CHASING PHANTOMS // TEEN WOLF [bxb]

SICKENING BETRAYAL

***

       True to expectations, the hospital had been swarmed the minute the first ambulance returned from the station and it stayed that way for the next several hours. Victim after victim rolled through in various states of critical— some fatal, some minor, and some a vast mix in between. The hospital was still recovering from the electrocution situation from the other day so they were overworked and spread thin.

       During the chaos, Jake had been subjected to numerous scans, a mild operation that required shrapnel extraction and a lot of stitches, a blood transfusion, and rounds of antibiotics and other medications.

       Melissa had tried calling Gemma from the hospital phone and her own personal line multiple times to no answer so she had to make the executive decision to discharge Jake. It was not one she made lightly, in fact, she vehemently opposed it until her hand was forced.

       When Kira initially called Scott to warn him that her mother released more Oni, Scott assumed they could leave Jake protected in the hospital while he took Stiles somewhere safe. It wasn't until Kira relayed Noshiko's comment about Jake being useful that he understood otherwise.

       All in all, Scott's phone call with Kira had lasted three minutes but convincing his mother had taken five times as long. He managed to win her over through begging, promises to bring him back if needed, and the flat out truth that they were safer together. Scott was pretty sure her acknowledgement that they would look out for each other was the reason she backed down.

       He'd been lucky she'd agreed— albeit with stern instructions, promises of getting grounded, and pointed fingers— and even luckier that she helped.

       Melissa held onto Jake as tightly as he clutched onto her while she eased him off the bed to stand. The minuscule distance to the wheelchair was taxing when medicated, weak, and unsteady. They hadn't even taken a step and she could feel him shaking where his hands gripped her arms for dear life.

        "Scott, sweetheart, grab his other side," she nodded at her son with the request, the two boys in the room clearly seeking to assist without hovering.

       Scott was there in an instant and when Jake stepped with his injured leg and gasped sharply in pain, he took most of his weight so he wouldn't have to do it again. It was Scott's turn to feel the trembling in his best friend's body even through the sweatshirt he'd given him from the cross-country bag he'd tossed in the jeep's trunk after school earlier that day.

       He was glad he remembered it, and even more glad that it contained a clean shirt, sweatshirt, boxers, and a pair of shorts that Jake could exchange his hospital gown for since his clothes had been cut off him, blood-soiled, and discarded. 

       Stiles had managed to get him into the fresh clothes and his now slightly stained shoes that survived the accident, and it wasn't long after that they ended up here while waiting for Kira.

       The shorts made it so the bandages on Jake's thigh were mostly in clear view, the concealed perforations not deep enough to cause long lasting damage. Their superficial nature made the fragments of metal and glass easier to extract and suture the puncture wounds closed without issue apart from the small possibility of very mild scarring.

       Also according to Melissa's simplified version of the doctor's prognosis, Jake's right hip had apparently borne the brunt of slamming into the desk during the initial blast considering it was bruised purple and blue to all hell from his waist to his injured thigh. It was brutally convenient that both injuries were on the same leg so he had instructions to rest it as much as possible.