Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 164: Everything Else Will Fall In Line

Chapter 164: Everything Else Will Fall In Line

Rip’s hand trailed up and down, tracing Wang Tian Mu’s spine, and felt every vertebrate under her silky soft skin. She had fallen asleep a few minutes ago, but she was so tired she was completely out of it.

The energy she spent on Li Dai Lu was too much, and it was still affecting her now.

Not to mention the problem with Alpha.

Letting out a long sigh, Rip made a list of things he needed to do in order of importance. Finding Alpha, though, was not even making the top ten.

Hell, it might be beneficial for them if he called a hunt. At least that way, his Little Bird would be able to get enough energy when Reavers started popping out of the woodwork.

Unfortunately, while he knew how to kill Reavers, he had yet to figure out of to get them to stay dead unless Wang Tian Mu sucked them dry. And if she consumed too many of them, would there be consequences to it?

Was there a ’power’ equivalent to a stomach ache?

He would have to look into that.

A quiet knock on the door took him out of his thoughts. He knew it wasn’t the quack of a doctor; he just barged in after pounding on the door. No, this must be one of the men who followed them from the Camp.

Slowly, the door opened, and a face poked out through the crack.

"Is she sleeping?" he whispered, his voice so low that it would have been impossible for Wang Tian Mu to hear him. He wasn’t sure which one of them it was... they all kind of blended together, but he knew for sure it wasn’t the ex-fiancé.

Rip nodded his head, not willing to speak in case the vibration of his chest disturbed his Little Bird.

The man smiled as he slipped into the room, his footsteps silent. It might have been the middle of the day outside, but in this room, it was always night.

The man continued until he was standing beside his woman. The look on his face as he stared at her was a lot like how Rip looked at her, and that stuck in his throat.

"Did you tell her what was going on?" asked the man as he gently picked up one of the strands of her midnight hair.

Once again, Rip nodded his head.

"How did she take it?" Rip had to control himself from snorting. There was no way she would have taken it well, not with how her life had been for the past few years.

"Sorry," cringed the man, wrinkling his nose. "Let’s stick with head nods, huh?"

"Has she seemed to be missing gaps in her memory?" Rip nodded.

"Has she seemed disassociated or numb to things around her?" Again, Rip nodded.

"Anxiety, depression, anger, withdrawal?" The man shot out words, not giving Rip time to reply. But while he had seen glimpses of those symptoms over time, never once had she withdrawn from him.

In fact, she gripped him tighter.

The man let out a frustrated huff, and Rip could only nod his head in agreement. They needed to figure out what they could do to help her, but that meant that they needed to have a conversation with her. And based on her response to his earlier recap, that might not go over well.

"She asked for her cage," said Rip as softly as he could. Wang Tian Mu shifted at the sound but still remained passed out on his chest. That was fine; he didn’t want her anywhere else.

The man nodded. "Makes sense," he grunted.

"That makes sense to you? She asked for her cage like a fucking animal," growled Rip, the irritation that he felt over the situation was reflected in his voice, and he struggled to keep his temper under control.

She needed sleep more than he needed to vent.

"From what you explained, she sees that cage as her safe place, the only place in all of Camp Hell where people couldn’t get to her and hurt her. The fact that we didn’t bring it means that she has no place to run to when she feels threatened," explained the man.

"She can run to me," grunted Rip, clearly not expecting that answer. It made sense in a fucked up way, but what about this situation wasn’t fucked up?

The man signed and nodded his head. "She can, and she does. That’s why you are here in this room in the position all of us would give our left nut for... but I think she found comfort in the confined space."

"Then what do you suggest? Aren’t you the shrink?" grumbled Rip, not liking the fact that someone could figure out what was going on inside of her head better than him but liking the support he provided.

In some ways, he was worried that if it was a matter of just him looking after her, he would have already fucked up.

"Let me think about this," grunted the shrink, "I may be able to come up with a solution we can all stomach to the cage issue. I also need to see how long Li Dai Lu and her men are going to be around for. And how long Bin An Sha will let us stay here. We might need to look for a place. Bai Long Qiang had been set up in the city for a while as a fighter..."

"No," snapped Rip, no longer even trying to keep his voice down.

Both men froze as they stared at Wang Tian Mu, checking to see if she had woken up.

But all she did was start petting Rip’s chest as if to calm him down, but she didn’t so much as twitch otherwise.

"I don’t think she actually believes that she is free," muttered Rip, melting under her attention, even if she was asleep when giving it to him. "She still thinks that Alpha is going to pop up and drag her back to the Camp."

"That’s not possible. We all saw Alpha burn to death," answered the shrink as he shook his head. He furrowed his eyebrows as he thought about the situation. "We have to make her feel safe first. That needs to be our priority. Everything else will fall in line after that."