Authors: Lexi Lewis
“Karic Jacobs, are you still here?”
Karic lifted his head from where he had been examining the chart of one of his patients. Allie, one of the nurses was standing in front of him with her hands on her hips, looking stern.
“Uh…yes?” he replied, smiling sheepishly at her.
“Do you have any idea what time it is, young man? You've been here for hours already. Go home before I drag you out to your car and take you there myself.”
He laughed at her threat, but the gleam in her eye told Karic that she might have been serious about that. “Okay, okay,” he said, putting down the chart and raising his hands in a gesture of peace. He checked his watch and grimaced when he saw it was closing in on midnight. He hadn't meant to stay this long. “I was on my way out anyway. Mrs. Kaplan's coming in tomorrow morning, so I just wanted to make sure that she—”
“Mrs. Kaplan will be fine,” Allie said, shooing him away from the desk and towards the back where his things were. “Dr. Dearborn has been treating her since before you knew which way to hold a stethoscope, and you're not working in the morning anyway.”
“I really don't think either of them are that old, Allie, but I take your point.”
“Good. Then get out of here.”
Karic didn't need to be told again.
“Alright, I'll see you guys tomorrow night,” he said as he made his way out of the office, waving over his shoulder. He stretched languidly, popping the bones in his back and shoulders as he made his way to his car. It had been a long shift, one of the all too frequent ones that ended up lasting more than twelve hours, and all he wanted was to get home and get in the bed as soon as possible. His body ached from being on his feet all day, tending to patients and helping Dr. Dearborn with the various needs of the people who came in. Apparently there was some kind of bug going around the elementary school, and they'd seen no fewer than six kids all complaining of stomach pains and nausea, so that had been a job and a half in itself.
Karic was just an assistant at the office, the equivalent to a student doing his residency, really, but ever since he had proven that he had a way with people and didn't mind doing hard work, Dr. Dearborn had been giving him more and more responsibility.
“It'll look good on your resume,” she always said with a warm smile lighting up her dark eyes. “For when you finally get out of this town.”
And Karic always laughed at that and took whatever chart or paper she was holding out for him, even though he knew that there was a very high chance that he would be here for much longer than she expected. He didn't have a problem with that, either. Carterstown was small enough that most people on this side of the river knew each other, but large enough that you never really had to leave it to get the things you needed.
All the nurses and receptionists at the office knew him, and they all took it upon themselves to look after him, to make sure he ate enough and that he wasn't overworked. To be honest, after coming from a family that usually seemed to barely give a shit about him, this tight-knit kind of thing was definitely something he enjoyed.
A roll of thunder made him look up, and he made a face when a raindrop splattered onto his glasses. “Well, that's just fucking awesome,” he said under his breath, walking faster to get to his car before it really started to come down. The air had been hot and heavy all day, humidity lingering in the air and pressing down on everyone like it only seemed to in the south, so he knew that this was going to be a major rainstorm. The last thing he wanted was to be caught out in it.
He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment when he got into his car, shutting the door firmly to keep the pattering rain outside and starting the engine so he could turn on his wipers. The road that ran along the river sometimes flooded when it started raining, but it was the fastest way back to his house, and if he hurried, he could make it before it really started to pour. There was left over Chinese food in his refrigerator that was calling his name, and since he didn't have to be in to the office until five to work the late shift, he could make up for this long day by sleeping in and doing nothing for a while.
“Alright, plan,” he said under his breath as he backed out of his parking spot and then turned his car in the direction of Abrams Road. Karic tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the tune of the song that was playing as he drove, but he made sure to keep his eyes open. Sometimes deer would leap out of the woods that ran along one side of the river, darting over the bridge and into the road, and the last thing he wanted to do was hit one. With the way the rain was starting to fall in sheets, he'd be lucky if he saw it before he hit it.
His wipers were beating back and forth quickly, the sound adding to the rhythmic lull of driving, and Karic started wishing that he'd had another cup of coffee before he'd left the office. He smothered a yawn with one hand, and managed to focus just in time to slam on his brakes, sending his car skidding to the side a bit on the slick street.
Adrenaline pounded through him as he squinted through the darkness and the rain to see if he could make out what it was that he'd seen. It was too small to be a deer, and from what he could tell, the figure had climbed over the guardrail from the river and was proceeding to collapse on the side of the road. Karic checked the rearview mirror to make sure no one was coming, and then slowly eased his car closer to the guardrail. It would have been better to just ignore whatever or whoever this was because anyone who came out of the river in a storm like this was probably more trouble than there were worth. But there was a reason why Karic was working to become a doctor and why he had been the one everyone had brought their sick animals to when he was younger. There was something about seeing something or someone wounded that just refused to let him ignore it.
So he sighed and took his seatbelt off, groaning at the deluge of rain. He counted to five in his head and then opened the car door, darting out into the night. He could only hope that his headlights would illuminate the person (he was just going to assume that it was a person) enough for him to be able to see them and them to see him.
When he got close enough, he could tell that it was a woman. She was lying on her back in the space next to the guardrail, and her clothes were plastered to her body. All he could tell was that she was a short little thing with generous curves, and Karic mentally slapped himself for noticing things like that when she was clearly in trouble and worn out from the way her chest was heaving as she fought to breathe.
