into fists as I gripped the bedding tighter, a small exhale escaping my lips when sweat gathered underneath my eyebrows.

I whispered; "okay." And with that, Dr Ava strolled out of the room, leaving her weird antiseptic smell lingering behind her like a cloud.

A beat of silence settled over us as soon as Dr Ava left, but that didn’t mean my agony ended too. If anything, it soared.

Short painful pants slipped past my lips as my eyes latched onto the ceiling, whilst I counted numbers over and over again in my head, hoping that it would somehow distract me from the blinding pain zapping pain coursing through my body, or the way my bones popped like I was about to shift.

It did not.

However, what finally distracted me was not the stupid numbers I counted or the chilling wind blowing against my face and hair. It was the old woman’s voice as she mumbled;

"I guess I’ll have to be the one watching over you tonight and not the other way around."

I gasped. "Ma’am?"

"You’re in pain." She pointed out like it was something very obvious. "Everyone says you’re an omega but you have a wolf, and the strength it possesses is crushing you right now."

Again, I gasped, stunned. "What do you mean?"

Grandmama Lupe rolled her eyes at me as if I was a petulant child and she was merely giving me some corrections. She explained; "Your wolf’s trying to heal you but you’re holding back. If you do not become one with it, it cannot and will not help you. You holding back and it forcing this healing process will only shred you to pieces. Do you understand, child?"

I sputtered; "y-yes."

"Good, and while you’re at it, you should heal me too, Nyx’Zariel. Nothing these doctors give me would heal my ailing heart." She added deftly, and I froze.

Did she just call me Nyx’Zariel?

She knows?

My eyes snapped up to hers just then to find her already watching me with a knowing smile on her face. And then she turned away from me to face the wall behind her like she hadn’t just dropped a bombshell on me.

Like she hadn’t just spat out my secret like it was nothing.

My hands shook as I watched her small back rise and fall as she took steady breaths, and I knew then that I couldn’t help it: my curiosity. I spluttered; "You k-know?"

"Of course, I do, child. I’ve lived long enough to recognize powerful entities when I see one. And you, child, is one."