Everything Anew

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Nathan

"Lila?"

Her eyes stayed closed as I sat her down on the bed, propping her up against some pillows as her head lulled to the side. "Shit."

I rushed to the bathroom, grabbing the cloth from earlier and soaking it again, wringing it out and returning to my room a moment later. I pressed it to her forehead, her brown eyes fluttering open from the sudden feeling of the cold towel against her hot skin.

"Nathan." She whispered and smiled at me.

My eyes unintentionally fell to her lips, but I managed to readjust my gaze to hers. "We need to take off your sweater, alright?"

"Okay."

I made my way over to my closet, pulling out one of my cotton button up shirts and heading back towards the bed. By the time I got there, she already had the shirt lifted halfway off of herself.

My eyes betrayed me, as I looked at the curve of her stomach that lead up to her ribcage, her bones being a little too visible for my liking. I made my way over as she slipped it off completely; her bandages that wrapped around her back also covered her chest.

"Face away from me." I said, relieved when she listened without complaint.

I grabbed a pair of bandage scissors and carefully began cutting the gauze. Lila flinched a few times, but kept as still as possible, her body tense despite the scissors being the only thing touching her skin. Once it was cut off, I unhurriedly pulled back the bandage and stared.

"How bad is it?" Lila croaked.

The cuts on her back were worse than I thought. They were inflamed, and not healing as well as they should have been. Almost all supernatural beings, shifters included, healed easily when injured, but if it was bad enough, it would take its course the same way it would with a normal human.

"Pretty bad. It'll need to be flushed and you'll need antibiotics. Luckily we have some here, but it'll hurt like hell cleaning these out."

Lila took a deep breath, watching her scarred back expand as she did. "Just get it over with."

Once I grabbed everything I needed from the bathroom, I returned to her. Lila was still facing away from me, a pillow now in her lap with her arms wrapped tightly around it. I wasn't sure if it was meant to comfort her, or hide her body from me. I could only assume it was both. 

"Ready?"

With a nod of her head, I got to work using the solution to clean out the wounds. She hissed and choked out a few sobs, but never told me to stop. Even as an hour passed, she kept herself quiet until I was done. I took another trip to the bathroom and grabbed a clean towel to soak in warm water. As carefully as I could, I laid it against Lila's back to ease her pain. 

She sighed in relief as I sat at the edge of the bed and checked the time. "We'll let that stay there for a bit, then I'll apply ointment to it and bandage it up. They'll need to be changed daily along with taking the antibiotics." I watched as she kept her head down, clinging to the pillow tighter. "I won't hurt you, you know?"

Lila didn't reply to that, instead she looked off as if lost in thought. I pursed my lips, my eyes shifting towards the clock again to see if any time had passed to no avail. I rubbed my knees, finding something to do with my hands while I waited. I was never really good at keeping still.

"Thank you."

My hands stilled, I barely heard the words slip past her lips as I looked over at her. Lila was silent for a second longer, but I watched as her head lifted and her brown eyes met mine. "For not hurting me, for saving me."