Chapter 5

Alicia gave directions to her mother, who had actually calmed down by this point. When they got there, Alicia and the others jumped out of the van and ran to the door.

The cop figured that they were friends so he decided to let them break the news.

Alicia rang the doorbell and the 5 girls all huddled together while they waited. Julia opened the door and was surprised by the sight in front of her. She took in the tearful expressions on the girls' faces and the cop in the background.

Julia gasped when she started to put it all together. The rest of the family, who happened to all be in the living room at the time, heard Julia's gasp so they came to see what was wrong.

Mark was the one to notice the blood that almost all the girls had on their clothes somewhere. He was starting to get a bad feeling about everything but he tried to remain strong for his wife.

"Can I help you girls?" He asked.

Alexa was the only one that was keeping it together enough to answer him.

"There was a fight at the mall." She said. "Tim tried to protect us. We didn't see the knife until it was too late. Tim collapsed."

Julia and Alice both gasped upon hearing the word knife. The cop, upon hearing the girls blubbering decided that he would have to explain it anyways.

"There was an attack at the mall." The cop said. "Your son is alive but he is in critical condition at the moment. Last I heard, they were taking him to St. John's."

The family was running to their car in moments. The girls all jumped back into the van. They all begged Alicia's mom to take them to the hospital as well. Alicia's mom agreed to take them and they were soon following behind my family's car. The cop stayed behind them to take up the rear.

When they all walked into the emergency room, they were told to have a seat because I was in surgery. They all sat in the waiting room and got as comfortable as they could. They weren't there for even ten minutes when a nurse came out and asked for the parents. Jeff and Julia both stood up at the same time.

"We are running low on his blood type so we figured we would come out here and get some from you guys." The nurse said.

Julia started crying as Jeff said. "We aren't his real parents. His parents were killed in front of him when he was 5 years old."

Everyone that was there gasped. The nurse apologized for interrupting them and went back to inform the doctor. The girls were all crying on each other's shoulders. Julia was quite upset herself but even she could see that the girls were all worse than anyone else there.

"So, how long have you girls known Tim?" She asked the girls. She was trying her hardest to distract them, also distract herself in the process.

"I've known him the longest." Alicia said. "We met when he helped me with a guy that was being a pain to me last week."

"So you girls haven't known him very long?" Julia asked them. When they all shook their heads Julia said. "Well, I hope you don't think that stuff like this happens all the time. He usually is the last one to ever get into trouble."

"Actually, the way he took the punches and kicks from those two jerks made me think that he was quite used to getting hit." Alicia said.

"He used to get picked on a lot when he was younger, because of how small he is but he hasn't said anything about that in years so they must have finally left him alone." Julia said.

"Actually mom, I've still been hearing stories about him getting picked on by most of the bullies." Alice said. "You know how he is, he won't back down from anyone so they all act like he is their favorite target. I've never heard of him actually fighting back, he just won't let them walk all over him without hitting him."

"How come he never said anything to me?" Julia asked.

"I don't think he thought it would make any difference." Alice said. "I think he stopped saying anything when the bullies started treating him worse for being a tattle tale."

"He's so small though." Julia said. "Why didn't the teachers keep an eye on him?"

"Actually, he's not all that small." Alexa said."He's actually got a lot of muscles."

"What?" Julia and Alice said together.

"You didn't know?" Laura asked. "I figured that he would at least wear normal clothes at home."

"Nope." Alice said. "He's been wearing those ridiculously baggy clothes for years now. He is really shy about his body. He even sleeps in full pajamas that are long sleeved and still baggy.

"Wow." Laura said. "Most guys that have a body like his are always walking around trying to flaunt it. His body is hot." She started blushing when she realized who she was talking to. The other girls started blushing as well but they were also giggling at the look that was on Laura's face.

Julia didn't know what to think. She was shaking her head because she didn't believe that I could have changed that much without her noticing.

"When you go into the room, look at him." Alexa said. "Try to look past the bruises that are probably going to be there. He would be a major hunk if he wore the right clothes."

"Yeah, he would be a hunk." Sarah said. "He's already dreamy. I just think he is too shy to ever wear the type of clothes that his body deserves."

"Even if his wasn't so built though, the way he moves just sends chills up my spine." Alicia said.

The other girls all looked at Alicia sharply. She blushed and looked away. She had forgotten that they weren't supposed to be there. Julia saw their reaction to Alicia's words so she asked them what they meant.

"Well please don't tell him we were there but we all followed him to his competition last night." Alicia said.

"What competition?" Julia and Alice both asked. The guys both surprised by the news as well.

"Please don't tell him that you know about it." Alicia said. "I don't think he wants anyone to know about that."

"But why keep anything from us?" Julia asked. "I always thought we were pretty close."

"I don't know why he would want to keep it a secret." Laura said. "He is really good. He should be bragging about it."

"Well, what was he so good at that he should be bragging about it?" Alice asked. "We don't even know what he was in a competition for."

"It was a dance competition." Ally said. "He won it hands down. No one else was even in his class. He was spectacular." The family all had shocked expressions on their faces.

