WHAT DID I DO NOW?

When I next woke up there was a glowing Killion sitting at the edge of my bed. Harvey was leaning on my dresser, arms crossed in his leather jacket... except that he was frowning. I had never seen that look before, in my mind, he was always smiling.

I heard Dad's growl from the door of my room humming like a motor... Something's upset him, but I couldn't see because a white haired glowy Killion was blocking my view. I wanted to sit myself up and ask what's going on but something was holding me down, something comfortable and warm.

I wondered for a moment if Killion had said something to annoy Dad. Wait, wasn't Killion's healing ability supposed to be a secret?

Then something wet fell on my face. Tears, I could smell them, but not my tears. I heard Dad come over and felt the bed sink down behind me, "Shhh... Darling, shhh...She's alright. Just in shock."

"She was bleeding to death!" It was Mum, crying and unusually overdramatic, "My daughter was bleeding to death while the rest of us stood around drinking coffee and celebrating!"

Why? Did something happen to Savy while I was sleeping? I felt my wolf stir. Where was Savy? I pulled myself out of the warm comfortable cocoon I was in. It was Mum, hugging me over my quilt.

Harvey immediately pushed off from the dresser, "She's awake, Luna."

Killion's glow started to fade.

"I'm going to have to sleep off the rest of today now." He grumbled. His hair turned dark and he stood up from the bed.

"Where's Savy?" I growled.

"Calm down, Sam." Dad had moved to hold me down, "Savy is in school."

Something was hurting my hand, a red IV tube connected to a metal stand with a bag of... was that blood?

"What's this? Take it off!"

Grrr... I would pull it out myself except I knew it would just make a bigger mess.

"Calm down, Sam." Dad repeated again.

"Delta Simon is on his way over." Harvey reported.

"Thank you, Harvey." Dad said.

Mum started to cry again. If her face was anything to go by, it would seem that she had been crying quite a lot, "If you boys hadn't checked on her..."

"Then you would have checked on her just a few minutes later and found her unconscious too." Killion interjected smoothly.

{Delta is near}

I blinked and looked at Dad. His face was drawn in grim lines. Okay, I didn't know what happened, but I was familiar with this situation I've woken up to. I had been inadvertently walking into it a lot this year.

"Okay," I said with a sigh, "Somebody tell me, what did I do now?"

Guess what? It turned out not to be what I did, but what I didn't do. Or according to Harvey, what he didn't do. It seemed like Harvey was blaming himself for the whole thing.

Which was confusing on its own, but Harvey was taking his failure pretty hard. And Mum was being uncharacteristically dramatic, which I'm starting to link to whenever I return from a fight. And Dad was upset, probably because Mum was upset, and also maybe because Delta Simon had told them that I could have died. Why would Delta Simon say something like that? And Killion wasn't helping in the explanation either because he had sat himself at my desk and fallen asleep.

But eventually, I managed to sort out what they were telling me. For your benefit, I've fitted their jumbled retelling in chronological order, at least I attempted to:

ACCORDING TO DAD: During my fight with Gamma Endo, I had punched him with too much wolf power surging through my arm, which caused some pretty bad damage, not just in the joints where the impact was the greatest, but also several veins were broken. It was bad enough to bleed.

The combined damage of the joints and my entire body in general, put a strain on my healing abilities which was untargeted, healing the whole body evenly at the same time. So my hand took much longer to heal and the blood was left dripping without first aid or medical attention. Which made things even worse, since the loss of blood slowed the overall healing even more, resulting in further blood loss since the damaged hand healed even slower.

ENTER HARVEY'S POV: Harvey had not known about how my punch was powered by using Wolfie strength or how that wrecked my body in the long run. He had wondered why my hand was bleeding, but had heard me say I was fine and took my word for it.

When Darlyn pointed it out and Flynn suggested medical attention, Harvey had mind-link Killion. Their plan was to get me home quickly and had Killion heal me without any one seeing. Harvey had figured it would be quicker than calling in the delta who was examining Gamma Endo anyway.

Unfortunately, Savy and Lizzy were in the living room, so they tried to follow me to my room. And then I pretty much alpha commanded them out and went to take a shower.

