A Different Kind of Animal

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Big Ben refused to give in to so much as a whimper of pain while Dr. Samuel Johnson sterilized and attempted to stitch the ten seeping punctures on Ben’s massive chest. They were each about three-quarters of an inch deep and hurt like the six shades of hell. Luckily, the sick little freak’s claws had only sunk far enough in to mar his pec muscles, but even though the wounds weren’t that serious, Big Ben couldn’t lie to himself: he had been scared shitless at the time, thinking he was about to die.

The look in that kid’s eyes. Big Ben repressed a shudder, pushing his fear back and focusing instead on the rage that filled him when he thought about how he’d fallen beneath that runt’s strength. I’m stronger, he thought savagely.

“B-Benjamin, th-this is not a p-pretty sight,” Dr. Johnson said brightly in his halting way of speaking.

“Ya think?” Big Ben roared, and the old doctor visibly paled and went back to work, dabbing at the worst of the punctures—the ones caused by the kid’s thumbs—with a moist alcohol pad.

Big Ben couldn’t help it. The air hissed between his teeth as the alcohol burned deep into the cut.

“You idiot! I told you not to use that stuff!” he belted, rising up out of his chair so that he towered over the older man.

“B-B-Ben, I-I have t-t-to!” he cried feebly, raising his hands as though to protect himself from a blow. “I-It’ll g-get infected!”

Snorting, Big Ben settled back into the chair and agreed hotly, “Who knows where that kid’s hands’ve been? Probably digging around in his cat box. Nasty little freak.”

“N-now please hold s-still,” Dr. Johnson pleaded weakly, raising his hands with a new needle and string to start on the first of the other five claw marks. The five wounds from Leonardo’s left hand had already taken an hour to try to mend, and Dr. Johnson kept clicking his tongue in disapproval. “The wounds d-don’t want to c-c-close. The s-stitches might n-not hold.”

“And I told you to keep trying,” Ben ordered between clenched teeth, gripping the arm of the chair against the inflamed pain.

“A-amazing, though, isn’t it?” the doctor mused aloud, and Big Ben prepared to be infuriated as the older man finished, “He’s q-quite capable.”

Ben overturned the man’s rolling cart.

“Hey now, what’s with all the ruckus?” General Jameson inquired from the doorway of the room. He didn’t sound very happy, so Big Ben immediately set to work righting the old doctor’s cart—but he refused to apologize, so he was glad when the boss didn’t ask him to.

Straightening everything actually proved to be agonizing, since every arm movement pulled on the muscles of his damaged chest. Without so much as a frown to let on to his discomfort, though, Big Ben stood straight and faced the General.

The boss let out a low whistle as he inspected Big Ben’s injuries. “That’s my boy,” the General murmured, and Big Ben knew that his boss wasn’t talking about him.

“Why is it,” Big Ben growled in as calm a voice as he could muster, “that you’re all happy with this?” Gaining volume with every word, he bellowed, “I could have died!”

The General’s eyes narrowed, and his roughened face hardened into an unforgiving mask of intolerance. Big Ben instantly regretted his outburst, but he didn’t regret his words.

“Temper, Ben,” the General advised softly, and Big Ben lowered his eyes in compliance. Without raising his voice, the boss said, “So tell me what happened. Why is it that you are here, and Leonardo is not?”