Okay, first of all let me apologize in advance for the terrible cliff-hanger =/ I couldn't figure out where to end this chapter and start the next one so the place I ended it seemed like the best one O.o I'm sorry! Second, thank you guys so much for all the support! It really means a lot to me! Hope you guys like it! :D
No sooner had Ray half-dragged, mostly carried Josh to the couch and laid him down, Aidan had him slammed up against the wall, his forearm barred across his throat and preventing him from moving.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip your head off right now and use it as a soccer ball." Aidan snarled viciously, his eyes narrowed to thin, onyx slits as he glared at the werewolf.
Ray struggled against him, his own eyes narrowing. "Get off me leech!"
"What the hell did you do to him?" Aidan growled, shoving the older wolf a bit more forcefully into the wall, the plaster creaking behind him.
"You think I did that?"
"That's exactly what I think!"
Ray's eyes narrowed even more, his lips pulling back in a sneer. "You better get your arm off me boy, before I tear it off and beat you with it!"
"I'd like to see you try!"
"Stop it!" Sally cried, appearing in between them and shoving them apart with a small burst of energy. "Both of you! Stop!" Aidan stumbled back, releasing his grip on Ray but never dropping his gaze. The older wolf was glaring too, his shoulders rigid and hunched like he was preparing to attack.
Sally looked between them, an incredilous expression painted across her face. "What's the matter with you two? Josh is over there on the couch bleeding and hurt and you two are trying to see who can dismember the other faster!"
A tense silence fell between the two, both glaring at the other and waiting for the inevitable attack. Ray was breathing hard, his eyes wild and feral, and Aidan was about two seconds away from losing his shit completely and making a wolf-skinned rug for their living room.
"Aidan!" Sally's voice broke through the red haze he'd found himself in and he looked over at her. She was shaking, tears streaming down her face, the lights flickering on and off above them. "Aidan, please! Josh needs help."
This seemed to break through the rest and he blinked, glancing back at Ray one last time before turning back to the couch and walking over to his injured friend. "What happened?" He asked, kneeling down next to Josh, the biting edge still lingering in his voice.
"He's been shot." The other man answered, his shoulders relaxing just a bit as he stepped away from the wall, coming closer to the couch to look down at the younger wolf.
"I can see that." Aidan snapped, taking in the bloody wound in Josh's shoulder and scowling. Josh was still shirtless but Ray had managed to find a pair of loose sweatpants to cover the rest of him with. There was a stripe of blood on one leg of the pants, turning the grey fabric nearly black with its intensity. "Who did this?"
Ray shrugged, appearing next to the couch and kneeling down near Josh's legs. "I don't know, a hunter probably. I woke up this morning and found 'im like this."
Aidan said nothing for a second, looking between the wound in his shoulder and the wound in his leg. He closed his eyes for a second, concentrating on Josh. His skin was pale, almost waxy in appearance, making the gaping bullet wound look all the more garish. He could hear the younger man's breathing, fast and shallow, and it sounded like he wasn't to get enough air into his lungs. His heartbeat was uneven, the rhythm weak and thready as it struggled to keep the blood flowing through the injured body. Josh was going into shock.
"He's lost too much blood...this wound should have started to close by now." Aidan muttered, his concern deepening. Josh had been out in the freezing cold all night with a wound like this...it was amazing he was still alive at all.
"It's a silver bullet." Ray said, a note of disgust in his voice. "Those healin' rules don't apply to silver."
Aidan's eyes narrowed again at the wound as Sally stepped forward toward the couch. "Wait, I thought bullets didn't work on werewolves! Josh even told us they don't work!"
The older wolf shook his head. "Regular bullets don't work. Those things bounce off like they're made of plastic. Silver bullets though..." He faded off, looking between her and the unconscious young man on the couch. "Those'll do some damage. Even then it ain't the bullet you gotta worry about...its the silver."
"So what does silver do to werewolves? What makes it so dangerous?" Sally asked, absently chewing on her thumb nail as she looked down at Josh.
