His face almost looked like his now, filled out and healing.
The broken places on his skin, hands, and lips looked like wounds now.
It said something about how bad he'd been that oozing wounds were an improvement.
If his body hadn't shook against me as if he were having an epileptic fit, I'd have been happier.
"Do you know what's wrong with him?" I asked Adam helplessly.
"I do," Peter said.
He casually pulled a huge pocketknife out of its belt sheath and made a small cut in his wrist.
He moved me out from under Stefan and moved him around until Stefan was lying down with his head on Peter's lap, held steady by the werewolf's unwounded hand.
Peter held his bloody wrist in front of the vampire, who clamped his lips together and turned his head away.
Adam, who had wrapped his hand around his own wrist to staunch the bleeding, leaned forward.
"Stefan.
It's all right.
It's not Mercy.
It's not Mercy." Red eyes slitted open, and the vampire made a sound I'd never heard before ...
and wished I could still say that.
It raised every hair on the back of my neck, high-pitched and thin like a dog whistle but harsher somehow.
He struck and Peter jerked, gritting his teeth and hissing.
I didn't notice when my mother left us, but she must have at some point because she had Samuel's big first-aid kit from the main bathroom open on the couch.
She knelt by Adam, but he surged to his feet.
Alpha werewolves don't admit to any pain in public, and seldom in private.
His wrist might look like it had been savaged, but he'd never let my mother do anything about it.
I stood up, too.
"Here," I said, before he could say something to offend her or vice versa.
"Let me see." I tugged and pulled until I could see the wounds.
"He'll be all right," I told Mom with satisfaction.
"It's scabbed over already.
A half hour from now it'll just be a few red marks." That was good.
My mother raised her eyebrow, and murmured, "And to think I was always worried that you didn't have any friends.
I suppose I should have been counting my blessings." I gave her a sharp look, and she smiled past the worry in her eyes.
"Vampires, Mercy? I thought they were made-up." She had always been good at making me feel guilty, which was more than Bran had ever managed.