Protected

Willpower

I sat on the couch in the living room, bolt upright. Riley was in Farkle's room. No matter what they said, she refused to leave his side. She was curled up on the floor next to his bed, asleep.

Lucas came downstairs. He grabbed a blanket from the seat next to me and draped it around my shivering body. He sat down next to me, wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and pulled me to his chest. I rested my head against his chest, tracing the muscles with my hand. 

"Shouldn't you be with Zay and Josh," I asked, "Helping Farkle."

He shrugged.

"Farkle's asleep. The blood transfer went without a hitch. There's a really good chance he'll live now," Lucas said.

"What else can you do?" I asked, chewing my lip.

Lucas grimaced.

"That's the thing. There's a list of 100% things you can do to help the transformation go smoother. One of them is to break their arms, to help the joints set correctly so they can go from wolf to human easily. Farkle said it was fine, he could deal with the pain. He said he trusted us to do whatever we needed to do. Riley wouldn't let us," he said.

"You do realize that she's, like, half your size, right?" I said.

He shook his head violently, "No. No. No. It was scary. We tried to restrain her. Zay was holding her. But she was strong. He scratched up Zay's face pretty bad. Like, it was bloody. And then Josh tried to do it quickly before Riley could stop him, but Riley jumped on his back and was smashing him into walls," Lucas said.

I felt a giggle escape my lips.

"That's my girl," I said. 

"But werewolf transformation isn't an exact science. It's different for everyone. Farkle has a super strong will, so I won't bet against him," Lucas said. 

I nodded.

"You should get some sleep," he said.

"No way," I said immediately, "absolutely not."

"Do you have any idea how long you've been asleep? It's, like, four a.m." He protested.

I sighed, "Fine. Under one condition."

"What's your condition?" He asked.

"You have to let me sleep on your chest. You can't move." I said.

"Okay. I was going to do that anyway," he said.

I wanted to respond, but I was already asleep.

An hour later, when Zay came downstairs, he found Maya asleep with her head resting on Lucas's chest, and Lucas asleep with his face buried in Maya's hair.