Work Text:
Kala loses track of time, working in the back, so it’s late when she finishes up. There is just so much to do and the clinic was severely understaffed to begin with. She checks to make sure the front door is locked and puts the code in for the storage room with controlled substances. She is just flicking the lights off when there is a crash from the back door.
This won’t be the first time a junkie tries to break in and get their fix. Kala is prepared now, she has been taking self defense classes and has her mace at the ready. She rounds the counter warily, expecting to see a homeless person or maybe a drugged out addict, thinking the clinic is an easy target. Only there is no one there.
The door has been pried open and there is a trail of blood to just behind the counter but she can't see anyone in the darkness. Remembering the words of her teacher, Sun, Kala turns on the pen light on her keys next to the mace.
She sweeps the floor, following the trail of blood to under a desk. The light reflects off eyes like a cat or dog, only there is a man sitting there below the counter. He has blonde hair and pale skin, which is currently dyed red with his blood. There are four large gashes across his chest and he has clearly been hit in the face a couple of times because there is blood on his lips and teeth. He looks up at her and the sneer on his face melts into wonder.
"Beautiful," he whispers and then his eyes roll into the back of his head and he passes out.
"Oh gods," Kala says, because she doesn't really know what else to say at this point.
She locks the remaining doors behind her and pushes a cabinet in front of the back door so it won't swing open with the first gust of wind. Dragging him out from under the desk takes longer than she would like but there is no way she can be of any help to him without light and tools. Kala would have liked to have him on their exam table but the floor of the office will have to do.
The tools and bandages come from a rolling cart in the exam rooms. She drags a large spotlight out as well and puts it over him. His shirt is going to have to go, not only is it torn to shreds but she is pretty sure that parts of it are in his gashes. Kala cuts it off him and tries to remain professional while examining his wounds.
Kala has never seen a man built like this before. In her life she has always had slim men or round men. In the Bollywood movies they are never great hulking beasts like the man before her. His shoulders are nearly twice as wide as any she had seen before and the thickness of his arms makes her feel warm inside.
Thick. That’s what would describe him.
As she works Kala realizes that his wounds are not as bad as they first seemed. He had bled like he had received a fatal blow, but now that she looks closer the wounds are much smaller. They almost seemed to be shrinking right before her eyes.
There were things in the wounds, what she might consider claws if they weren't almost metallic in nature. Some kind of advanced weaponry, maybe.
Part of Kala wanted to be judgemental. Part of her wondered what kind of man would get these kinds of injuries in the middle of the night in the city. Kala had come here because it was supposed to be a nice place. Only after she had moved to town and started her residency at the clinic had she learned about the gangs and the mob and all the other nasty shit that continues to exist in the world.
He never wakes. Not when she has to pull a claw from next to his heart. Not when she has to stitch him up. Not when she realizes his legs are bleeding too and she cuts off his pants. Not when she has to hide his manhood with a towel and try very hard not to look at it when she stitches up his thigh.
Dressing him in scrubs is painfully awkward and indecent. She has to pray while she does it so she doesn't have a nervous breakdown. Kala isn't trained for surgery. She is here to learn general practice. Specifically women's health. This was not her area of expertise.
Kala must have fallen asleep at some point because she wakes up to find that there is not a man in front of her, but a wolf. It's white with a dapple of black in its coat and about four times the size of what she thought a wolf would be.
The wolf licks her face. Kala freezes, not knowing what to do. She wonders if the wolf ate the man from last night. Only, now that she looks she sees the wolf is actually wearing the scrub pants.
"Are you some kind of demon?" she asks the wolf. It opens its jaws and lolls out its tongue in a canine smile. The wolf licks her face again, and in the motion suddenly it is not a wolf anymore.
One moment there is a soft tongue on her throat and the next she feels stubble and the press of a human nose. There is a soft sigh and static in the air and Kala is holding the man from last night.
"I'm Wolfgang," he says and his breath is a hot brand against her neck.
"Of course you are."
Kala helped a werewolf. She pulled the claws of a rival werewolf out of him and healed him because of that. She takes the stitches out, the ones she did in the middle of the night on no sleep while trying not to freak out, because the skin is perfectly healed.
Wolfgang watches her every moment. Tracks her hands and her breath with his eyes. There is a hint of a smile on in his eyes and jaw.
"The clinic is going to be opening soon," Kala realizes aloud. She needs to put everything back.
"I shall be going." He has an accent, it's thick and does strange things to the vowels.
That should be the end of it. Kala should never see that man again. She has her studies and her medical license to consider. But it isn't.