"Silver causes a reaction in a werewolf's blood. It makes the body attack itself, makes everything go haywire. Silver acts like a poison, it only takes a little bit. A scratch can be enough to bring down a full grown man..." The look on Ray's face was grim and he shook his head slowly, his eyes still fixed on the younger man. "The more silver you got, the faster it is."
Sally shook her head, tears welling in her eyes again. "The faster what is?"
Ray didn't answer, he just looked up at her, his eyes dark and troubled, and that was the only thing she neeeded. "No." She shook her head again. "No, no no. Josh is not going to die! He's not!" She looked down at Aidan, the vampire's eyes fixed on Josh's face, and tried to reach out and grab his shoulder but her hand passed through. "Aidan, we need to get Josh to the hospital." When he didn't move, she spoke louder. "Come on! Now!"
"Won't do any good." Ray muttered, shaking his head and looking up at her. "Takin' a werewolf to a hospital full of human doctors would be like takin' a goat to pediatrician. It ain't gonna help."
"Well they can do something! They have drugs and bandages and those little heart monitor things they hook you up to and-"
"Sally, he's right." Aidan said softly, his eyes never moving from the couch.
The spirit stopped, blinking at her fangy roommate. "What-?
"I hate to admit it, but Ray's right. We can't take Josh to the hospital."
"What? Are you crazy? He could die Aidan!"
"I know." Aidan's voice cut her off, the level of desperation and pain in those two words making her stop. "I know but...gunshot wounds always require a police investigation and Bishop was the chief of police...there's no doubt in my mind that over half the city was under his control. If we take Josh to the hospital, all of them will know. Then he will die."
Sally shook her head in disbelief. "But we can't just leave him here! We have to do something!" The floor was shaking now, vibrating the kitchen table and the couch. Josh made a faint whimpering sound in the back of his throat.
"Sally, listen to me." Aidan said, trying to keep his voice as calm and even as he could. It was his hospital voice, the one he used for anxious families and the one he'd been working on for years. "I'm going to take care of him, okay? I've worked in a hospital far longer than I care to remember and I've handled my fair share of gunshot wounds. I can handle this."
Sally was still shaking, the vibrations in the floor lessening ever so slightly. "But what if you...what if he..." She couldn't get the words out before more tears spilled down her face.
"Sally," Aidan said again, reaching out and touching her hand for a split second before it fazed through. "He won't, okay? Because I won't let him."
She didn't look convinced but nodded shakily, looking down at Josh and then back at him. "Okay."
Aidan nodded and looked back down at the wound. The entrance wound was a bit bigger than a quarter, the skin torn and the underlying muscle punctured. The area surrounding the wound was bruised, mottles of blues and blacks encircling the hole. Josh's breathing was shallow and uneven but it didn't sound like the bullet had pierced his lung so Aidan guessed he should be thankful for that. It was a small comfort. "The bullet is still in there." He muttered, more to himself than anything.
Removing bullets was always tricky because there was no way of knowing if it had torn an artery or a blood vessel. He ran the risk of Josh bleeding to death on the couch in front of all of them if he removed it...but if he left it in, the wound wouldn't heal and the silver would continue to poison his best friend. It was a risk he needed to take. "Ray, I'm going to need your help with this." He said grimly, wishing there was any other option. Unfortunately, their options were pretty slim.
The older wolf nodded and moved a bit closer. It was no secret that he hated Aidan and all the vampires he ran across but if it meant saving the pup then he was willing to do it.
"I need you to hold him down while I get the bullet out of his shoulder." Aidan continued, his gaze level with Ray's. "If he starts thrashing, he'll make the wound worse and we'll have more problems to deal with."
The other man nodded and placed his hands on Josh's arms, holding him down gently. The younger wolf made another whimpering noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a whine and a keen. He shifted ever so slightly but remained unconscious.
