Lydia's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Morning came gray through the small paned windows. Lydia woke in her cottage bed, sore but steadier. The full moon had passed. That meant her wolves would turn back to human by now. She wanted to see them safe with her own eyes. She pushed the covers off and swung her feet to the floor. She stood too fast. Her stomach lurched. She dropped to her knees and threw up on the floorboards. The cramp gripped her tight. She couldn't stand. She reached for her phone and called Erica. Erica picked up on the second ring. But her voice was wrong. Thin. Breathless. "Lydia, I can't—" A gag cut her off. Lydia heard her friend heave on the other end. "I've been sick all night. Like, since the moon dropped. Can't stop." Lydia's chest went cold. Erica had a bad gut too. And after full moons the flares hit hardest. Both of them were down at once. The wolves were human again and unguarded in Erica's shed, in a town where hunters killed on sight. A fist banged the cottage door. Lydia crawled toward it, one hand on her belly. She reached up and turned the latch. The door swung in. Malia stood in the doorway. She was one of the pack, out of her wolf form now, brown hair loose and face pale. Before she said a word she bent double and threw up on the doormat. Malia had the worst stomach of them all. IBS. Gastroparesis. The vomiting that came in waves before and after every moon. "Sorry," Malia whispered. She stepped inside and dropped onto the couch. Then she slid down and got sick on the floor again. Three of them, all sick, all useless. Lydia's plan had been simple. Get up, drive to the shed, bring the pack home. Now she couldn't cross her own room without vomiting. The plan was dead. Lydia stopped fighting her body. She pressed her back to the wall and made herself think. She still had the phone in her hand. "Malia," she said. "Who's not sick? Who came back clean?" Malia wiped her mouth. "Scott. Stiles. They turned back fine." Of course. The boys clashed with Erica, but they were pack. Lydia typed with shaking thumbs. She told them where the shed was. She told them the others were down. She told them to move the four wolves left inside before daylight brought hunters walking. The reply came fast. On it. Lydia set the phone on her chest. She couldn't guard the pack today. Her body wouldn't let her. So she had handed the job to the two she trusted least to work together. That was the price of being sick when it mattered. Malia curled up on the couch. Lydia stayed on the floor beside the mess, waiting for Scott's next message. The pack's safety was out of her hands now, and in Scott and Stiles's.