A thin man named Felix shows up the next day. He smiles and laughs with the nurses and says he is here for a flu vaccine. His eyes track Kala with the same intensity of Wolfgang's, but not the same intent. She 'accidentally' turns the pen light on and catches a glimpse of reflective eyes.
He smiles wide at her and blows her a kiss before being led to an exam room by one of the nurses.
The guy at her coffee shop watches her differently. The woman at the flower shop and her girlfriend seem to freeze when Kala is around.
It's distracting.
And painfully obvious.
"You have to tell the others to stop," Kala tells Wolfgang. He is sitting on the bench across the street from the clinic. It's after midnight and Kala had just finished closing up for the night.
"They aren't doing anything," Wolfgang shrugs. As if to say that this is all perfectly natural. That werewolves just always follow her on the morning commute. Or that he has always waited for her to close up at night.
He stands and walks over to her. Wolfgang gives a little smile and then nods his head in the direction of her route home. Kala should say no. She should put up some kind of big fuss, call the cops, something. Get this strange man, wolf, away from her.
Instead she finds herself walking with him. Her feet take her home and she finds that he moves just as casually as she does on the way home. It's a casual movement, an ease of knowing. It's intoxicating.
"They are very obvious," Kala tries to explain. Wolfgang laughs like it's been forced out of him. Like it was a punch to the gut. "What?"
"You seem not to care about all of it." He waves to himself. "No screaming, no crying, just you."
"What would you do if I had started screaming?" Kala asks, because she is not able to behave around this man. The look he gives her is pure fire. Kala feels herself blush.
"Don't you have any questions?" he asks, walking backwards in front of Kala. His feet do a little skip and Kala finds herself smiling. She is glad he didn't follow that heat, she is not ready for something like that. Maybe. He would have to convince her.
"About what?" Kala shrugs. "Werewolves? A few. Mostly scientific." She had always been the kind of person to understand that there would be things beyond her understanding. The mapping of the human genome was still a massive undertaking. It made sense that there were aspects of humanity that could not yet be understood or explained.
"And do you have any questions about something else?" Wolfgang pauses and leans forward. Kala hadn't seen him stop and finds herself a breath away from him. Her heart hammers in her chest.
Wolfgang hovers there, not moving. Letting her be the one to come to him. Kala leans in.
"WOLFIE." A voice rings out across the street and Wolfgang looks a little bit like he wants to cry. It makes Kala smile.
"Felix." Wolfgang is clearly grinding his teeth.
"Hello Felix," Kala greets. The werewolf has been around the clinic a lot in recent days. Getting a check up and a shot and then bringing in a friend for STD testing. Kala is pretty sure Felix has been assigned to watch her by Wolfgang.
"Hi. Hi." Felix nods at her and then turns to Wolfgang. "It's happening." Wolfgang sighs loudly and then straightens. Kala watches his face go from the easy, loose expression she is used to into a mask of steel.
She must gasp or make some kind of indication that something about him has changed. Maybe she shifted back a step. He turns to her and his eyes go soft.
"You should get inside." Wolfgang nods up to the apartment and that's when Kala realizes she is at her loft. She nods quickly and goes to unlock the front door. When she turns to lock it behind her she sees other shapes in the darkness coming out from behind cars and alleys to form a group behind Wolfgang who is striding down the center of the road looking lethal.
A part of her bursts into flames at seeing this motif. Another part of her worries for him. His life seems dangerous.
Rajan's father owns the company that runs the clinic. It is technically a nonprofit but that doesn't mean that the company wants to let their clinics be completely mismanaged. He has been working at the clinic for a couple of months now.
Kala knows that the other women in the office are in love with Rajan. They are all busy competing to see who can spend the most time with him. It's fun to watch. Until it isn't.
One day they are all going about their business when she realizes that Rajan has sat next to her. He never sits next to her. The other girls look at Kala with sneers in their eyes. She doesn't like this.
He smiles at her the next morning for longer than normal and spends just a bit more time talking to her. He talks of India and how strange it is to be so far from home in this city. Kala wouldn't have noticed except for the fact that her friends all seem to have no time to talk to her. She wishes this wasn't happening.
"Want to go to the cafe across the street with me for lunch?" Rajan asks the next day. Kala freezes with her bag halfway up her arm. What is she to say to this? He is the boss, the son of the man who owns the company.
"You ready to go?" The deep voice pierces the silence in the room and Kala thinks she might die of relief. Wolfgang has walked in the door and moved straight for her. His arm goes around her shoulders and his lips brush her cheek for a heartbeat.
"Yeah," Kala breathes with joy. She looks up to see Rajan's confused and hurt face.
"And you are?" Rajan asks, turning to Wolfgang.
