Chapter 134: ¹³⁴: Laws

Chapter 134: 13?: Laws

I instinctively looked toward the door, just as Mother Elena did. She had been equally startled by the sudden entrance, and for a moment, neither of us had said anything.

A nurse stood there, huffing heavily, as though she had run all the way here without stopping.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and a few strands of hair had come loose around her face. She looked weirdly shaken, her complexion was pale and her eyes were wide with what appeared to be some real genuine fear.

I narrowed my eyes in confusion. What could have happened for her to be this agitated? Before either Mother Elena or I could ask her, the nurse hurried forward.

"Ma’am, the dean is calling you urgently to his office. There has been a grave issue concerning two staff members from our clinic."

My brows furrowed immediately. Two staff members? What could they possibly have done?

There had never been any unpleasantness of anyone with the staff here, excluding the kittle thing that had happened with me but I had deliberately tried not to involve myself in it.

I wanted to stay away from this new thing as well because I was a patient here, after all. Whatever happened within the clinic was none of my business.

Still, the urgency in the nurse’s voice made my curiosity rise. I remained silent, however, reminding myself that this was regarding the clinic. I didn’t even know whether I should be listening to their conversation in the first place.

Mother Elena, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered by my presence at all. She stepped forward, her expression immediately turning serious. "What has happened?" she asked, her voice filled with concern. "Tell me first before we go to meet the dean."

The nurse hesitated. Her already pale face seemed to lose even more color as her eyes slowly shifted toward me.

I noticed the hesitation immediately. She looked as though she wasn’t sure whether she should say what she had come to report with me still sitting there.

I was just about to tell her that I could leave and give them some privacy when Mother Elena followed the nurse’s gaze.

She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head. "Don’t worry about her," Mother Elena told the nurse calmly. "She can listen to it. Tell me clearly what happened."

The nurse looked back at Mother Elena. She swallowed hard, visibly gathering the courage to speak. "Ma’am..." she began, her voice quieter this time. "Our two staff members have broken two very serious laws of the pack."

Mother Elena’s expression changed instantly. Inoticed her shoulders stiffen.

"One concerns the sacredness of the claimed bond," the nurse continued, "and the other breached the rules of our clinic. They smuggled out the Romor drug." She paused, her eyes flickering anxiously between Mother Elena and me. "Everyone in the whole pack is beyond horrified."

Silence settled over the room. I slowly turned my gaze away from the nurse’s horrified face and toward Mother Elena.

To my surprise, she looked just as petrified. The calm and reassuring woman who had been comforting me only moments ago now stood completely still, her brows drawn together and her lips slightly parted.

Whatever the nurse had just told her, it clearly wasn’t something insignificant. I, on the other hand, was left completely confused and speechless. I didn’t know about any of the laws in this pack.

And what exactly was a claimed bond? The way the nurse had spoken about it made it sound like something sacred and incredibly serious, but I had no idea what it meant or why violating it was considered such a grave offense.

And then there was the Romor drug. What was that? Why was it important enough for someone to risk breaking the clinic’s rules to smuggle it out?

My thoughts raced through the possibilities, but I couldn’t come up with a single answer. More importantly though... Who were the two staff members the nurse was talking about? I couldn’t help but wonder whether I knew them.

My mind briefly went back to the staff members I had encountered at the clinic, but I immediately pushed the thought away. There were many people working here, and I had barely been around long enough to know any of them properly.

Before I could think about it any further, Mother Elena’s shaken voice reached my ears. "Who exactly are these two staff members?" she asked. It was exactly the question that had been roaming around in my own head.

Mother Elena took a small step closer to the nurse, her concern now impossible to hide. "And how was this information spread out?" she continued. "The people are terrified? Did this information leak into the whole pack?"

The nurse’s expression grew even more troubled. "Yes, ma’am." She nodded quickly before continuing, her fingers nervously fidgeting with the edge of her uniform.

"Just a few hours ago, they were caught by some people while committing the crime. There had been a lot of people present when the arrests happened, so it became public news almost immediately. Everyone started talking about it before the investigation had even properly begun."

Mother Elena’s expression grew more serious as she listened.

"Then, as the investigation was conducted by the police, it was found that there was another person involved in it as well. They had been the one supplying them with Romor." The nurse suddenly stopped. Her eyes shifted toward me again.

I immediately noticed the hesitation in her expression and realized what she was thinking.

"Ma’am, is it okay if I say the offenders’ identities here?" she asked carefully.

Her question made me want to disappear from the room. I had become so invested in the conversation without even realizing it that I had almost forgotten something important. This wasn’t some random piece of gossip. These were people who regularly worked with the nurse and Mother Elena, and their identities might be something personal or sensitive enough that it shouldn’t be discussed in front of a complete stranger like me.

I lowered my gaze slightly, suddenly feeling awkward about my presence. I was about to tell them that I could step outside when Mother Elena answered before I could say anything.

"This has already become well-known news throughout the pack," she replied. Her voice sounded anxious now, and the patience she had shown earlier was slowly disappearing beneath her concern. "Just tell me who they were already."

The nurse gulped. She looked at Mother Elena for a few seconds before lowering her head, almost as though she already knew she had upset her. "Ma’am... they are Ria and Sombar from the emergency department."

"What?" Mother Elena’s voice rose in disbelief. "Those two?"

The shock on her face was completely unmistakable. Her eyes widened, and she stared at the nurse as though she had just been told something she couldn’t bring herself to believe.

"I knew since the day I heard them talking badly about Athena that they would be no good," she said, her voice filled with disbelief and frustration. "But I forgave them, thinking it was nothing more than their foolish behavior. I never imagined those two were involved in something like this."

She shook her head slowly, still trying to process what she had heard. "I didn’t know they were doing something beyond anyone’s comprehension!"

Her words registered in my mind one after another. And then...I just froze. It felt as though something inside my head had suddenly short-circuited.

Ria and Sombar. Those two names echoed repeatedly in my mind. What had I just heard? This seemingly enormous breach of the pack’s laws had been committed by the same two girls who had spoken about me that day?

For a moment, I couldn’t even move. I stared at Mother Elena, then at the nurse, trying to convince myself that there had to be some sort of mistake. But there wasn’t. The nurse had clearly said their names.

The same two women who had whispered about me behind my back, accusing me of things I hadn’t done and judging me without knowing anything about what I had suffered, were now being accused of something far more serious.

My stomach tightened. Even though I desperately wanted this incident to have absolutely nothing to do with me, I couldn’t stop a particular thought from surfacing.

Damian...My mind immediately went back to that evening in the endless field of wildflowers.

His unapologetic words. His very serious expression. The way his tone had changed when he told me that he would find out what had happened himself.

At the time, I hadn’t known how to answer him. Now, remembering those words, an uncomfortable feeling settled in my chest.

Could what Damian had said to me a few days ago in those fields have something to do with this?

I didn’t want it to. I desperately wanted to believe there was no connection between Damian and what had happened to Ria and Sombar.

But the more I thought about it, the harder it became to dismiss the possibility. My fingers slowly curled against my palm. What had Damian done? Or... Had he done anything at all and I was just overthinking?