Date: 10 August 2006
Location: London

Larissa had no idea how much time had passed—it felt like it had been hours, but for all she knew it had only been a few minutes. No, she convinced herself. It had been more than a couple of moments since she had dragged herself into this alleyway. It had been dark—the streetlights had been on still… the only way that she had even seen where she had been going. They were off now, and the sun was rising to the point that even the alley’s shadows were fading, albeit slightly. So a few hours, then, she told herself, trying to continue to remain logical when every passing moment made it more difficult for her to even form a complete thought. Because that was just the problem, really. It didn’t make a single difference if it had been moments or hours. She was dying. That much was incredibly clear. It felt like she had gone through all of those stages that she remembered hearing about, just in accelerated form. What an odd thought to have… she was unsure who she had even heard about them from, but it was what was coming to her now.

After all, she had tried to convince herself that none of this had happened… that she was dreaming, some sort of hyper-realistic nightmare—because this kind of thing didn’t happen to her. She didn’t go into the woods and get attacked by a werewolf. This wasn’t the way that her life went, the way that it was supposed to go. It was as simple as that. A dream. She’d wake up, probably never want to go into the forest again, and that would be it. But this kind of pain couldn’t be replicated in a dream. Larissa had realized that quickly. Every moment she made as she tried to pull herself out of the nearby forest and into an area that she could be found had made it obvious to her that this was real. This level of pain couldn’t be found in a simple nightmare. Anger was next, she supposed, though that had scarcely even lasted long. With how much energy that she had exerted, she nearly didn’t have it in her to be angry. She was angry that, after making it this far, she was still out of sight in an alleyway where no one would come across her. Angry that that had happened to her, because she had no clue what kind of shit luck she must have for that.

Next, she had tried to make it even easier for someone to find her. It seemed improbable—she wasn’t naïve. It was far too early for anyone to be up and about, let alone following after strange noises in alleyways. But she had been close enough to several garbage bins—foolishly had the idea that if she could kick them and make enough noise, someone would come. All she had managed to do was knock over the bins, so now she could die amongst the garbage. So much for good ideas—so much for damn adrenaline. Larissa couldn’t remember the rest of those steps of hers, and every passing thought was getting more difficult to comprehend than the last. The pain in her side just seemed to move through her, to a point of indescribable pain that she couldn’t even begin to compare to anything she’d ever experienced. It had to be over soon. There was no way that she could take much more of this.

@alexander

Full moons were certainly a hell of a lot easier than they used to be. When Alex had first been turned, the full moons were absolute hell. He would never forget his first few changes and how ill prepared he had been for them, memories the sickness that originally came with it, the dread and the pain and the intensified feelings of everything awful that came with the condition. It was almost funny to think of how far off all of that seemed now. Of course, he hadn’t had the capacity to make his circumstances better by will power back in Hogwarts. He was so shaken after losing his parents, being turned, and running the risk of being kicked out of Hogwarts that nothing ran through his mind more than getting Wolfsbane to make it all bearable. Now, six years after being turned, he had it down to an art or a science without Wolfsbane at this point. It was all about acceptance, embracing what he was, and as soon as he learned to, it had all become a hell of a lot easier. It was amazing how many werewolves disadvantaged themselves by denying that. It was so much easier to just accept it.

Unlike most werewolves, Alex didn’t have to limp back to the damn city every time he transformed on the full moon. Sure, he was a bit battered and bruised up, as no amount of will power could fight the instincts in the werewolf form without Wolfsbane, so naturally, he had taken out some of that aggression on himself. He was used to it at this point, and they would be easy enough to heal at this point. This routine at the full moon was just part of his lifestyle, a necessary part, and he didn’t have much of a reason to complain. His existence wasn’t sad or miserable as most werewolves. He got over it. He accepted it. Life was so much easier because of it.

Walking into the city at the crack of dawn, there was very little activity on the outskirts of the city. The street lights were out as the sun lit the city dimly, and there was little sound in the streets. He figured there would be more going on closer to the center, as the city never truly sleeps, but it was quiet for the most part. It was because of the silence that a sound coming down an alley to his left caught his attention. His heightened senses caught it easily, and he stopped at the entrance. It looked like a trash can had been knocked over, as if kicked aside. Alexander probably would have thought it the doing of a stray cat or some other alley dweller if it weren’t for the trail of blood that led itself into the alley. His eyes traced the trail back and forth, and he realized that it had come from the same direction that he had just come from. Frowning, he ventured down the alley to see what the source of it was.