"Wolfgang Bogdanow, Kala's boyfriend." Wolfgang holds out his other hand to Rajan.
"Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Bogdanow." Rajan's face is tense. "I must say I have never heard of you."
"One's work is not the place to speak about romantic entanglements, that's not professional at all." There is an odd edge to Wolfgang's voice and Kala is now ready for this theater to be over.
"Come on, I'm hungry." It's not a lie, she is actually starving. Wolfgang smiles at Rajan and waves to the nurse behind the desk as Kala pulls him out the door.
"Are you stalking me?" Kala asks once they are far enough from the clinic. Wolfgang shakes his head no. "Felix is in the clinic at least every other day and I see more people who watch me every day. That sounds like stalking." Kala cannot let the relief of the last moment cloud her mind to the fact that she is clearly being followed.
"You know about us," Wolfgang says with an easy shrug. "You are one of us now."
"So you were just standing around waiting for me to be in trouble?" Kala accuses, thinking back to a moment ago.
"No, I was on the other side of the city." Wolfgang lifts an eyebrow and then pulls down the neck of his shirt to expose his sweat soaked skin.
"Are you telling me you just so happened to decide to run over here on a whim?" Kala found her eye following a bead of sweat run down his collar bone to the line of his sternum.
"You called out for help," Wolfgang tells her. "We could all hear you."
"You can hear thoughts?"
"Only the very loud ones." He arches an eyebrow and smiles at her. Kala wonders how much he really could hear. Part of her is horrified. "Let’s eat." He grabs her hand and pulls her along behind him.
Wolfgang does buy her lunch. He drags her to a strange little hole in the wall place that has a menu in Spanish. She can't read it at all but he waves her off.
"You don't order here." They sit at the stools on the bar seeing as there is only one booth and a girl appears to be asleep in it.
"Hola!" cries out a chipper voice from the back by the kitchen door.
"Two of what's good," Wolfgang calls out.
"Just a moment!" A man with glasses and a beard appears in an apron, wiping his hands on a towel. "Wolfie, you brought a friend."
"Hernando, Kala. Kala, the best chef in town," Wolfgang explains.
"He says these things so he can get free food," Hernando smiles. Wolfgang shrugs like he can't be blamed for trying. "I have been trying out some new dry rubs. I will bring one of each." Hernando disappears back into the kitchen.
Kala found that she loved this place. It reminded her of her father's restaurant back home, with its worn benches and clear regulars. Hernando was yelling at someone in the back and then another man appeared and shook the girl in the booth awake. They spoke loudly in Spanish with their arms flying. To someone else it might have looked like they were arguing but Kala recognized the sound of two people who loved each other very much.
Wolfgang smiled at the antics and shook his head. Eventually the second man came up to Wolfgang and started speaking in German. It was strange. The weirder part was in Wolfgang responded in Spanish.
"Where are my manners?" The second man takes Kala's hand and kisses it. "A pleasure to meet you, princess, I am Lito."
"Are you a werewolf too?" Kala asks because part of her just knows. Lito, the girl in the corner, and Hernando walking out with plates all freeze in place. "What?"
"Oh!" The girl in the back is the first to move. "This is her!"
"Dani." Wolfgang looks like he is screaming internally. Kala is a bit enamored.
"Wolfgang has been talking about you for days!" Dani appears to have not heard Wolfgang's silent plea.
"Oh, has he?" Kala turns to see Wolfgang blush and turn bashful. She wants to kiss him. His blush deepens.
The food is fantastic.
Kala has a balcony in her loft, a small thing that can fit a chair and a small table along with a window planter filled with herbs for cooking. She sits outside on a calm night and looks at the lights of the city. Emboldened by a glass of wine she finds herself thinking of Wolfgang, loudly. Or as loudly as she can possibly conceive to think of something.
Her door buzzes. Kala gets up and walks inside to the intercom screen. Wolfgang stands outside trying to look like he isn't panting.
"Yes?"
"I can just give you my phone number," Wolfgang offers. Kala laughs and Wolfgang is looking at the intercom with something soft and proud and needy. She decides then, she had made up her mind before but she hadn't been sure until that moment. She presses the unlock buzzer.
Wolfgang has his phone out when he steps through the door, clearly expecting to actually give her his number. Then he kind of freezes in place and his eyes go wide. Kala had tried to think loudly. He drops his phone and it clatters to the floor without him seeming to care. He stalks to her. The walk of a predator.
His hands slide up her arms until they cradle her face and head. He leans in until his nose bumps into her's and just stops. Kala opens eyes she didn't realize she had closed to see his eyes watching her, waiting.
