Shifted #Wattys2016

XXI

Felix

Her eyes fluttered open and locked with mine. "Please don't kill me," she muttered and shut her eyes again.

"Max?"

She opened one eye. "It's true?"

I nodded.

She nodded.

"Come on, Max, I need to clean you up." I stood up and pulled at Maxine's hand. "I don't want you to get infected."

She groaned and stood up, leaning on me for support. She was still half asleep. I told her to sit on the bathroom counter. She did and leaned against the mirror, letting her eyes slide shut. I pressed a wet towel to her wounds, washing out the dirt. She had scraps on her knees and elbows and hands. One bad scrape across her jaw. She also had many different degrees of cuts.

Maxine hissed as I pressed the towel to her knee.

"Sorry." I said and pulled out some rubbing alcohol. I poured some on a different towel and pressed it into her cuts and scrapes. Again, she hissed at me. Again, I apologized.

"So," she began, "tell me how you got here, with Bloom and Emmett."

I sighed. "I had a falling out with my old pack, and I found them—or, they found me more so."

"What happened?"

"Well," I said, placing gauze on her knee and starting to wrap it with an Ace bandage. "My brother started to take over leadership from my parents and he made some bad choices. He started to turn our pack from something good and ethical into something much different." I started to wrap her other knee.

"Like what?"

"Well, here with Bloom and Emmett for example, we don't prey on humans, only animals, and even then we don't do it often. Greyson started to... attack... people. More than just attack, I should say."

"There's more,"

I nodded and started to wrap up her elbow. "He liked to fight other pack members for fun, and not just playful wrestling. There would be blood and injuries. And if someone questioned his leadership... there would be death." I paused and looked at Maxine. She blinked and looked down at her knees.

"When I questioned him, he fought me. He didn't care that I was his brother, his twin, he fought me like I was the enemy. Nearly killed me. So that night I wandered, eventually passed out, and woke up down in the shed, a bottle of water waiting for me and Bloom sitting in the corner."

I put a Band-Aid on her chin, the corner reaching up to her lip.

She jumped down from the counter, much more awake now. "I need to get home, I'm sure Julie is worried."

I nodded. "I'll drive you home."