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Red Moon

Chapter 4

Trevor did what any other person would have done upon discovering a wolf that could easily fit someone's mouth in their maw, he panicked and hid. He found himself in the bathtub with the plastic shower curtains pulled as if it would stop the beast if it decided to come crashing through the flimsy wooden door that only had a button lock. He peaked from behind the partially see through curtain that distorted the image of anything behind it, not hiding him at all and watched the door for any sign that the wolf was going to come through. Each second of silence was both a god send and a curse. He was still alive, but the silence also meant that he had no idea what was going on. His body fought the urge to run out and into the hall where he could find someone, anyone who could help.

One of the first things that came to mind was his phone, he would be able to call the police. They were looking for a large wild animal that was eating people, they would surely come and investigate. Alas, his phone was on the other side of the door with the wolf, laying on the floor where it had fallen the previous night when Dimitri stripped him down and put him onto the bed. He was alone, his only hope was that the wolf would stay asleep until house cleaning came to clean the bed sheets.

The squeak of the mattress silenced all of his worried thoughts as he strained to hear. There was a loud thump and a low animalistic groan that could only have been the wolf. It was awake and moving.

On the other side of the door, Dimitri stretched out, undoing all of the knots that had formed during the night. His shoulder still hurt like a bitch where the bullet was still lodge, but it was doing better. He needed to get it out or the wound wouldn't heal. He didn't dare try and change again, even the partial transformation that let him smuggle himself into the hotel was excruciatingly painful since the muscles had to shift with the bullet still lodged inside. A complete transformation could cripple his entire arm to the point that even his regenerative properties wouldn't be able to reverse everything.

Werewolves weren't immortal by any means. Bullets could kill them just like any other animal, it was just a lot tougher and took more bullets than one would expect.

He grimaced as he rolled his shoulder up and down to get blood flowing. The wound had bled a little over the night, staining the nice white bed sheets a little, he would need to think of way to explain that. Looking around for Trevor, he saw that the other bed was empty. Not a real surprise, Trevor didn't know about him and sleeping in the room as a wolf wasn't the most well thought out of plans. He just hoped the man didn't go call the police, which would complicate things.

Wet black nose wiggling, Dimitri sniffed the air for Trevor. He was picking up trace amounts of Trevor's scent around the bed and the bathroom. Trevor wasn't in the bed so he decided to try the bathroom. Using a paw, he tried to get the knob to turn. When that didn't work, he used his mouth. Clamping his teeth around the aluminum knob, he twisted it, but it didn't turn. It was locked.

Trevor cowered into the corner with his back up against the shiny white wall tiles as the door knob jiggled. He watched the small little button in the center of bulbous knob that he had pressed in, it offered a token defense that only stopped the knob from turning. It was just there to stop people from walking on others, it had no chance again the wolf that had given up on the knob and was thinking about how much he wanted to get into the room.

He needed someone to get the bullet out, paws just weren't cut for the job unless he wanted to shred his shoulder apart. The job required the dexterous fingers of a person and he couldn't go outside either as a wolf to find someone he actually knew. Even if he could somehow sneak out, he didn't know if any members from the pack he was from were in the city. He didn't really keep in contact with anyone, he had only went to his grandmother's funeral in Siberia because she had been the matriarch of the pack. At the funeral that was kept low key in the middle of the woods, he saw some pack members that he had thought were dead which was good and all, but afterwards he went back to his reclusive ways. He had a few phone numbers written down, but then again there wasn't much he could do with a phone as a wolf. He needed Trevor.

Putting his good side up against the door, Dimitri slowly began to apply pressure. The walls of the hotel were thin, he didn't need to alert anyone that there was an odd break in occurring. Slowly building up pressure against the door, the wooden frame began to creak and buckle until the small metal bit that kept it close simple gave out. There was no shattering or crack, the simply stopped being closed and swung inward where the wide eyed Trevor waited.

There it was, the wolf. It looked larger now that Trevor had a good look at and it was looking pack with yellow eyes. With a meep, Trevor looked around for anything to fend himself with, there was a sponge shower loofah, some small bottles of shampoo and a bar of soap still in its paper wrapping with the image of a maple leaf on it. He grabbed out, not thinking clearly and threw the bar of soap at the wolf where it harmlessly bounced off its silver body.

Dimitri was not impressed by Trevor's pitiful attempt to get him to leave. He sniffed the bar of soap out of habit and looked up in time to get hit in the face with the loofah.

"Get back." Trevor warned. He was down to the shampoo bottles now, his last line of his nonexistent defense.

Rolling his eyes, Dimitri took his first steps into the bathroom. Trevor pushed himself up against the wall harder and Dimitri began to think that if he kept it up, the man would eventually just phase through and end up in the other room. A silly thought that got him to snort.

The snort sounded more like a bark to Trevor. He held up the shampoo bottles, their amber liquid payload ready to do absolutely nothing other than make the wolf smell like the Irish countryside. Maybe if he aimed for the eyes. He thought better than to do that, it would only anger the wolf and he didn't need that. Trevor was wondering why he was alive when he shifted his feet under him only to slip on the bathtub flooring. His body slid out from under him and he raised and arm to try and catch himself before his head could smash into the nozzle.

Reacting quickly, Dimitri leapt to put his body between the falling man and harm. He got there in time for Trevor to catch himself on the warm, soft body of the wolf. He landed right on Dmitri's bad shoulder and his knees buckled. They both fell and ended up laying atop of each other with Trevor sprawled out over Dmitri unharmed.