Alex’s footsteps echoed off of the walls of the alley, and as he went further down, he heard the sound of labored breathing. He picked up his paste and finally stumbled upon a girl slumped against the wall, covered in blood. She looked nearly dead, pale and unfocused. Alex, fearing he knew exactly what this was, pushed aside the trash can that she had evidently knocked over, probably in an effort to be hear, and he knelt down beside her. He scanned his eyes over her, and she was entirely bloody, covered in deep scratches and, after moving aside the hand that was clutching her side, he saw a werewolf bite. “Shit,” he said sharply. She had lost a lot of blood, that much was certain, and was losing more. He had no idea how long she had been here, but he figured he could find out easily enough. He pressed his hand against her side, which he figured hurt her like hell, but if would staunch some of the bleeding until he could get a couple answers from her if she was capable of speaking. If not, he would just have to take matters into his own hands. He used his free hand to tilt her chin towards him so she could look at him, hoping that he could get her to focus on him. “What’s your name?” he asked her. If she knew that much and could say that much, then that would be a start.

For a moment, she thought she heard footsteps coming down the alleyway, but she was quite certain that she was imagining it. Who could possibly find themselves in an alleyway this early in the morning? Who was even awake? No one, she told herself. No one in their right mind would be out right about now. For a moment, she had convinced herself that she had been wrong—that those were certainly footsteps, that she could even see a shadow coming down the alleyway. It might be getting light out, scaring away the shadows cast against the stone walls by every passing moment, but she wasn’t imagining the approaching figure. There was no way that her mind could conjure up something like that. Larissa took a labored breath, realizing that she was unsure of the last time she’d pulled in some measure of oxygen into her body. Breathing was getting more difficult, though it had been from the moment that she’d felt the sharp pain of the werewolf’s claws against her body. She knew that she was losing too much blood… if she could even attempt to focus on her own horrific condition, she would know that it would be nearly impossible to even tell where all of the sources of the bleeding were coming from. Really, she shouldn’t even be alive bloody now—but it wasn’t as though she could bring herself to congratulate herself on her luck or her will to survive when it was fading fast. At this point, she had almost wished that the werewolf had just managed to kill her immediately… leaving her for dead was a far worse fate, in her mind. It left her with too much to think about, and to little to do in order to try to save herself. Her own feeble attempt at being hurt had done nothing but surround her in trash, though that seemed incredibly unimportant at the current time. It was the least of her problems, quite clearly.

No, her main problem was pretty damn clear. She was dying, and could do nothing but wait for it to finally take her under completely. Larissa didn’t even have the good fortune of passing out due to the pain. That would be a welcomed relief—instead, she had to think about everything, and everyone that she was leaving behind. Stephen wouldn’t even realize that she was gone until far later into the day. She had been off working a late night case, after all, and so it would be incredibly realistic for her to not head into the Ministry… that was commonplace for obliviators that had to work into the night—they were more or less unofficially given the day off. She had plans with Stephan for dinner, but not until far later. Hell, she would be dead in an alleyway for hours before he even suspected anything was wrong. And who was even to say how long it would take for someone to find her?

Merlin, it would kill him to find out what had happened to her. He hated werewolves, and finding out that one had killed her was going to be a lot for him to take. As far as her family went… while they were never the closest, this was hardly the news that she wanted them to get. Larissa couldn’t even recall the last conversation that she’d had with them. It hadn’t been too long ago, but it had been so unremarkable that she couldn’t even call it to mind in her final damn moments. Wasn’t she supposed to be having her life flash before her eyes? That would be a nice distraction from the pain, or was that just some bullshit happy story they told people to feel better about dying? She should have figured that was just some bullshit—there would be no relief from this seemingly endless pain. Not until she was dead. No way to sugarcoat that.

