Page 47 of Stone
Chapter 24
Crumbling
After her uncle left, Brielle went to check onGarenth. The creature was still awake and apparently waiting for her to return.
“How do you feel?”
“Bad.”
“Would you like some water?”
“Na-am.” Yes.
She took the glass from the bedside table and held it out to him, adjusting the strawfor him to sip. He took several small swallows before pulling back.
“Enough?”
“Na-am.”
He laid his head back on the pillow, sighing deeply. Brielle eyed the blood-soaked towels. Going into the bathroom, she gathered the remainder of her clean towels. Sometime today she needed to make a trip to the basement laundry room.I hope there’s no one there whenI take this load of towels. It’ll be hard to explain where all this blood came from if someone saw them.
“I’m going to check on your wounds. See if the compresses need to be replaced. I don’t want to hurt you, but this mightcauseyou discomfort.”
“Understand.”
She started with the wound on his arm. Carefully untying the towel, she slowly peeled away thewashcloth. She hoped to see some sort of clotting going on. In reality, she had no idea what she’d find since his physique was foreign to the point of being alien. What shedidn’twant to find, or exacerbate, was to remove any scab that might have formed over the injury, and cause him to start bleeding again.
She held her breath as she lifted the cloth. When a fresh trail of bloodfailed to appear, she moved the lamp closer to give her a better view of the bullet hole. Saying a silent prayer of thanks, she tapped her phone to reopen the app.
“I think you’re starting to heal.”
Garenth’seyes remained closed. Neither did he answer.
The fact that an artery hadn’t been hit was a miracle. However, there remained the problem of thebullet still embedded inside. It couldn’t remain there, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. She wasn’t a surgeon, and she damn well wasn’t about to probe around inside his arm to try to find it.
She left that wound open to give it a chance to breathe while she checked his other injuries. After which she would bind them all with clean compresses. She felt completely helpless,knowing there was nothing she could give him for pain. Or put on the wounds to help him avoid infection. All she could do was keep the injuries clean and bound.
She reached next for the long gash across his ribcage. Gradually lifting the cotton towel, she leaned over to get a closer look, taking care not to breathe on the laceration.
Good news, there was no bleeding.She frowned. But there wasn’t a scab, either. In fact…
She tilted her head. If that was muscle underneath the stony exterior, it was flesh-colored. There also appeared to be some sort of clear film acting as a sort of liner between the muscle and outer covering.
Garenthsuddenly reached up and scratched at the wound. Brielle cried out in alarm and grabbed his handto keep him from further injuring himself. She jerked his hand away, but instead of the slash bleeding again, pieces of stone and dust fell onto the sheet. But that debris was second to what she found herself staring at.
That’s skin. That flesh-colored muscle isn’t a muscle. It’s skin.
It’s skin!
She snatched up her phone. “Does it itch?”
“Na-am.” Yes.
Serious injuries never itched. They hurt. They were agonizing to endure without pain killers. The only time they would itch is when they were healing.
She recalled the time she’d broken her arm during a high school basketball game. Initially it had given her untold grief. Nothing she could do would rid her of the lancing pain going up her arm. But once itbegan to heal, the resulting itching nearly drove her out of her mind.
“Tell me if this hurts,” she instructed.
