by E. Blix
Thad was whimpering in pain, every breath hissed in through his teeth. He clutched at Mouse, bloodied fingers tangled in her shirt as she kept pressure on the wound. None of the injuries were fatal. The worst was the shoulder, and while there was some muscle damage, probably some to the tendons, too, it hadn’t been low enough to hit a lung.
The security guard was looking green, muttering something about making sure the bad guys were gone before rushing out the front door. It would take a while for Jessica to arrive. Thad was pale from blood loss, though now that he wasn’t running for his life and was flat on his back, he wasn’t bleeding as heavily.
“White Hats,” he gasped, chest heaving with terror and pain. “It was the White Hats!”
Mouse nodded, easing up her other hand from his brow to put a single finger on his lips to gesture he be quiet. She didn’t want him to do more damage to himself in his efforts to tell her what happened. He settled back with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut, and she put her hand back on his brow.
Some time later, the security guard rushed in with Jessica hot on his heels. She flung her schoolbooks aside, dropping to her knees on the other side of Thad, checking the injuries as best she could. He hissed in pain when Mouse moved her hand, but otherwise was holding up.
“Christ, this is unbelievable… Thad, I’m going to have Mouse move you upstairs, okay? I’ve got to disinfect and stitch these cuts. All right?”
He nodded, not opening his eyes.
Mouse slid her arms under him, lifting him. Most of the bleeding had stopped, but Jessica put her hand over the make-shift bandage, keeping pressure on it while Mouse carried him. He bit off a cry of pain, the security guard and vampires anxiously looking on while Mouse took him upstairs.
Ashi was coming out of Thad’s apartment with two buckets of water when the group came upstairs. He frowned and set the buckets down against the wall, hurrying to the gym. Christoph was still crouched miserably in the center of the room.
“Thad’s hurt,” Ashi told him.
Christoph was immediately upright and rushing (after the initial stagger of protesting muscles) into the hallway, Ashi following at a slower pace.
“Thad? Dude? You okay?” Christoph said, approaching the three. In Goliath terms, “okay” covered a broad spectrum of conditions, excluding “about to die.”
Jessica answered since Thad was a bit too busy hyperventilating to respond.
“He’s been stabbed.”
Mouse hurried inside to the couch; Jessica broke away to run to her room and gather her medical equipment. After setting him down, Mouse resumed putting pressure on Thad’s shoulder, lightly resting her other hand on his cheek, soothing him as best she could. It wasn’t helping much.
After a few hissing breaths, he started cursing and growling threats of revenge on the White Hats, clutching at a pillow. Mouse turned a helpless look at Christoph, not knowing what else to do for the injured human.
Christoph was furious. He didn’t know who the hell the White Hats were, but he was going to find them and kill every single one of them. Damn being pink. Damn being weak. He was marching right to wherever the hell they were to rip their heads off.
Ashi saw the slow boil going on in Christoph’s thought process and grabbed his arm. “You are not avenging anyone until you’re Were again.”
“I’m going to murder—”
Ashi smacked the back of his head. “Plan it later. Right now he just needs his packmates.”
Christoph quieted down for about four seconds before blurting, “Thad, when I get fuzzy again, I’m going to take them down. Every single one of them.” He turned to Ashi. “Who do we know who can kill at least some of them?”
Ashi shrugged. “Thorn for sure. Mask might. Maybe some Thistles if they’re feeling violent.”
Christoph nodded and stood firmly by Thad like a guard dog, seething.
Mouse had a pained look. Jessica rushed in with supplies in her arms.
Thad gritted his teeth and spat out a few words. “Fucking cock-sucking asshats! They jumped me on my way home from work. I’m gonna kill them myself, cowardly assholes!”
“Thad, shut up and calm down!” Jessica scolded. She used some scissors to cut his shirt off, ignoring his protests and revealing numerous tattoos littering his skin, right along with a number of shallow cuts he’d gotten in addition to the one on his shoulder.
Next, she pulled on some latex gloves and rummaged through a bag she’d brought in. She cracked the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured some onto a cotton ball, thoroughly soaking it.
“Can one of you guys go get a clean dish towel and some water boiling on the stove? The towels are under the sink. Bring me the water after it’s boiled for about five minutes. Mouse, hold him down, please.”
Without waiting to see if they followed orders, she started swabbing at the shoulder wound. Mouse gingerly held Thad down as he gave a shriek while Jessica disinfected the cuts.
Ashi went into the kitchen, filled a pot with water from the sink, and set it on the stove. Christoph stayed with Thad, set off again by his anger.
“Don’t you worry. We’re going to get some Blackthorns here and they are going to kill those sons of leprous bitches. I promise you.”
Ashi rolled his eyes. Blackthorn was definitely an odd pack, keeping to themselves and only venturing out when their allies called on them. Gregory had once ordered a small group of warriors to help Blackthorn and saved it from almost certain annihilation. Despite this, they were more likely to laugh in your face than answer your call when you asked them for help.
Either Christoph was just being a big, bad Were or he had been a part of that raid—which meant Blackthorn owed him big time.
