her head had been resting on Dylan’s lap. He was cross-legged, and his hand had been brushing her hair. Her eyes still felt red and abraded by too many tears, or by the act of withholding them.
“Where-?”
Her eyes tried to adjust to the dark and she saw his white face looking back at her.
“Back at the cabin,” he whispered. “He regained consciousness earlier, a few hours ago. I helped him back up to the cabin… the bullet when through his right shoulder, tore some muscles and ligaments, but it looks okay… he’s sleeping now… still has a sense of humor, so…”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” she said angrily.
He lowered his eyes. “You were sleeping so deeply, even after I shook you…” he explained. “I took Chris back, bandaged the wound, and hurried back here.”
She felt a little ashamed to have been so out of things that even Dylan couldn’t have woken her. And yet, he had come back and sat with her well into the night, watching over her. She could see the lines of fatigue under his eyes, despite the cheerful expression that danced back from it. He probably didn’t get any sleep, she realized, and felt bad.
“I’m… sorry,” she said.
He shook his head and stood up, stretching his knees, and offered her a hand. The wound on his head was still open and ugly, pink and glaring in the moonlight. It must hurt like a bitch, but he hasn’t complained once. There was still traces of blood caked in his hair. He hadn’t had time to wash himself properly. He’d come straight from the cabin to her.
“C’mon, let’s get back,” Dylan said.
Inside, she changed out of the sweatshirt and put on pants and another fresh tank-top and sweater, and went to check on Chris. He was snoring, as usual, and save for the crude bandage job that was wrapped over one massive tree-trunk arm and shoulder, it was as if nothing had happened at all. It still felt surreal. Her mind tried to tape down the rewind button for her as she knelt beside him.
The gunshots, she could remember. Then running. Then the hunter bleeding terribly into the water, and the poachers raising their guns. Right. They had shot Dylan. And then you changed into a bear and tried to protect him, didn’t you, she reached out and brushed Chris’ forehead. The big man made a mumbling sound and smiled, taken with whatever dream had lapsed behind his closed eyelids. She bent down and kissed his forehead.
“Guess I owe him one,” Dylan said, and she turned quickly. He was standing at the doorway, but his eyes were locked on Chris. It had been traumatic enough for her to see Chris at the edge of his own life but Dylan had grown up with Chris, had chosen him as his patron. He hides his worry better than I do, she brushed at her cheeks, smudging invisible tears.
“How do you feel?” she asked, pushing off the bed.
“Hungry, of course,” he said, but at that instant he blinked rapidly and his hand shot out, gripping the doorframe. “And… probably concussed,” he snickered.
Sarah sat him down on the chair in the living room and dressed the wound on his forehead. Another centimeter or two and the bullet wouldn’t have grazed his skull… it would have entered it, she gulped. It was still gaping, which meant she’d need to sew it. Anticipating the worse, she heard Dylan croak with little joy in his throat.
“Sewing kit. Behind the glasses, top cupboard,” he said, and opened Chris’ blue tackle-kit while she brought down an old Altoids container that had needles and thread in it. “And… bring that lighter, by the stove.”
“What are you-”
“I need you to do something because I can’t do it myself,” he said, abating the fear in his voice by focusing on the movement of his hands. Cleaning the bullet graze on his forehead had caused it to bleed again lightly, bright red like watercolors. “How’s your needlework?”
She fired up the kerosene lamps and put them around the table, trying to get as much light as possible. Meanwhile, Dylan took a pair of needle-nose pliers from Chris’ tackle-kit of fish hooks and used it to bend the sewing needle into an elongated U shape, and then slip one of the higher tensile threads through it. Next, he held the needle with the pliers and used the lighter to coat it with flame. Puffing his cheeks and blowing out through a small O