Changed [Watty Awards 2013]

6. Bruised

6. Bruised

“Nick!” A deep voice boomed. All of our heads looked at the doorway to see Eric carrying a very pale looking Jared. “He’s hurt!” Jared’s arm was reached out towards his thigh, holding Eric’s white—now red—shirt over his wound.

Caelon came from behind Eric and took Jared into his arms, and placed him onto the leather couch.

“Stop babying me!” Jared’s voice was higher than usual. “I can take care of myself! I’m twenty-four years old!”

Emily came into the living room with a first aid kit and handed it to Kyle. Kyle opened the kit and glanced at me.

“D, can you go grab me two towels please?”

I nodded and went into the bathroom, searching for the towels. I opened the cabinet and all I saw were white, fluffy towels. I grabbed two of them and handed them to Kyle. He removed Jared’s hand from its current position and moved it to Jared’s chest.

“Jeans off.”

Jared’s shaky hands took off his belt and unbuttoned his pants. After he unzipped, he gently pulled them down and threw them on the ground, revealing the damage.

The cut—or gouge, if you will—was red, and angry. It was soaked in blood. It looked like a stab wound. Were werewolves allowed to use weapons?

“Don’t move.” He grabbed one of the towels and stuffed it in his brother’s mouth. “You might want to bite down on this. It’ll sting.”

Kyle grabbed a cotton pad and put hydrogen peroxide on the wound. Jared hissed in pain, his jaw clenched onto the towel.

With the wound cleaned and bloodless, you could see the details. The skin was pink around the gouge. The injury covered a quarter of Jared’s muscular thighs.

“Baby.” He shook his head.

Jared ripped the towel from his mouth and hit Kyle over the head with it. “Shut up, Kyle. You’d be in pain too if you got attacked by a Mutt.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t almost be in tears because of a little peroxide, Jared. You’re such a baby when it comes to cleaning wounds.”

Kyle leaned down and searched the kit. He sat back up with thread in his hand and a stitching needle in his palm. Jared sat up.

“No.” He shook his head. “No way are you stitching up my leg, Kyle.”

Kyle narrowed his eyes. “You lost a lot of muscle and blood. It won’t heal on its own like it should. Would you rather be bleeding everywhere, get a really bad infection or get it stitched up?”

“Fine.” Jared closed his eyes and grabbed the towel again as Kyle started to stitch it up.

“What happened?” Nick asked after Jared’s wound was stitched and bandaged.

Caelon sat down on the floor next to me. “One of the wolves got into a scrap with Jared while Eric and I left to Change back. The Mutt bit down on Jare’s leg. He managed to get him off, but the Mutt tore off a good chunk of his leg.

“Good news is, before we could get within distance of the clearing, we heard the fuss, ran over and captured the Mutt.” Caelon looked at Nick. “He’s unconscious in the boot.”

Nick nodded. “Go get ‘em, and put him down in the crate.”

Caelon got up and left out the front door.

I looked at Kyle. “How’d you learn how to do this?”

“I’m actually an ER doctor.”

I stared at him with wide eyes.