Chapter 3: Chapter 2 - Auden

Tuesday 1 December

~*Auden’s POV*~

“Mum?”

Even though I was snoozing, I felt my mind racing with all the possibilities this unexpected guest we had picked up presented us with. She seemed to be one of us, but there was something different about her. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was like she was there, but she wasn’t. I’d never felt that before, and I didn’t know how to decipher the uneasy feeling that gave me.

“Mum??”

My mind flicked back to the first words that she had said to me. “Refuge. Help.” Refuge from what? What was she running from? The state of her feet made me think she’d been running all night. And that black wolf… It wasn’t half obvious she was running from him. If he is who I think he is…

“Mum!”

I felt a sharp jab in my midsection when my daughter poked me. “Ow! What?!” I opened my eyes and glared at Cody.

She glared right back at me. I’d always loved the fact that she could dish whatever I gave to her right back at me. She’d grown up to be such a strong young woman, even with everything she’d gone through. “We’re just about home.” She returned her eyes to the road.

I relaxed and nodded once. Looking behind us, I could see that the blonde woman was still asleep, curled in the scratchy old tartan blanket we kept in the car for emergencies. Although she was completely out of it, she looked like she was in pain, like she was reliving something in her dreams. I hoped that whatever she was dreaming about could help with her memory. We needed some idea of who she was so we could decide what to do with her.

I leaned towards her and tapped her softly on her knee. She shifted away from me, but I wasn’t about to give up that easily. I placed my hand fully on her knee and gave it a little shake. She startled awake, screeching as she jumped in her seat. The only thing holding her in place was her seatbelt.

“Shh… It’s okay. It’s just me. My name is Auden. We picked you up a little while ago. Do you remember?” I patted her on the knee to calm her.

Her eyes darted around the car, trying to find an escape point. I repeated my murmurings, softly patting her knee until she settled. Her clear blue eyes locked onto mine, as her breathing became steadier.

“There we go,” I murmured. “You remember me?”

She nodded slowly.

“Good. That’s good.” I paused as I stared into her eyes, trying to read her again. Still nothing. She was an enigma, that was for sure. “Do you remember your name yet?”

She stared at me with wide, panicked eyes. I could see her mind working, but it still seemed like she was struggling.

“No.”

“That’s okay. It’ll come back to you, eventually. Just give it some time.”

She nodded slowly, but she didn’t look confident in that assessment.

“We’re getting closer to where we live. I work at the doctor’s surgery there, so we can check you out to make sure you’re okay; clean-up all your injuries, stuff like that.” I thought to myself that I’d like to get an x-ray of her head too, just to make sure she hadn’t hit her head. The memory loss was likely to go away on its own soon, but it could suggest a more substantial head injury. It hadn’t looked like she’d hit her head when we found her, but not all injuries caused bleeding.

“Before we get you to the clinic, though, I need to take you to see a good friend of mine. His name’s Takeshi. He works in this area…” I paused. How do I explain what he does? “He’s like a sheriff of sorts.”

The woman’s whole body tensed at the mention of an authority figure.

“It’s okay,” I tried to calm her. “He’s a lovely guy. You’ll like him. He’ll be able to find out if you’re missing from the local area without raising too many red flags. He’ll help keep you safe, I promise.”

Her eyes drilled into mine before her body slowly relaxed. This woman was wound tighter than a spring, yet I could not blame her anxiety given the state we had found her in.

She nodded ever so slowly to me. I smiled at her. She didn’t talk much, but she sure did like to nod or shake her head to get her point across. I turned back around in my seat to see where we were, to find that Cody was heading towards the centre of town. We weren’t too far away from our destination now.

A few minutes later, we parked in the large carpark outside the multi-level building that housed the main offices. Even though it was still only eight in the morning, I knew Takeshi would be in his office. The man was a certified workaholic. I honestly didn’t know when he found the time to sleep. Thankfully, because of the hour, the Ball that was held a couple of nights ago, and the full moon last night, there were very few people wandering around outside. None of them noticed us as we coaxed our blanket clad guest out of the car and towards the building.

“Cody, can you grab a spare t-shirt and some shorts for our visitor from the lost and found?”

“Sure, Mum,” she said, before darting into the building ahead of us.

I urged the woman forward, getting her to lean on me. With the cuts and bruises that riddled her feet, it astonished me she was walking as well as she was. Her needing my support wasn’t surprising in the slightest. “We get a ton of guests here around this time every year. You’d be shocked by what they leave behind. It’ll be easy for Cody to find you something to wear for now.”

Just as I finished talking, Cody returned with a huge, tie-dyed t-shirt and a pair of black, draw-string board shorts. “See? Told you. I swear the people we get visiting are a bunch of animals.” I smirked as I looked at Cody, who laughed. Our guest looked at both of us, frowning ever so slightly.

“Come on. Let’s get you to the public bathroom so you can put these on,” Cody said to the woman, placing her arm around her waist with one arm, and holding onto the clothes in the other.

“I’ll find Takeshi and give him a quick rundown before I come back for her. Once she gets changed, can you sit with her in the waiting area?” Cody nodded to me, then returned her attention to the nameless woman, ushering her to the public facilities in the building.