So the both of them stood outside my bedroom door and waited. The creeps. So they waited and listened to me shower and come out of the bathroom and change. What occurred to me at this point was how Harvey could get away with admitting to something like this and sound like a dedicated beta for it. I would like to hear Killion say the same thing and not get beaten up for being a pervert.

Anyway, I digressed. Back to the story.

The both of them were expecting me to leave my room so they could check my wound and Killion could heal me if necessary. But when there was silence... They started worrying.

I didn't answer when they knocked, and Harvey didn't want to open my bedroom door without my permission. I didn't answer their mindlinks either.

After 15 minutes of silence, they pretty much mind-linked my dad and opened my bedroom door to find me in my bed, "barely alive" ( but I'm sure this was just an exaggeration on their part.)

MUM'S TURN: Meanwhile, mum had come home to tell me my bus was at the pack house. When I wasn't at the door leaving for school, she came upstairs to find Killion and Harvey in my room unable to wake me. Killion had already figured out it was blood loss and the two guys had meant to let Killion heal me. But Mum pretty much panicked and called for Dad, who turned up with Delta Simon.

BACK TO HARVEY: So my two betas had to wait for Delta Simon to come examine me, diagnose me with hemorrhagic shock, wait for the nurses and technical staff to set up, hook me up for a blood transfusion, and tell them I could have died. Which triggered my mum into an immediate bout of tears. After Delta Simon left, my mum refused to leave my room. My dad stayed too. And Killion had no choice but to heal me in front of them.

So Killion had been casting healing for a full half hour, and had estimated that if he had kept healing till I woke up, it would mean my blood cells have regenerated and the rest of me would be fully healed. It was true, my arm and hand didn't hurt anymore. My actual injuries had not been serious. It wasn't so much the injuries than the blood loss from not having the injuries treated.

Which Harvey for some inexplicable reason took as his fault for not having someone deal with my injuries from the very beginning. Especially since he had noticed it from the very beginning.

But Harvey wasn't the only one convinced that he was to blame.

BACK TO MUM AGAIN: Mum blamed herself for not checking on me earlier and leaving me alone after the fight to drink coffee and chat with the other ladies. What kind of mother would do that?

NOW DAD'S TURN: It wasn't Mum's fault at all. Mum was a beautiful and wonderful mother. It was his fault.

Dad blamed himself for ever teaching me the merging technique. He knew it was dangerous, and that my slender frame would never hold out in a prolonged battle, but the rogues had been a constant and real threat when I was younger, and my dad thought that giving me this technique would increase the odds in my favor to protect myself and Savy, even if just to create the opening to run away.

He never thought I would practice it consistently enough to have merged this much, or expected my wolf to be so powerful, or that I would use it to establish myself as Alpha... And from the looks of it, he suspected that this wasn't the first time I had been using my merged powers. The level of control and ease of manipulation in battle caused him to wonder how often I used this dangerous technique.

IN CONCLUSION: Opps. He suspected right, I've use this technique fighting vampires and rogues, sparring at training sessions, playing dodge ball, and breaking open locker doors by accident... But in very short and measure doses, so that it had never strained my body... Okay, there was a little strain with the vampires. I was pushing it a bit then, and yeah, there was today too.

So actually, I was the one to blame. I misused my power, went overboard and caused damage to my body, and made everyone around me troubled.

{Delta approaches}

The doorbell rang and Harvey excused himself to answer it. He returned shortly with Delta Simon, who looked bemused at Killion sleeping at my desk and surprised that I had recovered so quickly.

I just wanted him to unplug me, but he refused. I should finish this bag at least. What? Did I look like a vampire to him?

Delta Simon spoke quietly to my dad and then said he would return around lunchtime to check on me and maybe, just maybe remove the tube.

Grrrr...

Delta Simon excused himself quickly after that.

Grrrr...

"Someone unplug me!" I whined... and then I suddenly had a succession of realizations:

I had missed my bus to school.

In fact I'm terribly late.

Plus I had to go because Zara was counting on me to bring the cupcake toppings.

"School! I have to go to school!"

Wow, all that blood loss must have addled my brain. I can't believe I said that.