“Christoph, that’s not a great idea,” Jessica said, not looking at him since she was busy tending to the cuts. She was swabbing at the ones on Thad’s stomach now, making him twitch. “The White Hats are a bunch of violent fucktards, but you’d be stooping to their level if you ran around trying to kill them. That wouldn’t be a smart move, since Others killing humans—particularly when they aren’t under contract—is really, really frowned upon by society.”
Mouse curled her lip. Thad growled out another curse, then yelped when Jessica scrubbed a little too hard at a gash above his navel. “To hell with that! I’m not an Other—I’ll kill the fuckers!”
Jessica stopped what she was doing to give Thad a withering glare.
“Stop thrashing around!”
Thad nodded sulkily, staying as still as he could. He twitched involuntarily when she swabbed at the cuts, particularly when she got to the one on the back of his leg.
Christoph would have been on the verge of shifting if it weren’t for the collar. He was silent, however, and didn’t seem inclined to start breaking things.
Vengeance was not an ideal Goliaths held dear. If they retaliated, it was because they were eliminating a threat. Any feelings of satisfaction over grinding someone to nothingness against a brick wall were secondary. The pack’s survival was above all else.
Ashi found a clean dish cloth and poked his head into the living room. “It’s boiling. Should I bring it in the pot or what?”
“That’s fine,” Jessica said to Ashi, setting aside the bloodied cotton ball and once again digging through the bag. She’d already washed her hands while getting her things; now came the tricky part.
“Um. Mouse, stay on his shoulders, would you? Christoph, if you can hold down his legs, please…”
“What are you doing?” Thad demanded, starting to struggle again.
Jessica sighed. “I have to stitch up the shoulder. I need you to stay as still as possible while I do it.”
“Damn it, no!”
Christoph didn’t make any move to hold down Thad’s legs. “Maybe I don’t have my visa for Crazy
Town yet, but wouldn’t it be a better idea to take him to a hospital? You know, that place where they numb you before they start poking you with sharp, pointy objects?”
Ashi nodded. “He’s not hemorrhaging. Goliaths go to the hospital all the time for treatment.”
“No,” Jessica said, her voice gone tight and sharp, ready to snap.
She set aside the needle and thread. Taking up the towel, she dipped it in the water and held it against her own skin briefly to make sure it wouldn’t burn, then proceeded to wipe the dried blood from around the wound to clean away anything that might impede her view as she sewed him up.
“Thad has scars from when he fed Sebastian on their way across the country. He’s not contracted.”
Thad flinched when the needle entered his skin, drawing up one of his legs in an involuntary motion. She waited a moment for him to settle back before the next prick, jaw set and expression hardened.
“What do we tell the doctors or police when they question him on what happened and what he’s doing in a vampire den? We can’t risk it. I can’t write prescriptions yet, so I can’t give him anything to dull the pain.”
Though he didn’t appear terribly comfortable asking the question, Ashi gestured in Mouse’s direction. “Why not have one of the vampires bite him, then? Won’t that dull the pain?”
“It won’t last, and I’m not about to have him suffer that much blood loss on top of his injuries,” she replied, impatience lacing her tone. “If you aren’t going to help, then shut up and let me concentrate.”
Christoph looked to Ashi. “Can you hold down his legs?”
Ashi nodded and knelt on the couch, locking Thad’s legs in his in a complex hold. At Christoph’s raised eyebrow, Ashi shrugged.
“I don’t have a lot of weight to hold him down.”
The larger Were left the room and headed to Mouse’s apartment. He was going to call Blackthorn and see what he could arrange.
Blackthorn’s reclusive nature was considered by most Weres to be their best trait. They were an odd bunch—many said they were all bat-shit insane. They were incredibly vicious, covert, and thorough in their fighting methods.
Christoph walked across Mouse’s living room and knocked loudly on Analie’s door. She didn’t answer.
“Analie?” Christoph said, opening the door.
“Hey! Hey-hey-hey, outta the room!” Analie shrieked from her den-bed.
Christoph noted the pitch of her voice. Higher than usual.
He marched over to her bed, lifted the bed sheet covering, and couldn’t help but grin. Analie was squished in the corner, still in her pajamas. Her eyes looked a little dull and she appeared to be smaller.
“You have new moon sickness.”
Analie covered her face in her hands. New moon sickness was a rare Were affliction. Sometimes, during the new moon, a Were could be temporarily robbed of their abilities, much like Christoph and Ashi had been. Though it only lasted a day or two, it was distressing and most Weres chose to hide for the duration of the “sickness”.
“Aw, it’s not that bad. It happens to every Goliath once in a while. Just because you’re completely vulnerable to anything and everything that wants to kill—”
“Why are you here?”
“Can I use your phone?”
Analie threw it at him. “Just get out of my room!”
Christoph left Analie’s room and dialed his friend in Blackthorn. On the fourth ring he picked up.
“Hello, and welcome to the Blackthorn hotline.”
“Tony, hey. It’s Christoph.”