From somewhere very far away, she heard a noise, and it sounded like movement of one of the garbage bins… obviously she knew that sound quite well, since it had unsuccessfully called attention to her presence. Suddenly though, she realized that there really was someone there. Someone who had moved the bin, who saw her. But it felt far too late for that. Larissa wasn’t even sure that she could be saved even if someone wanted to put in the effort. Her head was dropped down to the side at this point, as she could scarcely hold up the weight of it, just as she could barely keep her eyes open. Larissa could make out a figure knelt beside her, but that was about all. Flinching as his hand made contact with her open wound, Larissa made a sound of protest, trying to move away from him… or at least, she thought she had tried. Really, she had scarcely even moved, but it was all the effort that she could put in at the moment. Suddenly, she could see him, and she barely realized that it was because he had tilted her chin back upwards. Larissa tried to focus her gaze on him, blinking to try to clear her vision. She opened her mouth to speak, before realizing how dry her throat was to the point that she could barely make a sound. Pausing, she swallowed to try to make it even slightly easier to speak. “Larissa,” she managed… or, at least, it sounded as good as it was going to get, considering the circumstances.

The one aspect the Alex regretted that he couldn’t control without Wolfsbane was whether or not he hurt a person in his werewolf form. He wasn’t really against necessary violence or aggression, but killing or turning innocents wasn’t something he wished to ever say he did. That was the only downside to not having Wolfsbane, he figured. He usually had a sense of whether or not he hurt an innocent by the time he changed back. A lingering sense of dominance that was more than normal from finding prey, the lingering taste of human flesh still in his mouth, and minor differences that seemed to amplify some horrible happenstance of the previous night. He could only recall feeling such things on rare occasions. He made it a point to be as far away from civilization as possible when he turned. Unless, of course, he had some sort of vendetta.

It was often the less experienced or more vicious werewolves that caused situations like this one. This girl had obviously been bitten, and he knew he wasn’t the one that had bitten her. He would know at this point if he was. He guessed she had a chance, if a slim one, at survival so long as he did something and did something soon. She would become a werewolf, obviously, which was another beast to deal with in itself quite literally, but right now, his main focus was making sure she would survive. He inspected her injuries just by quickly scanning over. He was familiar with them well enough. After all, he had been bitten at one point, and cuts and gashes were second nature to him at this point. At first glance, none of the other scratches seemed fatal. They were bleeding, sure, but the main threat was certainly the bite. So long as he got the taken care of quickly, he figured she had a pretty good chance of surviving.

When he pressed his hand to her bite, she tried to pull away, to which he quickly made to steady her and keep her near. “Stay still. I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured her. She still knew her name, which was a good sign, even if she struggled immensely to say it. “Focus on me, Larissa,” he said. “You’re going to be okay.” He looked back out of the alley. It was far too risky to perform magic here to heal her at all, and he needed silver powder and dittany to do it properly anyway. He would have to take her back to his apartment to do it right. He had no idea if she was a witch or a Muggle, but it really didn’t matter at the moment because it was a matter of her survival for him to apparate with her. He guided her hand to her bite again and pressed it there. “I need you to hold your hand there, okay?” he said, sliding his own hand away. “How long have you been here, Larissa?” he asked her as his slid his hands underneath of her, prepared to lift her so he could apparate with her in his arms. He didn’t know if she’d be able to answer that, but it was worth a try, and making her talk would at least keep her with him, he hoped.

Now that she had been found, Larissa really knew that she needed to focus. She had made it this far without dying, and while she thought the odds of this person being able to help her were slim, Larissa still figured that she ought to try not to die until he’d given it a try. Of course, if he was a Muggle, then she was frankly screwed. He would take her to a hospital, and she would die—there was nothing that they could do there to close up this wound, and that would also just be a bad way for muggles to get suspicious. She had been an obliviator for over a year now, she knew exactly what situations she had dealt with in hospitals. Muggles trying to help when they saw someone in need, and then growing concerned and suspicious when their methods didn’t always work for reviving the person in question. This was one such time. She scarcely could even bring to mind what she had learned about werewolves back in school, but she knew that there was only one way to close up the wound. More than likely, even if this man was a wizard, he either wouldn’t remember just what to do either, or he would take her to St. Mungo’s—and she was unsure what they would even do for her, if anything.

