The Virus Within (Original rough draft)

Chapter 36

I jerked my head to the side a bit as I jolted out of my light doze at the sound of approaching footsteps. I bit back an instinctive light growl when I saw that it was only Nina. Nina paused, "Sorry, I didn't think you would be sleeping."

I shook my head and closed my eyes before pushing my hand under the edge of my sunglasses to rub my eyes tiredly, "Don't worry about it. There was no way to tell."

I pushed my sunglasses back against my face and reopened my eyes. About half of the others had headed to bed and the other half were watching us. Nina resumed her walk forward while Daniel kept watch from a nearby chair. "Let's go into one of the back rooms. I want to check those injuries and change the bandages."

I didn't feel like moving, but I doubted she was going to give up and I was too tired to argue. I had been awake all afternoon and most of the evening, my healing body wanted sleep. I knew that I would have peace the rest of the night if I humored her. With that thought, I stood up with a sigh. I hadn't left this chair since I had sat in it earlier and my leg once more protested being forced to work.

Daniel frowned, but remained where he was as I followed Nina out of the room. She went into a different room with several windows that let in a fair bit of light. She gestured to a stool, "Sit down and take off your shirt carefully."

I had no idea how Daniel managed to be around her with the amount of orders she gave out. I exhaled slowly in annoyance as I did what she said. The bandages were pretty blood stained from what I could see. The bandages were above my bra, so at least I didn't have to take it off. I could pretend I was wearing a bikini top. That made this situation slightly more tolerable. I still didn't like it though.

Nina put on long plastic gloves to protect herself from my blood and started unraveling the bandages. I sat still and watched her, "I assume you were the one who patched me up?"

She nodded without removing her eyes from her work, "Yes, I pulled the bullets out too. Getting the one out from behind your heart was a gruesome task. I never want to see another human heart again. The creepiest part was that it had already stopped beating, but would occasionally quiver. I have no idea how your body managed to heal your heart that much in two days to allow it to actually beat."

She glanced up at my face, "The bullet from the handgun barely entered your head. I was able to pull it out with a pair of eyebrow tweezers. We weren't expecting you to wake for several more days."

I was glad that I was only out for two days; I suspected that if I had been out for longer that the bloodlust would have been even worse. Daniel had likely never had a serious wound or the swift healing that occurred to major organs during the first week would not have surprised her so.

Nina unwrapped the last of the bandage and I got my first look at the damage. The one under my collarbone was just a thumb-sized scab over red irritated skin. The one above my lung was larger and looked pretty bad. It also ached with each breath I took so I knew that the wound was barely staying closed. The one above my heart was the size of a walnut and had a finger long cut mark where Nina had opened it up more to get the bullet out.

Nina hummed, "The scabs are holding together, which is a good thing. Not much I can do at this point, other than to put some salve on and re-bandage it. It will keep the scab soft so it doesn't pull or tear. Try not to move too much for several days."

She dabbed some salve on the scabs. She paused and gently ran her finger over an old pale scar the size of my pinky nail on my shoulder. I growled very faintly, that injury was old news. I heard a growl from Daniel in the other room, although the faint warning was low enough that the humans likely hadn't heard it. Nina looked disappointed when I didn't comment on the scar's origin, but started to bandage up my currently healing battle scars.