“For customer service, press one.”
“Tony, I can hear the TV in the background.”
“For hours of operation, press two.”
“Tony, man, come on.”
“For razing, press three and have all your information on hand.”
“God, are you seriously going to go through all the options?”
“To speak with a pack member, press four.”
Christoph pressed a random number.
“You’ve pressed four. This call may be monitored for quality assurance or identity theft. For Matthew, press one. For Tony, press two—”
Christoph pressed a random number.
“You’ve pressed seven.”
“I did not!”
“But I’m connecting you to Tony anyway. Hey, what’s up?”
Christoph was starting to feel a little frayed. “I need a favor.”
Tony was eating something and the smacking, chewing sounds were loud in Christoph’s ear. “Depends on the favor, but go ahead and ask.”
“These guys called the White Hats—”
Tony’s laughter was excessively loud. It cut off abruptly and Analie’s phone informed Christoph that the call had been ended.
“Fucker,” Christoph muttered.
It didn’t take Jessica long to finish once Ashi helped hold Thad down. It was mostly Thad’s flinching and thrashing that had slowed her.
She finished putting gauze and bandages on the rest of the injuries. His hands were the hardest since the cuts were all over the place and made wrapping them awkward. He looked like a cheap, unfinished version of a mummy by the time she was done.
“That’ll do for now,” she said, regarding him dubiously as she sat on her heels. He was pale and drawn, eyes closed. She’d harangue him over the stupidity of not using the tunnel system to travel around the city later. “Why don’t you guys head on out and let him rest.”
Mouse nodded, combing some of the sweat-plastered hair from Thad’s forehead to kiss his brow, one cool hand brushing his cheek. He returned her concerned look with a thin smile, trying to be brave. She headed out, leaving Thad to rest and Jessica to tend to him.
Those White Hats were getting far too bold.
“You broke my phone!” Analie shrieked.
“It was reflexive!” Christoph protested, holding her wrists as she flailed at him.
“You BROKE my PHONE!”
“I’m learning to deal with disappointment! This is an important stage in my life! You’ll notice I didn’t then attack someone with the pieces.”
Analie kicked at him, and Christoph did a frantic dance to keep his shins out of the way. After Tony hung up on him, Christoph had snapped the phone in two and thrown it against Analie’s door. When she came to investigate and saw the pieces on the floor, she went on the attack. Thanks to her new moon sickness, it wasn’t very effective.
“Calm down! Do you want to wake up the entire first floor?” Christoph hissed.
Once he got a good grip, he spun her around and trapped her arms and head in a simple lock. He still had to dodge her legs.
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Shut up! Would you calm down for half a second?”
“Grrrrraaaargh!”
Christoph snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. “Wow, you can’t even growl properly.”
“Son of a leprous bitch!”
“Language!”
Mouse didn’t pay much mind to Ashi once they exited Jessica’s apartment. Why Clarisse had agreed to take him on as a donor, she’d never figure out. Worry about Thad kept her preoccupied while she returned to her post as day guard. Lisa would take her place in an hour.
Christoph was temporarily stronger than Analie, but he didn’t fancy standing there all day with a packmate in a headlock.
“Thad got stabbed,” he commented.
Analie stopped struggling. “Is that what happened? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“Did you see who was with him? I saw someone out in the hallway, but I didn’t recognize her.”
“I dunno. Jessica, Mouse, some guy.”
“Huh.” Anal
ie squirmed. “Let me go, I have geometry.”
Christoph let her go and three seconds later was curled up in the middle of the living room, hands between his legs.
“You’re lucky I didn’t kick you when I had Were strength,” Analie muttered, storming to her room.
Mouse entered shortly after Analie rushed out, not really noticing that Christoph was in the fetal position at first. There was blood all over her from having dealt with Thad.
She dumped the red-stained strips of skirt in the trash and rinsed off her hands in the sink, not outwardly bothered by the blood. Though it didn’t show, the sight and scent of so much had sparked some hunger. She wasn’t about to fall on somebody to feed, but she’d do something about it after nightfall.
After washing her hands and arms free of as much of Thad’s blood as she could, she paused on the way to her room to see what was wrong with Christoph.
“I’m totally fine,” Christoph wheezed, slowly getting to his his feet. “I was—ow—leaving. How’s Thad doing?”
Mouse regarded him dubiously, wondering what was wrong. She went to the coffee table and scribbled off a note.
He’ll be okay. Resting now. What happened to you?
“I broke Analie’s phone and got kicked,” Christoph said, trying to stand straight. “I’m glad Thad’s okay. Is anyone going after the bastards who stabbed him?”
Mouse blinked and then, unthinking, her gaze shot down to his crotch, realizing what Analie had done.
If she was still alive, she would’ve flushed with embarrassment.
Instead, she rapidly shook her head, covered her eyes with a hand, turned around, and fled to her room.
She needed to change anyway.
Yeah, that’s it. Change of clothes.
Right.
Christoph sighed and picked his way out of the room. The stairs were going to be loads of fun.