She inhaled sharply as he kept his hand on top of her injury even as she tried to move away. It felt like the pain was just worsening by the moment, and the pressure on it was only making it even harder to tolerate. Larissa knew that he was just trying to stop the bleeding… that seemed obvious enough, but she wasn’t even sure that it was worth the trouble at this point. Was any additional pain really worth it when she was dying? The odds were that he was a Muggle—what were the chances of him being a wizard? He would try to get her to a Muggle hospital and she’d die along the way. At his words, Larissa brought her blurring vision back to him, surprised that he had said her name. Did she know him? He certainly didn’t look all that familiar. Wait, she mused, she had just told him her name… it had just bloody well happened. As each moment passed, it was just getting more difficult for her to focus on what was happening, and each breath became shallower—more painful. It was nearly funny as he stated that she was going to be okay, because that was just the problem. More than likely, she absolutely was not going to be. It wasn’t his fault, but she just felt too far gone to be helped by now. Maybe it was just because she hadn’t experienced much pain her life, but this felt… like far too much for her body to handle much longer.

Larissa let him guide her hand along to her injury, mostly because she didn’t have the energy to do much else. It felt like even movement was next to impossible now. At least he seemed to know that and moved her hand where he needed it to go. Wincing, she attempted to press her hand against the wound, causing pain to radiate through her though she didn’t move away. Larissa supposed she might as well give it a shot, if he was going to the effort to try to help her. “Okay,” she whispered, not managing to speak much louder than that. She just felt entirely lightheaded, and like every part of her body was separately experiencing more pain than she could deal with at the same time. Larissa barely even reacted as his arms moved underneath her, though she tensed slightly in anticipation of the pain she was sure she would feel the moment that he tried to move her. “An hour or two—maybe more,” Larissa managed, her voice still just merely a whisper. She found that even speaking hurt more than it should.

While Alex had accepted his condition for the most part, he could admit that being turned was one of the most bloody awful things he had ever experienced. If it wasn’t bad enough that he had lost his parents, one to death and one to the hellish fate of Azkaban after hurting an innocent, being left a werewolf and an orphan with his brother was a pretty sad destiny. It had taken him a while after the whole ordeal to become even remotely okay with it, and he was only managing his problem instead of actually dealing with it. Getting Wolfsbane had been the primary concern to manage it, and he hadn’t learned to deal with it until after Hogwarts. He had nothing to fall back on once school was finished, only himself, and he realized at that point that he needed to figure something out to handle himself.

Of course, every situation and circumstance in which a person suddenly finds themselves turned is different. He couldn’t help but wonder no matter how fleetingly what this girl’s was. She had obviously accepted that fact that she was going to die, but Alex wasn’t about to let that happen if he could help it. He didn’t give a damn what circumstances he might be throwing her into. His primary concern was simply getting her to survive, because he had learned that being a werewolf wasn’t as awful of a destiny as society made it out to be, and he would show her that if he could. But of course, she had to survive for that to be even a remote possibility.

The fact that she was able to speak, somewhat follow instructions, and vaguely focus on him were at least good signs in his mind, and he would obviously take what he could get at this point. it was a horrible bite, that much was for certain, but still survivable if Alex could guess. “Good,” he said when she pressed her hand to her side. It was a start, and that was all he needed. One or two hours was a while, and given the way she was now, he figured it was a pretty accurate estimate. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, but as long as we can close these wounds, I think you’ll be okay.” He was really betting on the fact that she was a witch, as a Muggle would have probably keeled over dead from this already. With that thought in mind, he carefully lifted her, trying to move her as little as possible since he knew it would hurt like hell. “Stay with me, Larissa,” he coached her. With that, he held onto her tightly and apparated back to his apartment.

She hadn’t expected anyone to come across her. Of course, she had hoped—and she had known that her odds would be better here than they would be in the forest where she’d been attacked. It was lucky that she had even made it this far, really, and she was actually surprised that she had even managed to move… something that seemed so impossible to her now. Larissa didn’t know much of anything about healing, as she absolutely had never needed to. She could only imagine that her moving as much as she did had made her lose more blood. It seemed logical, at least, and so she knew that while it might have helped her to be seen easier, it might have just dug her grave a little bit deeper. It might have sped along her unfortunate demise just a bit faster, though what did she bloody know? It had seemed like a valid option at the time, as she certainly knew that no one was going to find her in the forest. She had only been there for work, and it wasn’t exactly a place that many people were going to find themselves right as the sun came up. Obviously, they weren’t going to find themselves anywhere but in their bed, sound sleep… just as she should be. She should be asleep, soon waking up to start her day, with nothing on her mind but seeing her boyfriend later that day—what she would wear, what they would do… that was what she should be worrying about. Now, it seemed more likely than ever that she soon wouldn’t have any worries at all.