“Excuse me, ma'am?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the pounding rain and the wind that had picked up. “Ma'am?”
The woman sat up quickly, eyes squinting as she tried to focus on him. “Who are you? What do you want?” she asked, and her voice seemed to tremble. Well, that made sense. It was a warm night, but after taking a plunge into the river, she was probably cold anyway, and she was clearly winded.
“My name is Karic,” he replied. “Do you need help? Only it's raining, and you're on the side of the road.”
A dry laugh was her response. “Yeah, I'd noticed that. You…are you from this side of the river?”
That was an odd question, but Karic nodded, pushing sodden hair out of his face. The longer he stood there, the wetter he was getting, and the remaining drive back to his house was going to be highly unpleasant at this rate, but he couldn't just leave her there. “Look, it's probably going to be coming down like this for the rest of the night at least, and if you need a ride or something, I can help you. Or a place to stay for the night, even? Just…you can't stay out here.”
He watched as she chewed on her lip, and he couldn't help but smile at seeing the familiar action on another face. Karic didn't know what was hard to decide about getting out of the rain or not, but he supposed he was a stranger to her, so it made sense. This was clearly a woman who had something to be afraid of. Who had something to hide. Or maybe she was being chased, he didn't know.
Just as he was about to ask again, the woman stretched out one hand in his direction. “Oh,” Karic said, and he could have slapped himself. “Right. Let me help you up there.” He hurried over to her and took her hand, brows furrowing when it was warmer that it should have been. He looked at her face, seeing that she had closed her eyes and seemed to be gathering herself together. “Are…you hurt?” he asked. “I can probably carry you.” Shifters, especially those of the canine persuasion, were gifted with strength, and her ample curves aside, this woman was probably easily lifted.
Her eyes were on him a second later, and she nodded. “Please,” she said, voice soft. “I think I twisted my ankle when I fell.”
Karic nodded in return and was careful not to jostle her too much as he knelt and got his arms under her. He rose onto one knee and then the other, holding her close to his chest as he made his way back to the car. The woman was soaked through, and he could feel the frantic thrum of her pulse as he held her. “It's okay,” he said. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
“I know,” she murmured back, and her voice sounded weaker than it had before. “I don't think you've ever hurt another living thing. Not on purpose.”
Karic's mouth opened to ask her how she could possibly figure that, but when he looked down, he saw that she was unconscious. “Hell,” he swore under his breath. He'd been planning to have her ride in the front with him, but instead he got her settled across the back seat. His upholstery would dry, and he was almost as wet as she was at this point anyway.
It wasn't a long drive back to his place, and Karic couldn't help but glance in the rearview mirror at his unexpected passenger every few minutes. She was pretty for a girl who had climbed out of the river, her face sweet and cherubic and framed by dark hair that was escaping from the bun it had been pulled into. There was a bag slung over her shoulder, which definitely supported the theory that she was running from something, and Karic found himself wondering what it was or if she needed help. She looked young, definitely younger than him, and he could smell the musky scent of lion under the water and fear that otherwise clung to her. A shifter, then. He knew there was a pride nearby, on the other side of the river, which definitely went a long way towards explaining why she had wanted to know which side of the river he was from.
Karic didn't know anything about the pride at all, but he had seen members of it out and about in town. He didn’t do packs or groups, preferring to be alone most of the time, and if this woman was running from her pride, then it seemed like he had the right idea. He'd never had time for the dynamics that went along with packs and similar groups. Karic liked to be able to do what he wanted when he wanted to, and he generally preferred the company of humans to other shifters when at all possible. That was one of the reasons he loved this town so much. People knew about shifters and were more than tolerant of them, but humans outnumbered them five to one, and it was much more comfortable in Karic's mind by being surrounded by other shifters all the time. Shifters were unpredictable, territorial, and brash, and he got stressed out just thinking about it.
Luckily, he was pulling into his driveway before long, sighing at the fact that it was still pouring down rain outside. It would be warm and dry inside his house, but he had to get himself and this mystery woman out of the car and into the house before he could take advantage of that.
“Shouldn't be too hard,” he mumbled as he turned the car off and glanced back at the woman once again. He couldn't help but smile at how much more peaceful she looked when she was out cold and not shivering in the rain, but he shook himself and headed back out into the rain to get her out of the car.
Ten minutes and much muted swearing later, and Karic had them both inside. He had dripped an impressive puddle onto the floor of his entryway, and he sighed and added that to his list of things to take care of tomorrow before his shift. It was looking less and less like he was going to get to have the nice relaxing morning in bed that he wanted, but he couldn't deny that he had brought this on himself. “As per usual.” He put the sleeping woman down in one of the chairs in the living room and then spread a few towels on the couch, moving her once it was ready so that she could lie flat.
His plan to go to sleep when he got home was clearly foiled. It wouldn't do for her to wake up in a strange house with him off in the bed, so he sighed and went to go change into something clean and dry and then heat up the Chinese food in his refrigerator, planning to settle in until the woman woke up.