Kala reaches up and grabs his jaw and brings their mouths together. It's a long, slow kiss. A seal almost, a commitment, a vow. They move impossibly closer, pressed together from shoulder to thigh.
This feels right the way nothing else ever has. Kala knows she is going faster than she has with anything else in her entire life but she is tired of waiting. Tired of expecting this to never happen.
His hand finds her ass and she throws a leg around his waist.
He growls. Kala pulls back to gasp at how the rumble felt against her chest, her nipples hardening at the contact.
Wolfgang kisses her eyelids. Brushes his fingertips over the shell of her ears. He holds her like she is the best thing he has ever known. Kala thinks she might feel the same.
He hasn't touched anything below her clothes. In fact, Wolfgang has kept his hands away from anywhere that is covered. It's starting to drive Kala a little crazy. He pulls back when she moves to push his shirt off his shoulders.
"Kala." Her name rolls off his tongue. "We are in the hallway." Kala groans and breaks away from the delicious contact to move deeper into her apartment.
Wolfgang follows her, looking around the apartment with interested eyes. It's decorated in tones of red and orange. One corner is dedicated to a shrine to Ganesha because this city has none and Kala is not used to being unable to speak to her god. Wolfgang touches things as they go. Drags his fingers across fabrics and taps them on wood and steel.
Kala pauses at the doorway to her bedroom, suddenly feeling nervous.
"Do you have any movies?" Wolfgang asks, like that was the plan all along. Kala glares at him. "Maybe something with music or dancing?" Wolfgang gives her a cheeky little grin and the knot in her chest loosens. She opens the door to her bedroom and pulls him inside.
Wolfgang makes love with his mouth. She has never known a man so invested in having his mouth on nearly every inch of her. Behind her ears. Just below her breasts. The underside of her knees. He explores all the parts of her normally ignored during sex. And when he finally moves to slide his beautiful cock into her she realizes she has never been this wet naturally in her life. Wolfgang enters her in the smoothest, most fulfilling movement Kala has ever experienced.
They move so he is sitting against her headboard with Kala on his lap and just breathe together. Hands everywhere, rubbing, holding, squeezing as inch by delicious inch Kala feels Wolfgang. This is the way the stories and song make sex sound. This connection and intimacy. Kala feels like she could come just from their eye contact. Her hair creates a curtain around them and it's as if the world fades away behind them.
He takes care of her. Takes her to her peak over and over again. She stops trying to count after five. Works her with his mouth and fingers while rocking into her.
"So beautiful," he whispers into her skin as she comes apart.
When she feels like she can't take it any longer he drives into her with a speed and intensity that whites out her brain. It's the best thing Kala has ever experienced. She is sweaty and sticky and so very hot but she feels wiped clean and fresh all at once.
Wolfgang cuddles into her and they sleep with his face pressed just behind her ear.
Kala learns more about Wolfgang and his... pack? He works as a locksmith, of all things. He tells her he gets a real sense of accomplishment in picking locks, it's how he got into the business. Kala tries not to be surprised. She knew he didn't have the most traditional life. Wolfgang tells her not to worry, he isn't robbing banks or breaking into homes, but he needs these skills to survive as a wolf. Felix is his partner. His brother, Wolfgang explains. They are attached at the hip and seem more in sync than Kala has ever known two people to be.
There is Lito, also a wolf, who is in love with the chef Hernando and lives with his friend Daniella. Wolfgang claims that Felix is his brother, but with Lito Wolfgang acts more like a sibling than with anyone else. They fight over stupid things and get into little arguments, but if someone tries to imply they don't like each other the two of them turn into a combined force.
There is the girl who works as a DJ and a boy that runs the coffee shop Kala goes to. A bus driver and the owners of that flower shop.
Kala comes to understand that Wolfgang and his friends have created an area of town that they don't so much control as have under surveillance. Alone the businesses mean nothing but put together it's clear that they know everything going on in this part of the city.
Kala thought that this might not go easy. That it would be hard to fold a man like Wolfgang into her life, to make him fit into her schedule and interests, but he slides into her life like he has always been there. He brings her lunch or dinner when she has to work late.
She learns that Wolfgang likes music, specifically singing shows. He gets overly invested in the people competing and goes quiet and pouts when his favorite looses. Kala is surprised how little he complains about watching Bollywood movies. She had been expecting some kind of fight, like she had experienced with the last man she had tried dating. Wolfgang seems to really enjoy the productions.
He even starts renting some of the older movies that have won awards and watching them when she is at work so he can fully understand all her favorites.
