Ginger flopped to the ground in exhaustion and let out another dreadful wail. Bright red blood oozed from shallow scratches down her back and legs and dripped from a gash on her belly. Where the cats had been fighting, the ground was splashed with crimson.
Benny was still frozen in shock, his icy eyes wide with fear as he stared at Fluff. Her breathing was worryingly weak, and her dark blue eyes were wide yet blank. "What're we going to do?" He yowled. Max shook his head and looked down, sadness in his amber eyes.
Rosie looked at Ginger, and, realising that she was too upset to be her level-headed self, she composed her own self and took a deep breath. She had to stay focused if Fluff was to have any chance of survival.
"Right." She meowed, and the other cats shifted their eyes to meet hers. "If we want to help Fluff, we need to do something." She announced.
"You're right." Benny sighed, "What do you suggest?"
"I think we should get something to stop the bleeding first," Rosie mewed, eyeing the trickling wound at Fluff's throat, "Then we can pause to think more clearly."
"What could we use for that?" Benny inquired.
"Oh!" Max stood up, "I remember my mother once told me that you should use cobwebs to stop bleeding, it came up when one of my friends was attacked by a fox cub when I was younger. He had a deep gash in his side and I was sent by my mother to find the cobwebs."
Rosie grinned affectionately at her mate's enthusiasm, "Well, you can go and find them again then." She mewed. He rolled his eyes at her but eagerly ran off to the other corner of the twoleg garden to search. "In the meantime, you should probably lick the wound clean." She mewed to Benny, he nodded and got to work, gently lapping at the nasty gash on Fluff's throat. She whimpered in pain, but he soothed her with his voice as he cleaned the wound.
Rosie went over to Ginger and began to help the tabby with her wounds, starting with the deep cut in her stomach. "This is pretty bad!" Rosie exclaimed as she lapped, she hadn't expected the wound to be so deep.
"It's not too bad," Ginger muttered, "Not compared to hers." She weakly flicked her tail in the general direction of her whimpering friend, wincing as she realised it too was scratched and bleeding. She washed these cuts as Rosie washed her scratched ears.
"I'm afraid you've lost the tip of this one." Rosie mewed sympathetically, moving onto Ginger's right ear and realising that the tip had been sliced clean off. "I'm surprised you're not feeling the pain!"
"I am," Ginger grunted as she turned over and began cleaning between her claws, "I just don't show it much." She glanced up at Rosie who smiled sadly.
"You're very brave then." She meowed. Ginger's only reply was another grunt.
Max returned with a thick ball of cobwebs held carefully between his teeth and dropped it next to his mate. Rosie started to divide up the ball. She took some for Ginger and instructed Max to take the rest over to Benny and help him to plaster it onto Fluff's throat.
Dawn broke as Rosie, Max and Benny finished applying the cob webs to the injured cats' wounds. They started to tend to their own, which were less serious. Benny had managed to get out of the battle unscathed once again. Max had some shallow scratches down his back and a bite on his front leg and Rosie had scratches on her face and belly. Fluff and Ginger slept as Max and Rosie cleaned themselves up. Benny stayed on watch, his gaze resting on Fluff most of the time. Just keep breathing, he willed her, please keep breathing for me.
Fluff did keep breathing, she had become stronger after the bleeding had stopped but still twitched with pain in her sleep. Ginger struggled in hers, her legs moving frantically as if she was still running from the rogues, her breathing fast and heavy.
Around sun-high, Ginger woke up with a start. She got up and stretched, forgetting about the cobwebs and wincing as a piece fell from her raw belly. Benny was the only cat still awake, he had agreed to stay on watch as he was uninjured and wanted to keep an eye on Fluff.
"Hi," He meowed to Ginger, "How are your wounds?"
"Fine." She muttered.
"You're lucky you found these two kittypets," Benny pointed out, "You could've been killed. Would've been killed, without them."
"You think I don't know that?" Ginger hissed, "Do you not realise that guilt is tearing me apart right now? That I'm wishing I was the one that Charlie attacked, rather than my best friend?"
"And you should feel guilty!" Benny growled back, his eyes flashing, "You came out here, risking yours and Fluff's lives just so that you could get some stupid information about the clans so that you can leave and take her away from me!"
"Her life was so much easier before you strolled into it anyway!" Ginger snarled, "You had her confused and doubting me, a cat she has known since she was a kit! We grew up together, you've not even known her a moon!"
"Well clearly she was right to doubt you! She nearly died because of you!" Benny yowled, his voice slicing through the air.
Ginger felt utterly defeated, he's right, she thought, what kind of a friend am I? She limped sadly away from the other cats and slumped down in the long grass with her back to them. I don't deserve to have Fluff as my friend, and I don't want to be friends with Max and Rosie either, in case I hurt them too. She lay there, watching the sun rise through the gaps between the green blades.