“Oh George! Are you okay?” she called looking down into the hole. When she heard nothing, she headed for the basement stairs. She flipped on the light as she ran down the stairs to where the wolf was trying to stand up amidst the wreckage from above. As he shook, dust and plaster bits went everywhere. Angie was trying to check him over to see if he was hurt. While she didn’t see anything, her left hand came away with blood on it.
“George, where are you hurt?” she asked trying to find where the blood was coming from. The wolf was whimpering. His thick fur had saved most of him, except where something had scrapped his ribs. Angie found the cut which wasn’t bleeding badly, but was still deep enough to worry her. “Stay put George. I’ll go get the first aid kit,” she said as she ran off to the bathroom.
Angie was back in a few moments with a washrag and a towel as well as a first aid kit. “Hold still,” she told the wolf as she tried to wash away the blood. It wasn’t bleeding hard, but sort of pulsed, which made her think it was nastier than she could see. Holding the towel over it, she wrapped it in place with the ace bandage from the kit. Then she pulled a blanket off the shelf and after putting it on the floor away from the wreckage, coaxed the wolf to lay on it.
“Stay put,” she told the wolf. “I’ll be right back.” Then she headed upstairs to call the only person she could think of, Luc.
The wolf lay on the blanket trying to breath. One moment he was shifted and sniffing to see that the little female was fine and the next, he was falling. Something sharp had poked him and it hurt to breathe. Hurt too much to shift and let his other self deal with things. He wanted to get up, but he knew that the little female had wanted him to stay where she’d put him. “Little female smells good, is good. Must be good,” he thought.
*
Luc heard the phone ring and grabbed it just before Meg did. They had just crawled into bed for a bit of fun and they had ignored it the first three times it had rung. “Hello, Luc speaking,” he said into the phone. He listened for a moment. “We’ll be there as fast as we can. No, just stay with him,” he said and then hung up the phone.
“Who was that and why are you getting dressed?” asked Meg.
“Get dressed. That was Angie. George shifted for her and the floor broke. He fell into the basement and punctured something. Bleeding in pulses. Grab your cell phone and call Jeff as soon as we are in the car,” he said as he pulled on the last of his clothes and headed for the car.
Meg was seconds behind him. She buckled in as he pulled out of the driveway and headed down the street. She dialed Dr. Jeff’s number, the private one. It rang twice. “Doc, this is Meg, George shifted at Angie’s house and went through the floor. He’s hurt. Angie said he was bleeding with his pulse. Yes. Just left the house. Um… 1256 W. 181st Street. Blue house. Yes. See you there,” she finished and hung up her phone.
“I take it he’ll meet us there?” asked Luc as they rocketed down the nearly empty late night streets.
“Yes. How on earth did George fall through the damned floor?” asked Meg.
“Some of us get bigger, some of us get heavier. George does both. You think he’s impressive as a human, you should see him in wolf form,” said Luc.
“Oh,” said Meg as this percolated through her brain. “And he’s your little brother?” she asked.
“Yes. You should have seen Dad. Medium sized man, but the biggest wolf I knew of before George started shifting. He was probably just too damn heavy for the floor. Or there was a weak spot. We won’t know until we look. Meantime, we have to get to George,” he finished as he got onto a main boulevard.
“Angie must be frantic,” said Meg. “I know how I felt when you were hurt.”
“You think she’s that attached to him?” asked Luc.
“Yes. She may not know it, but I’ve never seen her look at anyone like she did the night of the dinner party and I’ve known Angie for years. Saw her go out with guys, but never look at them like she does George,’ said Meg.
“Oh boy,” said Luc as he negotiated the sparse traffic. He knew he was almost there, but the car seemed to be crawling along. One final turn and he was on 181st Street. Angie was standing on the front porch as they pulled up in front.
“Meg, you wait at the door for Jeff, and I’ll go with Angie,” said Luc. He kissed Meg on the forehead and followed Angie around the damage in the living room to the basement stairs. As he reached the basement floor, he saw George laying on a blanket that looked the size of a postage stamp in comparison.
The wolf looked up at the two of them and whimpered. Angie moved to the wolf and sat down beside him taking the huge head onto her lap. The wolf whimpered but relaxed.
“Oh George. What the hell did you do?” asked Luc quietly. He took a look at the towel around the wound and saw that blood had nearly soaked the towel. He held the paw the wolf had tapped him with and put the other on the wound, applying gentle pressure. Luc had no idea of how long Jeff would be and this didn’t look or smell good to him.
“You doing okay Angie?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah. A little freaked out at first, but I called you as fast as I could. If he fell through the floor, there was no way he’d get up the stairs, so I knew I needed help. Plus, I didn’t know the number for your doctor,” she finished. She was running her fingers through the fur on the top of the wolf’s head. A head that nearly covered her lap.