It took a moment for Trevor to realize what had happened, the wolf had suddenly appeared under him and he was now laying on top of it, face to face with the beast.

"Ahh... Uhh." He blubbered, while his heart pounded hard enough for him to hear in his ears. He clenched his fingers, grabbing a hand full of the luxuriously soft fur that kept the wolf warm in the cold. The yellow eyes gazed at him... intelligently? Eyes were truly portals to the soul because he could see the wolf thinking behind his eyes, studying his face and his reactions. Also, Trevor was pretty sure a normal wolf would have torn him to bits long ago in this situation. A situation that normally should have been impossible.

Taking what he believed to be a risky chance, Trevor pushed himself up and back onto his feet. "Th... Thanks." He said sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head, trying to avoid the piercing gaze of the wolf. Talking to an animal that saved him, his friends would get a kick out of that. Now he didn't know what to do. He could run, he was closer to the door, but he doubted he would make it that far so instead he waited to see what would happen next.

With the wound on his shoulder on fire, Dimitri rose up and slowly limped over to Trevor to make it obvious that he was hurt.

"What's the matter?" Trevor asked, staying still while the wolf walked over, favoring its left leg. When the wolf stopped, it turned slightly, revealing the bullet wound. A small hole that was still bleeding slightly, the red trickle running down its leg where each step left a small smudge of blood in its wake. The wound wasn't healing anymore. The bullet was in deep, partially lodge into the thick shoulder blade below where it grinded against the bone.

Dimitri leaned on Trevor slightly out of needing some support and to encourage him to act. He couldn't just tell him to pull it out, speaking was impossible as a wolf, not only was his vocal chords not properly formed for that, his muzzle would have just compounded the difficulty of it. He could have put some effort into changing his vocal chords into a more human version, but like when he partially changed to get into hotel, it was difficult to do. Transformation from wolf to human was meant to go smoothly, to only change one part or stop it midway was like jabbing a stick into a gear, it could cause complications and even then, Dimitri didn't know if the previous night was going to have any problems.

"You've been shot." Trevor stated the obvious which made Dimitri roll his eyes. "I'm not sure what I can do." He looked at the wound, kneeling down slightly to get a better look. He didn't have to kneel much since the wolf was already up to his lower chest when standing on all fours. Hesitantly, he ran a hand along the wolf's shoulder and then it's back, admiring the muscles and fur. He kept what could have easily been interpreted as petting short since he was still wary of what the wolf was going to do with him.

Giving Trevor a nudge with his head, Dmitri tried to get Trevor to pay more attention to the wound. He was getting tired of playing charades.

Trevor did eventually get an idea of what the wolf wanted. The thing was he had no experience in tending to gunshot wounds. He had taken a CPR class in high school. That was 13 years ago. Thinking to what he brought with him, he remembered that he had a small first aid kit in his bags.

"Wait here." Trevor said and got up. He left the bathroom and went over to his suitcase and opened it. He was met with the sight of his neatly packed winter clothing he had brought. Digging through the thick, wooly clothes, he came to a small bag with the iconic red cross on it. He had never opened it before and it still had a plastic wrapper on it which came off easy enough. Inside there was a pair of sterilized tweezers which he took and quickly returned to the wolf that hadn't moved from the spot he had left it.

Dimitri was relieved to see the tweezers. He had thought that Trevor had simply made a run for it or even worse, was going to try and dig the bullet out with a knife. He may have been a hardy werewolf, but pain was pain, it hurt no matter what.

"I'm going to start now." Trevor said, still not sure if the wolf could even understand him. Slowly he inserted the open tips of the tweezers into the wound. He really had no idea what he was doing, mostly calling up clips from old World War II movies he had watched.

Dmitri gritted his teeth as he felt the metal tweezers slowly dig further into the wound. He counted the seconds as Trevor found what he was looking for. Through the blood and poor lighting, he saw the glimmer of a bullet and grabbed onto it.

Pulling gently didn't work at first. The bullet was entrenched into the bone that had partially healed over it before it reached a very special part of the bullet, a silver core. Adjusting his grip, Trevor put one hand on the wolf and readied himself to give the bullet a good strong tug.

"One." Trevor began to count to three to calm his own nerves. "Two... Three." He yanked hard and there was a sickening sound of flakes of bone breaking away as it was pulled out with the mushroomed bullet.

Dmitri had held still the entire time. Stars were dancing in his vision from the operation he had just gone through, but the burning in his shoulder was now just a long dull pain that was more manageable for him. With the bullet out, he could finally change back and he wasted no time.

Trevor was just about to congratulate himself for surviving the most nerve wracking ten minutes of his life until the wolf began to change before his very eyes. It was like watching a time lapse video except it was happening right before his very eyes. He saw the bones and muscles moving under the skin that began to show and take on the familiar tone and texture of human skin. The ears receded and slid down to the side of the head that was flattening. In under a minute, a very familiar person stood before him.

"Dmitri?!" Trevor yelled while trying not to look at the man's junk that was now at eye level with him since he had been kneeling before. He quickly stood up and took a step back.

"Comrade Trevor, I thank you." Dimitri said from the bottom of his heart. "I was in much pain for some time, but you have helped me."

"I..." It was just too much for the poor man's brain to take in all at once and he fainted.