Chapter 22: The Pup

"Yes," I said.

The healer waited, as if there might be more.

"Yes, if he tells me every second of it," I said. "Out loud. Nothing behind a lid."

Duncan took my hand in both of his.

"Every second," he said. "I swear it."

"Then open your side."

"Hazel, it's too much. You're already..."

"Open it."

He closed his eyes.

I opened mine, and we met in the middle.

It was not like the hall.

In the hall it had come at me, a year and a half of locked rooms in one breath.

Now it came from both directions, and where the two met I felt a third thing.

It was small.

It was fast, and frightened, and no bigger than the span of my hand.

"There she is," Duncan whispered.

"I feel her."

"She's cold. She's working too hard."

"Give her some."

"I'm giving her half."

"Give her all of it," I said. "I'll give her mine."

We poured into her.

I could feel her wolf, a spark the size of a seed, taking it and holding it.

The heartbeat on the monitor stumbled.

Then it caught, and rose, and steadied into a quick even gallop.

"Good," the healer said, in her flat voice, and I saw her hands shake. "Keep that. Do not let go of it. Hazel, push on the next one."

I pushed.

The rest of it was noise and heat, and the clock on the wall that nobody looked at.

I remember Duncan counting breaths in my ear.

I remember the nurse saying "good girl, good girl" to someone who might have been me or the pup.

I remember Clint in the corridor, saying something to Orson about fainting that Orson denied.

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