At first it seems like Wolfgang is the one doing things for her, the one giving all the time and effort. Kala is just so busy that she can't really dedicate a ton of time to being overly involved. He never seems to mind.
She comes home to find Wolfgang sitting in the dark of her apartment. Kala had given him a key a few days ago because he would just sit outside waiting for her if she wasn't home. Sure, he had her cell, but he had promised not to bother her at work so he would sit on her doorstep, rain or shine, and wait.
There was something different about him tonight. He didn't respond to her conversation. He just sat there completely still with the light off.
Kala walked around the sofa until she could fully see him. That's when she saw the blood.
"Oh my god, you are hurt," she gasps.
"No." Wolfgang shakes his head. "Not me." Kala hears him but she still prods him and runs her hands all over him looking for any kind of injury.
"Come on, lets clean you up." Kala drags him to the bathroom. She runs a bath because she knows how much he enjoys sitting in warm water. He has literally sat down in the shower and just stayed there before, long past when the water ran cold.
Wolfgang lets her manhandle him out of his clothes and into the tub. He looks small and lost and Kala doesn't press him to tell her what happened. He sits in the tub for a long while and Kala sits on the small foot stool next to him just brushing his hair.
She bundles him up when the water cools and wraps him in a blanket. He sits on her bed silently for a long time, just watching her mutely. It's late when he finally speaks.
"They hurt Riley." His voice sounds broken. Kala remembers the small girl with blonde-blue hair and sad eyes.
"Is she okay?" Kala asks.
"For now." He looks lost. "You need to know, I should have told you before, being near us is dangerous."
"I figured that out when you turned up with your chest ripped open," Kala soothes.
"There are people who want us dead or locked up." Wolfgang looks up at her with pleading eyes. "People who are near. I have to stop them."
She sees the violence in his eyes. And now she understands what is happening. Wolfgang knows how she feels about violence, how much she hates it with every fiber of her being. He is here for permission.
No.
He is asking her for absolution.
Kala doesn't think she can give that to him. Doesn't know if she can look at this man, who she loves, and tell him she will stand behind him as he hurts others.
"You don't have to resort to violence," she whispers into the blackness in his eyes.
"The world is violent." Wolfgang shudders. It's strange to watch a part of him disappear in front of her eyes. She had been so sure they were connected deeper than whatever distance their might be in their lives.
He spends the night as a wolf, his thick fur a blanket Kala remains wrapped in. In the morning he is gone. Kala cries.
She checks the news hourly. Kala loads her phone to give her crime updates for nearly everything under the sun that happens in this city. She has four google alerts for werewolves or Wolfgang variations.
He doesn't text. He doesn't call. She is frantic and terrified. She wishes she had said she loved him. She wishes she had been strong enough to stop him or brave enough to support him.
Kala had never realized just how much violence there was in her city. Even for someone who works with those who can fall through the cracks she had not really understood.The deaths, the accidents, and worst of all the domestic violence. She finds herself reading all of it and feeling numb inside.
There has been a fire at the local headquarters for the clinic. All the employees are on high alert that they might be targets of some kind of attack. Kala can't even process what is happening. The world is falling apart around her.
"Kala!" She turns to find Rajan jogging to keep up with her on her way out. "You shouldn't be walking home alone," he tells her.
"I am fine," Kala tells him, because she had been sure this was over. Men, they respect other men more than they respect women. She was claimed so now she was safe.
Or was she?
"Wolfgang hasn't been by in nearly a week to walk you home," Rajan points out.
"His work got busy," Kala lies.
"I don't think that mongrel actually had a job," Ragan sneers. Kala's blood runs cold.
"What?"
"You know we thought you didn't know. Well, father thought you didn't know the truth. But I was sure you knew." He grips her arm.
"You're hurting me."
"They are monsters Kala," Rajan continues. "They turn into beasts and they can speak to you in your mind." Kala struggles, tries to remember what her self defense teacher said about this. She jams her palm into his face but Rajan was expecting this and dodges. "I really liked you, Kala. It's not often you meet a nice traditional Indian girl in this city." She goes for his instep but they are walking and he is so much stronger than she originally thought. Kala regrets not spending more time in self defense like Sensi Bak had asked. Something smells sweet and then Kala doesn't feel like she can struggle any harder. The smell is overwhelming and she starts to feel weak.
Kala wakes up in the clinic. At least it looks like the clinic but everything is in the wrong place. The table should be to her left, not to her right.
Another location.
She is tied to a chair by both her arms and legs. The chair is actually quite nice, with a high back and sturdy legs. Kala realizes that this is not some kind of luxury given to keep her comfortable but is so it will be harder for her to escape. She remembers Sun had said cheap small chairs were always easier to get out of but this was a massive chair, something that didn't belong in the clinic.