Until someone had come along. She still was unsure that there was even a point in this man trying to help her at all. With how long she had been there, Larissa was certain that if she wasn’t a lost cause yet, she was very nearly there. The bloke would have to know exactly what he was doing in order to save her, and with how her luck had been going thus far, it didn’t seem promising. But she would try. Of course she bloody would. She didn’t want to die anymore than he probably wanted to have it on his mind that he hadn’t been able to save her. It didn’t matter that they were strangers; he certainly wouldn’t want that on his conscience, and she didn’t really want it to happen either, bloody clearly. She was going to try her damnedest to do what he said and hope that he knew what he was doing. Worst-case scenario was pretty clear already… that wouldn’t be changing. Either she died, which would happen anyways, or they at least gave it a shot. The only downside was moving. With the little pain that she’d experienced in her life, Larissa really knew that she wasn’t prepared to feel more—and that was something that she had no choice but to be prepared for.

She nearly felt her consciousness fading when she pressed against her wound, the action causing shockwaves of pain to move through her… to a point that she could scarcely handle—and she knew that she wasn’t even pressing that hard. He was speaking now, but she was finding it difficult to focus on his words. Larissa was just anticipating the pain to come, knowing that movement was going to hurt far worse than staying still had. She cried out softly as he moved her into his arms, but otherwise didn’t react, as she was just getting so bloody tired. Her head dropped against his chest as he stood up, and she tried to focus on anything but the pain… but it was hard to focus on anything… anything at all. The moment that she felt the familiar pull of apparition, she lost consciousness entirely.

Alexander knew that situations like this could happen, and he hated that they did. He didn’t have a problem with necessary violence, but attacking and biting humans was entirely unnecessary. Werewolves that didn’t take proper precautions were the ones who caused this. Of course, he knew that some things couldn’t always be prevented, but so long as the werewolves and the humans had enough bloody sense, this could generally be avoided. It took the werewolf getting to their proper place on the full moon and the humans not being blistering idiots to stay out of harm’s way. He didn’t know which of those occurrences were the cause of this situation; maybe a combination of both, or maybe neither and it really was just a freak occurrence. Alex was sure it hadn’t been him that had bitten this girl; he would have realized to some capacity if he had, and he knew he was too far out for him to bite her and her make it all the way back here alive.

Whatever the situation was, he was here now, and he was sure that if he did this carefully, he could save her. She would live on as a werewolf, of course, but there would be another time to worry about that. He knew that some people would rather die than live on that way, but he had to make that decision for her right now, and at the moment, he was choosing life. If he chose death for her, there was no taking that back. She had certainly lost a lot of blood. he wasn’t sure if she had been conscious up until this point, but she had been holding on well enough. Alex knew he was pretty beat up from the full moon, but his pain and injuries had all but left his mind. He was too focused on making sure she got through to worry about it. He had the necessary supplies to heal her at his apartment, so apparating there was his only choice. He hated that he was putting her through more pain as he lifted her, but he knew that he couldn’t do anything else.

When they managed to get back in his apartment, he instantly saw that she had passed out. “Dammit…” he muttered. He quickly used his wand to clear off his kitchen table, as that would be the easiest thing to lay her on so he could heal her. He went to the cabinet for supplies; silver powder and dittany to close the wound, and blood replenishing potion to replace the blood she had lost. He walked back to where she lay and set the supplies down. As carefully as he could, he ripped away part of her shirt so he had a better look at the wound. “Larissa? Can you hear me?” he said clearly as he readied what he needed to, seeing as it looked like she might stir.

This had felt like the longest night that she’d ever had… it was next to impossible for her to even tell how much time had gone by. The only reason she’d even known enough to answer this bloke’s question had been because she could only recall that the street lights had been on, and they certainly weren’t now. Besides, she knew what time it had been when she’d first gone into the forest to work on a case, and much time had passed then them. Past that, it just felt like she didn’t have any scope of time. In fact, with every passing moment, thoughts seemed more difficult to string together. Larissa hoped he knew what he was doing, otherwise, he was wasting his time in helping her, and he didn’t need that on his conscience. It might be better off for him to leave her be, because it felt like there was very little that could be done to help her at this point. As time went on during the night, it had felt like the pain had only continued to worsen to the point that it was nearly unbearable. Now, she was just getting weaker… it barely even hurt anymore. It would be good for it to stop. All that she wanted was to not feel this pain anymore, no matter what that meant.