Aidan stepped away from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen, rummaging around in their medicine cabinet. For both working at a hospital, their medical supplies at home were woefully insufficient. It made sense in an ironic, cosmic sort of way. Aidan never got injured enough to need bandaging, Sally was dead, and all of Josh's wound healed by themselves so keeping a fully stocked medicine cabinet seemed ridiculous most of the time. This was one of those times where it didn't seem so ridiculous. Aidan managed to find a roll of bandages, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a pair of tweezers that had been tucked in the back of the cabinet. He knew he needed to get more supplies to deal with this but it could wait. This would have to work for now.
He grabbed a washcloth and walked back into the living room, kneeling down next to the couch once more. The doused the washcloth with the alcohol and dropped the tweezers into the bottle to sterilize them. Josh's chest and shoulder was covered in a fine layer of dirt and dried blood so he carefully wiped it away with the cloth in order to see the wound a bit better. The wound was oozing, the blood thick and dark as it continued to well around the edges of the hole. He could feel Ray's eyes on him, watching his every move, but he ignored it.
He pulled the tweezers from the bottle, drying them briefly with the cloth, before clutching them firmly in his hand and steadying himself for what he was about to do. Aidan had worked in a hospital for a long time but it was different when the patient was your best friend...all the cool, carefully crafted composure he's built up over the years was beginning to crumbled at seeing the younger man like this. He swallowed and sat up on his knees, looking up at Ray. "Ready?"
The older wolf nodded and kept a firm grip on Josh's arms. Sally made a distressed noise when Aidan moved the tweezers into the wound, his hand moving carefully and cautiously as it prodded the injury. Josh stiffened slightly, a weak grimace crossing his face. Aidan shushed him gently, absently, and kept on with his inspection. The edge of the tweezers grazed across something hard, a very small metallic "clink" sound as they connected. He rotated his hand carefully, finding the edges of the bullet and opening the tweezers a bit more so he could get a good grip.
The bullet resisted, the tweezers slipping a bit in response. Josh gasped weakly, his eyebrows drawing together in pain. Aidan had been hoping he would stay unconscious through this but it looked like that wasn't going to be the case. "I'm sorry Josh," He muttered, getting a good grip in the bullet once more. "But this is going to hurt like hell..." He pulled, quickly and forcefully, and the bullet popped out with a slight squelching noise. That's when Josh came awake.
He cried out in agony as the bullet was removed, his body arching and writhing spasmodically. Ray struggled to hold him down, the grip on his arms tight and firm, but it was still a challenge. Josh cried out again, loud and anguished, his eyes squeezed shut against the waves of white hot pain the coursed through him.
"Hold him down!" Aidan snapped as one of Josh's arms came lose and nearly caught him in the face. Ray grabbed it and pinned it back to the couch. A fresh wave of blood had begun to gush from the wound, the flow hot and bright as compared to the darker dried blood that had been there earlier. Aidan grabbed the bandages, pressing them into the wound firmly and applying as much pressure as he could. Josh bucked beneath him, his face twisted in a mask of pain.
"Shhh...shhh, you're alright, its okay Josh...you're alright." He murmured soothingly, trying his best to calm the younger man down. The blood was soaking through the bandages, wet and warm beneath his hands, and his fangs poked against the insides of his lip. He shook his head, forcing himself to concentrate on everything but the smell of his best friend's blood.
Josh opened his eyes then, blinking, his gaze glassy and unfocused. He looked around the room, trying to register where he was, what had happened. His eyes landed on Aidan and it took a him a second to remember how to speak. "Ai...Aidan..." He gasped, his voice rough and gravelly from the outburst a few seconds earlier. "What..."
"Shhh, its okay...everything's okay..." Aidan said, reaching up with his free hand to run his fingers through the younger man's hair. He hoped the touch would bring some small amount of comfort in the world of pain Josh was stuck in.
Josh blinked at him for a second, his expression a mixture of confusion and distress. Another tremor of pair shot through him and he gasped, breath coming out fast and raspy. He blinked a few more times before his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.
Aggghhh! I'm sorry! I'll update again as soon as I can, I promise!