That's when it starts to sink in. The odd things at all the clinics. Pieces of information start forming into a larger thought. Things she has been hearing now and then started to align themselves together.
Wolfgang seeming afraid and injured in the clinic that first night. The relief he showed upon seeing HER.
Felix coming into the clinic, not to check on her - that was just a bonus to what he must have really been doing.
There are people who want us dead or locked up. People who are near.
All of this comes crashing down on her in the few short moments after she wakes up. And then her mind is consumed by one thought.
WOLFGANG RUN.
She screams it as loudly as she can in her mind. She fills her thoughts with directions for him to leave before they come for him. She has no idea how this works. She just knows that he cannot get caught.
Rajan comes into the room a little while later with a tray of food. He smiles at her warmly but she sees a coldness in his eyes.
"I hope you are comfortable." He puts the tray on one of the carts for exam supplies and wheels it in front of her chair. Kala says nothing. "Father thinks we are going to have to keep you here for a very long time. I think the beast will be here at any moment to save you." Rajan fiddles with the cutlery, slicing up the small bites of chicken. "He appeared awfully quickly when I tried to ask you out."
THEY KNOW.
She thinks it as loud as she can. Kala feels so stupid. She had figured that she was the only one. Foolish. She knew how obvious they were, it would only take a careful eye and one small sample of blood or hair to end up in the wrongs hands. Which is clearly what had happened.
"Why are you doing this?" Kala asks, hoping to stall for time. Rajan seemed to be in the mood to talk. He was always such a chatty person, he must love having someone to explain things too.
"It's my job, Kala." He held a bit of food out to her on the fork but she made no move to take it. Rajan sighed. "You want to help people, don't you Kala? Make the sick whole again? We want the same things. My father's company is run by a larger company. They are trying to cure all the diseases in the world. They are so close to being able to cure cancer and all genetic diseases. And all they need is to save the world is right here in this city."
"Do no harm," Kala stated. It was the oath they all took in medical school.
"Yes, that." Rajan shook his head. "I am not actually a medical doctor. You would have known that if you had paid any attention when we talked in the past instead of lusting after an animal." He placed down the cutlery and calmly walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.
Kala's head starts to hurt, a stabbing pain right behind her eyes. She doesn't scream out, just shuts her eyes and bites her lip.
There is a brush of fingers on her forehead. Kala opens her eyes ready to snap at Rajan for touching her, when she sees who is in front of her and nearly weeps.
"Wolfgang." His name sounds like a prayer on her lips.
"I am not really here," he tells her. His expression is determined. "I didn't even think I could get this to work." Kala blinks and he blurs with the movement. This is in her head. "We are going to get you out."
"No, Wolfgang, you have to leave. They know you are coming for me," Kala pleads. His smile is smug.
"That's why they won't expect you to save yourself." He leans down and kisses her forehead but it feels like a phantom compared to how his lips normally feel. "This will feel strange."
Her arms begin to shake and she knows she didn't tell them to do that. Kala can hear voices in her head.
Break the chair first.
She begins to thrash so hard that she is rocking back and forth.
She needs more strength.
Power pulses through Kala and she finds that her arms are burning but she can hear the wood creaking. She slams back into the wall as she pulls on her ropes. The legs and arm rests come free of the wreckage of the chair. Kala goes for the scalpel in the drawer to her left. While the room might be reversed it seems that this location organizes its tools the same way as her clinic. She cuts herself free from the ropes and turns toward the door.
"The door is locked from the outside," Kala finds herself telling them. It is them. She can feel the others in her mind like an odd pressure, this is what that headache had been, Wolfgang and his pack trying to establish a connection with her.
This facility had key card readers.
Wolfgang flickers into view and points at a post in the wall just beside the door.
"You need to cut through the wall here." Kala nods and grabs as many sharp implements as she can. It's just paint over drywall so the wall actually crumbles rather quickly once Kala starts hacking it to pieces. The insulation requires gloves to be removed otherwise she will break out in a horrible rash for days. Once that is gone she can see some wiring.
Her hands move to start pulling out a few of the cords and plugging others back into the wall. The door clicks open.
Wait!
Kala freezes in the movement of opening the door.
Now.
She eases the door open and looks down the hallway to hear retreating footsteps. This area appears to be laid out much the same as the clinic that she works at. Kala slips around the corner and into a storage room, and on the third shelf she finds scrubs and a face mask. She sheds her clothes and slips into the uniform scrubs and lab coat, as well as putting on the face mask. She pulls her hair back with a rubber band.
