Young Writers Society

Chapter 10

“Please don’t tell Riley!” Elliot had pleaded, following Seb out of the bathroom with a towel pressed to the cut, “or Tiffany! Or… the small one.”

“Juana,” Seb had grumbled, digging the first aid kid out of the bag left over from full moon. Through the turn of events, he hadn’t had the time or the will to unpack it.

“Please!”

Seb had gestured to the towel, which was starting to leak blood. “I can’t really not tell them. They’ll be mad at me if you die in the night and I did’nt tell ‘em about it…”

“I won’t die. I’ve had worse, you know.” Seb had winced as Elliot pulled the bottom of his shirt up, exposing the criss-cross of scars, some thin, some thick, some star-shaped, that probably ran across his entire body like awful little galaxies.

Unwilling to argue anymore, Seb had shrugged and let the subject drop. He’s dropped down to sit beside Elliot and had tarted to clean up the cut, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the blood, and Elliot’s overall stink. Seb had felt Elliot tense up, probably afraid.

“So who’s this person -” Elliot paused, as if to focus more on not crying because of the antiseptic wipe, “- who’s going to take my tag away?”

“A werewolf doctor.” Seb said, roughly dragging the wipe over the wound, “she’s great. Stepped on a syringe when I was younger, and she fixed it. And, get this, her cover is a vet. A bloody vet. It’s great.”

“A vet, huh?” Elliot growled, voice strained. He looked as if he was regretting slashing his arm open. “So how long will it… take?”

“We should be there and back in a day. I mean, it’s just a microchip, right? We’ll bunk off of school tomorrow and take the bus.”

Elliot went quiet, “say, Seb. Could you-you do me a favour?”

“It depends,” Seb eyed him with suspicion.

“Don’t… tell the doctor I’m deaf.”

“Why not?” Seb asked, taken aback by his own frankness, “sorry. I mean, I won’t tell her, but why? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”

“People just treat me differently if they find out. I hat it.”

“I won’t tell her.”

“And you won’t tell Riley?”

“No.”

“What about Tiffany?”

“Good God, Elliot. I won’t tell them just so long as you go and have a shower now.”

“Thank you.”

*

Seb and Elliot had slipped out the following morning like scheming housecats, silent and well-behaved and tipsy on nervousness. As soon as they rounded the corner, they took off towards the bus stop almost in unison, as if both of them were feeling the same cold-fanged fear. Seb counted down the minutes on his cracked iPhone as they sprinted the gaps between parked cars, their breath coiling up into the frigid air like smoke before an eruption.

Halting, covered in a sheen of sweat and seriously doubting the abilities of their deodorant, Seb panted like an out-of-shape racehorse as the bus groaned to a halt and the doors slid open. He gave the bus driver his card, and then picked a seat at the back of the bus, where they could watch for any sign of hunters and their alabastor-furred pitbulls.

He sat there for two and a half hours, driving North through drizzle and bus changeovers and inhaling the refreshingly nice smell of shampoo in Elliot’s hair. He played on his phone for a quarter of an hour, before queasiness forced him to reconsider.

After fifth changeover happened, Seb led the way down a Cheltenham backstreet. Cigarette butts lay drowned in the gutter outside of the vet’s practice. Stickers of various animals lined up on the windows - including a particularly wolfish silhouette, which eleven-year-old-Seb had been assured with a wink and a smile was in fact, a husky.

“It’s just in here,”

He pushed the door open and sidled inside. It was empty apart from one old woman and her parrot - had it just opened? - and too bright compared to the dreary grey-dark of the outside. Seb’s eyes stung as he rung the bell on the front desk, trying to figure out what on Earth to say - he couldn’t exactly chirp up with hello, I’ a werewolf and my family adopted a weirdo who was microchipped by a bounty hunter who wants to sell us all to the Black Market. Elliot loitered behind him as a shadow grew out of the doorway.

“Sebastian Sutton.” said a voice, “well, I’ll be damned.”

Seb peered up at a tall woman in a lab coat who registered somewhere in the depths of his head. “You remember?”

“I don’t forget faces, Sebastian,” the woman - Dr. Smith, if her nametag was to be believed - chuckled, smiling, “so, what brings you here? How’re Tiffany and Riley?”

“Oh, they’re fine, doing very well thank you. I’m here, well… it’s my… friend,” Seb hesitated with the words, lowering his voice. Were they friends? Strangers? Enemies? “He’s… Elliot, could you tell her?”

Nothing.

Seb turned around and repeated it, pointing to the bad arm and gesturing for Elliot to speak quietly. “Could you tell her what happened?”

Elliot nodded and put his injured arm on the countertop, showing her the haphazard bandage. “I -” he cleared his throat and tried again, “- I got caught and… chipped… by a hunter. It’s in my arm. Could you … get it out?”

“Please,” Seb added, pulling a few crumpled twenty pound notes from the pocket in his jeans, “I have money and everything, but we’re going to need to have it done today, and kind of quickly because -”

“Sebastian, it’s okay. I owe Riley and Tiffany, so you really don’t have to pay. Anyway, you’re just a kid - I don’t make kids pay.” She smiled at Elliot, reaching up to tie her hair back. “Come on, then. Let’s get that arm looked at.”

“Thank you!” Elliot grinned, following her into the bowels of the practice.

“Star!” Dr Smith hollered, rapping sharply on the staff room door. An Asian girl with piercings and bright red hair stepped out, chewing a biscuit with a toddler clinging to her legs. He was very obviously a werewolf - tufts of dark black hair stuck out of his skin at odd places, his eyes were full-on wolf, and he had claws on the ends of his fingers. Just like Juana, Seb smiled, following them further back.

The woman “Don’t let Joe out onto the front, yeah? Man the till - and take the parrot to Keith - until I get back? Call Dan if you need help.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Right, okay.” Dr Smith pointed to the X-ray machine that stood in the corner of the tiny room. It was bathed in harsh white light, a little bigger than Seb’s bedroom.

“Okay - sorry, what was your name?”

Seb elbowed Elliot in the ribs.

“Wh-what?”

“Your name?”

“Oh. Elliot.”

“Okay, Elliot. Just put your arm on here for me, okay?” she pointed and gingerly guided Elliot’s arm onto the machine. His eyes darted to Seb, desperate and pleading.

“It won’t hurt a bit, okay? Then we can start the surgery after we’ve done a tiny general health check…”