There was a bit of fight left in her, but it didn’t feel like her body was cooperating with that. It was all in her head at this point, and that wasn’t enough. As much as she wanted to stay awake, she knew that she was growing too weak to even attempt it. When he had moved to pick her up, Larissa had tensed for pain, but it was nearly past that point now. Every part of her body ached in pain, some areas more than others, but she was too exhausted to even note it anymore. While she managed to keep her eyes open as he lifted her up, her head fell against his chest as she simply didn’t have the strength to hold it up any longer. Not knowing if this bloke was a wizard or a Muggle, she hadn’t expected the sensation of apparition until she could feel it occurring, and she supposed the surprise in that could have been the reason that she passed out entirely.

When she came to again, she could tell that the setting had changed, even though she couldn’t bring her eyes to even open. She wasn’t as cold anymore, leading her to believe that she wasn’t outside, but she was finding it more difficult to breath now… how had this happened? How had this night gotten so off track? She’d never even broken a bone before, and now she was so close to death that she couldn’t even get her body to cooperate with her mind—soon that would bloody go too. She had no doubt. Suddenly, she heard words, and tried to focus on them… hoping it would give her some lasting connection to what was going on. Enough to keep her awake, at least, but she was unsure if that was even possible. “Yes,” she replied, hoarsely, trying not to focus on the shooting pains running through her. Being in this position bloody hurt, but the pain was helping her to stay awake for the time being. Opening her eyes, Larissa attempted to focus in on her surroundings, enough to see that they were certainly in a kitchen… but that was the only thought that really came to mind in the slightest. As much as the pain was helping her to stay awake, as it gave her something to focus on, it was making everything else far more difficult.

Since he had become a werewolf, Alexander made it a point to know everything he could about the condition, as he figured it would make it a hell of a lot easier to deal with if he knew what he was actually dealing with, and learning about the bites was certainly necessary in these studies of his. Wounds could only be fully closed with silver powder and dittany, which made sense. He kept these on hand just in case from then on, and he was pretty bloody glad that he had now that this situation arose. It was rare for people to survive a werewolf attack and a bite; normally they died of blood loss if the wounds were bad enough, and they usually were, or they died of shock. Alex had obviously survived his attack, and he had only been fifteen at the time. Muggles almost certainly died, but witches and wizards had a greater chance of survival, even if it was by a slim margin.As long as the wounds could be closed and the blood loss got under control, a person could certainly survive. They would just live on as a werewolf.

He didn’t know precisely how long this woman had been laying before he found her, but he was pretty surprised that she had survived until this point. She had lost a lot of blood, but he could tell that there was certainly some fight left in her, he could tell that much, and that was what he had to hold onto for now. It was her only chance of survival. She seemed to have will to live, at any rate. He wasn’t sure if she had realized what had happened to her, but if she did, he would take her insistence to continue living as a willingness to be a werewolf. That was her only choice if she wanted to live, after all. She was weak, that much was certain, and he had expected the apparition to cause her to lose consciousness, and it confirmed for him how weak she actually was. The further he went, the more he understood the situation and that was the best chance she had at survival right now.

It didn’t take him long to gather what he needed, which was bloody good since this needed to be done pretty damn quickly if she was going to live. He brought out the silver powder and dittany, and he cursed when he realized he only had a bit of blood replenishing potion around. He kept it on hand on the off chance that something like this ever occurred, but he also kept it because he used it after the full moons when he sustained his own injuries; sometimes they were bad enough to require it. He hadn’t even paid the injuries he had now any mind since finding Larissa; her survival was far more important than a cut scratches. He was pretty relieved when she responded to him. “Good. Stay with me,” he coached her. Keeping her conscious was most favorable.He grabbed a rag and wet it. “I’m going to put a cold rag on your forehead, then I’m going to wipe off your bite and your scratches and close it,” he told her. Sometimes telling the injured what you were doing helped keep their attention and their consciousness; it gave them something to focus on. He kept upon his word and laid a cool rag on her forehead, hoping it would help in some way. She was pretty pale, but he tried to ignore it as he moved back to her injuries. “This will hurt, but you have to stay with me,” he told her. With that, as carefully as he possibly could, carefully wiped the blood away and began dabbing the wound to make it clean enough to close.