It's not a perfect disguise - Kala will still stand out with her dark complexion in comparison to most people in the city - but better than nothing. Wolfgang looks at her like she just created a volcano for the first time in science class.
"I am not completely helpless," she tells him.
"You are anything but helpless," he agrees. It's a punch to her heart. If they get through this she is not letting this man go again. Wolfgang leans forwards and pulls down the face mask to kiss her. It's not perfect, it's not the way it should feel, but it's still his lips and the press of his nose against the tip of her's.
Kala looks at what is in this room and realizes she has everything she needs. The supplies are all here. She wants to go back in time and kiss that one kid from chemistry class that always wanted to talk about blowing things up. There is a shaft in this room that drops down into the basement where much of the biological waste is stored, if this location is anything like her own. She drops the bomb down the shaft and ducks down in time for the fire to blast out of the top of the air duct. The alarms start blaring.
"We were going to cause a distraction for you," Wolfgang tells her as he looks down at the fire beginning to burn in the basement. "This is better."
She waits until people are filing out of the building to open the door and slip out in the group. This clinic is much bigger than her's and there are people coming from other floors. She is ushered out the back entrance where many other employees are gathered. She can hear Rajan shouting in the distance about something.
"Did you see those flames?" A warm voice speaks in her ear as an arm is wrapped around her, along with a blanket. "Very dangerous." Kala looks into the face of the bus driver that Wolfgang had said he knew. He smiles brightly at her and then ushers her out of the crowd and down an alley where a city bus is parked.
There is a girl sitting in the back, she waves Kala over frantically. As Kala approaches she see that a curtain has been rigged around this area.
"We are going to swap clothes," the girl says, already starting to pull off her shirt.
"What?" Kala doesn’t understand.
"People are really bad at distinguishing between different shades of brown," the girl says. "Amanita, by the way."
"Kala," she introduced herself as she began to change. The bus was moving now, at a leisurely pace through the city as if nothing was the matter.
"I know. This is a rescue operation. Boss man is crazy about you."
"Neets!" calls the man from the front in a disapproving tone.
"Oh come on Van Damnne!" Amanita rolls her eyes and wiggles into Kala's clothes. "She has a right to know." She turns back to Kala. "I am so glad to finally meet you and see that our fearless leader is desperately in love with someone worthy of his affections." And then Amanita slipped past the curtain and strolled up to the front of the bus and got off just as it slowed down enough for the door to open.
Eventually the driver came back and pulled down the curtains and rolled them up under his seat. Kala felt odd in the clothes and strange sunglasses this late at night but said nothing.
She rode around on the bus while it made its regular route, sitting up front and reading a book that the driver handed to her. It was about learning martial arts. Kala didn't actually want to read it but he said it was part of the disguise.
Felix appeared at some point and guided Kala off the bus and into a taxi that then drove to an area of town Kala had never seen before. There was a big brick building with a large driveway in front of it.
Inside she finds Lito and two people she recognizes. There is the tall man from the coffee shop and that girl that works as a DJ. Riley. She looks worse than last time Kala saw her, sunken eyes and long sleeves and pants covering most of her body in a saggy defense.
They hurt Riley.
The tall man walks forward with a contained smile on his face and his hand held out.
"Nice to properly meet you. I'm Will." Kala shakes his hand. "I broke the chair." That makes Kala laugh, which clearly was his intent. "Wolfgang will be here in a little bit, we were going to watch a movie if you want to join us."
It's a bit surreal. This all feels so normal and calm. They lead her into a room that is clearly for watching movies, outfitted with two big arm chairs and a sofa. Will sits in one of the chairs and then gathers Riley onto his lap before pulling a thick blanket over the two of them and resting his chin on her head. Lito makes a lot of noise about what to watch and eventually settles on one of the Zorro movies.
Kala sits on the sofa and feels strange. Her blood hasn't stopped rushing through her veins since she woke up in the secondary clinic. She feels like she wants to scream or collapse or both.
Lito brings her a glass of water and some asprin while he keeps a running commentary of how the movie would be improved by having the actors actually speak Spanish. Every now and then Will or Lito will suddenly go silent or completely still, their eyes glassy and far off. They will come back to themselves moments later but she knows that something is happening elsewhere. They are here watching her, but also helping finish whatever it is that is going on somewhere else.
This goes on for a very long time, or at least what feels like a very long time. Then there is a ringing in Kala's ears and suddenly she finds her vision overlapping. She sees the movie they are watching but also somewhere else.
Wolfgang is standing over an older Indian man with a gun in his hand.
"Aren't you going to tear me to pieces, beast?" the man sneers.
