Making the Fur Fly

Nine | Trae

Mae removed Leroy's shirt and poured water onto the wound. Leroy groaned and leaned his head against the cupboard. When he saw the look on my face, he said, "It doesn't need to be pretty, Trae."

"I know," I said.

"Don't you have any pain relievers or whatever?" Shaun asked.

"You can give him some, but we can't wait for them to start working."

We also couldn't wait for me to gather my nerves. Leroy had lost too much blood already. I grabbed the suturing needle and got to work. It was definitely not pretty. Neither were the words coming out of Leroy's mouth, but he made it through.

As I was bandaging him, Mae said, "You took a pretty big risk bringing him here. When you say you 'can't' call an ambulance, do you mean you can't, or won't?"

"Can't."

Shaun filled a glass of water and handed it to Leroy, who emptied it instantly and motioned for him to grab another.

"Werewolves can't go to the hospital because we're not human," I explained. "Our DNA isn't human. And don't ask me for details because I'm not a biologist, but even some of our features aren't human."

"Like what?" Mae asked.

"Our ears, for example. They're somewhere between human ears and wolf ears. That's why I can hear better. It's not magic. It's biology."

"Okay, I seriously need a picture of that someday," Shaun said. "Or at least an anatomical drawing. What does it look like? How do you know this anyway?"

I shrugged. "Someone probably studied werewolf anatomy once. My dad told me and his parents told him, so . . . who knows? All I know is that we shouldn't go to the hospital if we can avoid it. We can't risk them finding anything strange. They'll want to do all sorts of tests, and before you know it, they're shipping us off someplace to figure out what's wrong with us."

"What isn't?" Leroy muttered.

"Well, at least you're not dead."

He huffed weakly. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Now eat and go to sleep. I did all I can."

"I'll make him something and put him to bed," Shaun said.

Leroy pulled a face.

"Okay, good luck," I said with a smile.

Shaun was already grabbing a pot. Leroy asked what he was doing, but he was ignored. I could sense a disagreement coming, so I turned and walked over to Mae, who had moved to the back door again. She flinched when I appeared by her side but relaxed right after, thankfully.

I leaned over to look outside as well. There was nothing to see. "Are you worried the wolves will come here?"

"No," she said. "I'm just . . . thinking."

"I guess you have a lot to think about."

She huffed. "Yeah."

"Do you wanna leave?"

She looked out again for a moment, then said, "No. I—no. I don't want to leave. Can we go upstairs?"

I nodded and led her up. Thinking she wanted to be away from Leroy and Shaun, I stopped at the top of the stairs, but then she asked where my bedroom was.

"Oh. Uh, this one." I pointed to the first door on the right.

The only other two rooms were Leroy's and the bathroom, which was attached to my room. They weren't very big rooms, but they fit a bed and a closet, and that was all we needed. Mine was pretty simple in design, with wooden furniture and white walls. The sheets were green. Mae's eyes rested on them before moving on to my walls, where I had put up a few of my drawings.