I paused, watching them for a second. How was I going to explain this to Takeshi? There wasn’t anyone at the lobby desk yet as it was still too early, so I walked directly to Takeshi’s office and knocked on the door, hoping that it, too, was empty.

“Come in.” A muffled, but tired, voice called out from the other side of the door.

I scowled. I knew he’d be in his office. He should still be in bed, but does he listen to his doctor? Not bloody likely. I rolled my eyes before opening the door.

“Wipe that expression from your face, Auden. It’s not up to you how much I decide to work,” Takeshi said, without looking up from the paperwork he was rummaging through on his desk. He was standing behind it, dressed in a dark suit, tailored to fit him perfectly, and a black shirt that had the top couple of buttons left undone. There must be a big meeting today, as he normally wouldn’t bother with such an expensive suit. He wasn’t wearing a tie yet, which suggested the meeting would be later this afternoon.

“I’m your damn doctor, Takeshi. Of course it’s up to me how much you work,” I responded tersely, crossing my arms in front of me.

He finally looked up, with a wry grin on his face; paperwork put aside for the moment. He had combed his usual unruly black hair back today, lending him a more professional appearance. Although I could tell that he had tried to look as clean cut as possible, he hadn’t bothered shaving; his stubble was at least two or three days old, which meant that although the meeting was important, he felt comfortable with the people that were coming, yet still felt the need to be as professional as he could be. His dark, burnt umber eyes crinkled at the corners as his grin turned into a laugh.

“You know what I’m like. Too much to do, not enough hours in the day to do it.” He walked towards me, arms out to prepare me for one of his infamous hugs.

I grumbled as he embraced me. I knew he had a ton on his plate. It didn’t stop me from worrying about him, though. I hesitantly returned the hug.

“How was the Ball?” he asked when he finally let go, holding me at arm’s length.

“Good. No major hiccups.”

“Good, good.” He patted me on the shoulder a couple of times before letting his hands drop, then turned back towards his desk.

“But…” I started, then paused.

He stopped and turned back to face me, keeping his weight balanced on one foot. A slight look of concern drifted over his face. “What happened?”

“We have an unknown visitor.”

He tilted his head to one side as he took the news in. “Auden, we currently have many visitors. Are you sure that this ‘unknown visitor’ is not one of them?”

“I can’t recall seeing her at the Ball, but I might have missed her in the crowd,” I admitted. “The thing is… She can’t remember her name… Or much of anything else about herself, actually. Cody and I found her crashing through the trees at the Black Spur, naked as the day she was born. She kept repeating the words ‘refuge’, ‘run’, and ‘help’.”

Takeshi blinked a few times as he took the news in, before heading back to the plush office seat to sit behind his desk. “Well, that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t at the Ball, especially if she’s lost her memory. We’ll have to fingerprint her to be sure.” He sat down and leaned back into the chair, placed his hands on the desk, and intertwined his fingers.

“That shouldn’t be an issue. We might have to get tricky with getting them though; she’s fairly nervous.” I moved forward to sit in one of the two chairs opposite him.

He nodded, contemplating what I’d just told him. “I’ll get her a drink of water. We should be able to get the prints off the glass. Is she one of us? Or do I need to get others involved?”

“She’s definitely one of us. Her eyes glowed when I first talked to her, but they haven’t since. You can run your own check to be sure, though.”

He nodded again, then opened the top drawer to his right and lifted out a small box.

“But she’s different, Takeshi.”

He paused with the box still in his hands. He started idly playing with it, turning it over and over. “How so?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to get a read on her.”

He frowned and slowly placed the box on the desk in front of him.

“There’s more that you need to be aware of. There was a black wolf. It looked like he was following her. He was definitely not one of ours. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that it was James, but it’s been years since I’ve seen him, so I can’t be one hundred percent sure.”

Takeshi narrowed his eyes at me. If he was unhappy now, he was going to be furious shortly.

“The guards showed up a couple of minutes after the mystery woman and the wolf did. Not sure which guards as they never broke cover. It took them way too long to get to us and made far too much noise. He pissed off before they could get to us, so I don’t know if they caught up to him or not. None of them came our way at all.”

He growled. Yup, he was definitely unhappy with that news. “I know we’ve got more people than usual in the area at the moment, but they should have been more on top of things than that, especially being at the Borderlands. I’ll have a word with everyone once we’re done here.”

I inclined my head in agreement. He was just as angry at the guards for this lapse in judgement as I was. There was no need for me to dwell any longer on the subject than I already had, so I shifted the conversation back to the mystery woman.

“She’s outside with Cody. She should be dressed by now. You want me to bring her in?”

He nodded his consent, so I got up and went to the waiting room. Sure enough, Cody was sitting with the blanket now folded in her lap, chattering away to our guest, who was sitting next to her and still looking very unsure of herself, but clad in clothes that were far too big for her. Her eyes darted around the room, like a startled rabbit waiting for something to jump out and take a bite off her.

“You can come in now.” I stood in the doorway to Takeshi’s office and waved her forward. “Cody? Are you okay sitting here for the moment? We shouldn’t be too long.”

“No problems, Mum,” Cody responded airily. She put the blanket on the seat next to her and leaned forward to shuffle through the magazines on the coffee table in front of her.

The very tall blonde looked at Cody before slowly getting out of her seat and making her way across the waiting area towards me. I nudged her into the room and closed the door. “Take a seat.”