He wet a paper towel, and took my chin, lifting and wiping my face. "Derek? I'm not hurt." "You're covered in blood." "But it's not mine. Honest. It's from—" "The werewolf. I know." He picked up my hand and started cleaning it. "That's why I have to get it off." "Derek?" I leaned down, trying to see his face. "Are you okay?" He kept scrubbing. "There are two ways to become a werewolf. Either you're born or you get bitten by one. If you get saliva in your bloodstream, it's like a virus." "Blood, too?" "Dad says no, it's just saliva. But he could be wrong, and you've got cuts and scrapes and blood all over." I had a few cuts and scrapes, and I was only flecked with blood, but I kept my mouth shut and let him clean. As he did, I tried to check out how badly he was hurt. His scraped cheeks were pitted with gravel. His nose was bloodied. Broken? One eye was already darkening. Was that blood in the corner? His lip was cut and swollen. Were any teeth loose? MIssing? "Stop fidgeting, Chloe." I couldn't help it. His injuries obviously needed more attention than mine, but here was no sense saying anything until he was done. Finally, when he seemed to have scrubbed off every fleck of blood—and a few layers of skin—I said, "Okay, now on to you." "Take off your jacket and sweatshirt." "Derek, I'm clean. Trust me, I've never been this clean." "You've got blood on your cuffs." *** "Okay, now can we take care of the guy that was actually in the fight? There's a lot of blood. It seems to be mostly from your nose." "It is." "You got hit in the chest a few times. How are your ribs?" "Maybe bruised. Nothing critical." "Shirt off." He sighed, like now I was the one fussing too much

Kelley Armstrong Quotes

"I'm sorry," she said. "I only..." She gave a sad twist of a smile. "I only wanted to speak to you. You seemed like such a nice girl." I caught a glimpse of Derek, out of line now, striding over and glowering at the snickering boys. The woman got to her feet and leaned across the table again. "I was very nice talking to you, dear." She put her hand on mine...and it passed through.I leaped to my feet. "I'm sorry," she said again.The look on her face was so sad that I wanted yo say it was okay, it was my fault. But before I could get a word out, she faded away, and then all I could hear was the laughter around me, the mutters of "crazy" and "schizo," and I stood there, rooted to the floor, until Derek took my arm, his grip so soft I could barely feel it. "Come on," he said. "Yeah," the laughing guy called. "I think your girlfriend's day pass has expired." Derek slowly raised his head, lip curling in that too-familiar look. I grabbed his arm. He blinked and nodded. As we turned to go, the other guy at the table chimed in. "Trolling for chicks at the psych ward?" He shook his head. "Now that's desperate."As we passed the front window, I swore every eye inside followed us. I caught a few looks: sympathy, pity, distaste, disgust. Derek moved between me and the window, blocking my view as we walked. "They didn't need to do that," he said. "Those kinds, sure. They're idiots. But the grown-ups should know better. What if you were mentally ill?" He led me around to the parking lot then stopped at the back, under the shadow of the building overhang. "You'll never see them again," he said. "And if they'd treat a real mentally ill person like that, then you shouldn't care what they think. Bunch of morons."