"You know, I never intended to come after you for what you did to the others," Wolfgang tells him. "The world is a better place without my uncle and cousin. But your son brought her into this. Our war never had casualties until you decided to protect humanity."
"Killing me won’t stop you from being hunted," the man laughs.
"I know." Wolfgang shoots him in the head. Kala gasps and Wolfgang turns to look at her with a stone faced expression, but his eyes betray him. Wolfgang looks ready to cry. "You shouldn't be here."
"I don’t know how I am," Kala admits, looking around. Lito and Will are looking at her with shock in their eyes. Riley gives her an unreadable look.
Don't fight it.
Wolfgang turns as if to look at someone and Kala sees what might be the outline of Riley next to him. He nods his head at the outline and turns back to Kala.
"I will see you back at the house," Wolfgang tells Kala and then turns away from her. The connection breaks and she finds herself back only in the large house. Will and Lito are gone and she is alone with Riley, who is watching her.
"What did you say to him?" Kala asks. She had not considered that Wolfgang and Riley were very close - when he had spoken about her before it sounded more like she was one of them but not the person he saw the most. But what Kala just saw suggested a closeness that she had not heard about before.
"I told him I needed to deal with this." Riley stands up and comes to sit down next to Kala. "Did Wolfgang tell you about all our differences?"
"Each of you is a different person with different skills," Kala quotes.
"Yes" Riley nods. "Lito is our grifter -" She pauses and shakes her head. "Excuse me, AC-TOR," she enunciates like someone is speaking it back to her. Kala tries to hide her giggle. "Will was a police officer for years.... he knows a lot about guns and the law." Riley pauses and fiddles with the threads of her sweatshirt. "I can do things with my mind the others cannot," Riley finally says.
Kala isn't sure what to say to that. She has known that the werewolves are able to communicate telepathically and have the ability to share skills within the pack. But until earlier today she didn't think they could do it with anyone else. Only they had, with her.
"What we did today, with you, that connection. It should have been something I did. A connection like that normally takes the oracle's skills to be established. But I wasn't even awake when it happened. Wolfgang established a mental link with you and then expanded that link to the entire pack on his own."
Riley turns to look at Kala. There is an eternity in her eyes. Kala had never looked Riley directly in the eye and now she realizes it was probably a deliberate action. Kala thinks about how Riley had just called herself an oracle. I can do things with my mind the others cannot. Riley's mind is larger and bigger and vaster than a single mind.
"What he did today to save you is nothing short of a miracle," Riley tells Kala in a completely serious tone. "You are in here now." Riley tapped at her temple. "I know you like I know the rest of the pack." Kala was a little bit in shock. "Don't hurt him." Riley got up and walked away, leaving Kala with her thoughts.
When Wolfgang did finally arrive he looked like he was on a funeral march. Kala could see in his eyes that he was expecting rejection or fear or something. It broke her heart. Kala was out of her chair before he could even fully enter the room and on top of him before she made the conscious decision to move.
They had been eating when he arrived, Lito having declared that food was required if they were going to do nothing but sit and wait. Kala heard the other three leave the kitchen and go somewhere else the moment she reached him.
Kala didn't realize she was crying until her lips pressed against his and tasted of salt. All the emotion she had been holding in from today and everything that had happened came pouring out all at once. Wolfgang is holding her and kissing her back and the pain of the last couple of days falls away.
Then small parts of it comes tearing back into her mind. She pulls back and slaps him on the face. It's not a very hard slap, Kala barely puts any real force behind the action, but Wolfgang looks like a stunned puppy for a moment.
"Don't you ever ignore me again!" She stabs her index finger into his chest. "I will make you live to regret it."
Wolfgang laughs. She was not expecting that. It is not a small laugh, contained in his chest or throat. He full body shakes, can barely get air in his laughs. His arms that were already around her squeeze tightly in an effort to suck in air or maybe just to hold Kala close. He buries his face in her neck and full on wheezes.
"I am not kidding, Wolfgang. I am a fully trained medical professional and I have sisters. I am not to be trifled with," Kala insisted. He, however, was becoming a dead weight against her and Kala had to lean against the door frame to remain upright. "Riley will verify that I can be just a terrible as anyone when I need to be." Wolfgang just kept on laughing and holding her.
He pulls her in for a kiss when his laughing begins to subside.
"I love you," he smiles into her mouth.
"I love you too." She knows this is true. Sure there are things they will have to deal with. Problems ahead of them. But she has him and he has her and they have the pack. They will get through this. It doesn't matter who these people are that think they can hunt and hurt Wolfgang and his family, because Kala will destroy them with her bare hands before she lets that happen.