"Please don't say anything." Alicia said. "We had asked him if he wanted to go to the movies yesterday but he said he had to go to a competition. When we tried to ask him about it, he kept trying to change the subject. We figured that maybe it was something that he was embarrassed about. We followed the bus to the school that was hosting the competition. He blew all of our heads off with how good he was."

"Yeah, we were totally shocked." Laura said. "He was the best dancer we've ever seen. He was so good and so graceful that it almost brought tears to my eyes."

"He never let us know." Julia said. "I want to ask about it so bad. I won't though because of how much you don't want me to. But, the next time he says that he has something to do after school, we are going to make him tell us what it is."

"I don't think that would be a very good idea." Jeff said. "He might get nervous about us watching him. It could even cause him to not be able o perform at all. If nothing else, it could cause him to not be able to perform as well as he normally does."

Julia looked like she was about to interrupt Jeff for a minute when he first started talking but by the time he finished, she was nodding her head in agreement.

"Your right." Julia said. "But, I think we should arrange to follow the bus to his next competition like the girls did. I want to see how good he actually is."

"You'll be quite surprised." Alexa said with a smile on her face.

It was just about then that a doctor came out from the back. He had all the trappings of a surgeon. Everyone sitting in the waiting room held hands and got real quiet while they waited to find out how I was doing. They all looked at the doctor apprehensively as he approached the group. The doctor started smiling as he approached so everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"I've got great news for you folks." The doctor said. "Tim came out of the surgery doing just fine. We were able to remove the knife and repair his punctured lung. His cracked ribs should be gone pretty quickly."

"Those boys did all of that to him?" Julia asked sounding faint.

"By the looks of him, he has had a pretty rough childhood." The doctor said. "I was particularly curious about the deep scars he has running down his back and chest. Also the one on his face."

"Those are all from the night that his parents died." Julia said sadly.

"When he was 5 years old, he used to travel with his parents everywhere they went." Jeff said. "They were scientists that studied reports of mythical creatures. They were in South America exploring reports of some creature that had been supposedly terrorizing some small villages. They were attacked by some sort of wild beast. He had to watch the beast kill both of them, right in front of his eyes. It came after him next. He barely survived the attack. The villagers had heard the screams and come out to investigate. They were able to chase it off but not before it had left him with those reminders of that night." Everyone stood there in stunned silence.

"He never told us that." Alicia said. "We always wanted to ask him about the scars but he always seemed so guarded about them that we didn't think it would be very nice to ask."

"He doesn't talk to anyone about it." Jeff said. "He won't even talk to Becca about that night."

"Oh my god." Julia said. "Someone needs to call Becca and let her know about Tim."

Alice got up and went outside to use her cell phone to call Becca and let her know what was going on. The girls were all looking on with trepidation. Julia saw the looks on all the girls' faces and determined that they all did indeed want me.

"Becca has been his best friend since he moved in with us when he was 7." Julia said. She watched their reactions to her news and felt sure that she was right. "They don't hang out at school anymore because Becca is one of the popular kids. Tim has never been very popular and even though I know that Becca didn't plan it, Tim decided that he couldn't hang out with her anymore. He told me once that it wouldn't be fair to her to try and make her continue to hang out with him. He said that he would just hold her back and that she deserved better than that."

Alice returned and said. "She's on her way. By the way she sounded, she is going to be hear very quickly."

The girls all looked a bit nervous about meeting Becca but Julia assured them that Becca was a sweetheart.

Becca arrived less than ten minutes later with her mom. They rushed to Julia and hugged her. Julia filled them in on everything they knew so far. They were shocked to learn about the bullies.

They waited for another hour before they learned anything else. Becca started talking to the girls about me. They were pretty quick to talk about their favorite subject. By the time the nurse came back out, they were pretty fast friends.

The nurse told the parents that they could come back and see me now but that I was still unconscious. She then warned them that I was going to look worse then I actually was because of the bruising that was starting to change color now.

Julia and Jeff followed the nurse into the back where I was. When they got to my room, their first look at me was of me lying on my back with a hospital gown on. The gown did nothing to cover my arms. There were multiple tubes sticking out of my arms but they ignored them because they were surprised to see the size of my arms.

They both looked at the size of my body and were surprised at what they saw. When they finally noticed all the bruises that were covering my body, Julia started crying. Jeff led her out of the room and told Alice that her and Mark could go in for a minute.

Alice and Mark came into the room and they both gasped. Mark had to put his arms around Alice because she got week in the knees. She was shocked by the amount of muscle she saw on me but when she noticed the bruises, she just about fainted.

They stayed for a couple minutes then returned to the waiting room with the rest. They were all crying and holding each other. It was a touching moment but I probably would have just found it all to be embarrassing.

"Why don't you girls go home." Jeff said. "Give Julia your number and she'll give you a call if anything happens."

Alicia gave Julia her number they all left. They didn't really want to leave but Alicia's mother agreed with Julia. She didn't think there was anything they could do here so they left.

Julia had Jeff take Alice and Mark home. She said she would stay here until they returned. Jeff agreed with her.

Julia came back to my room and sat in the recliner that was in my room. I didn't wake up until the next morning. The 5 girls convinced Alicia's mom to bring them back to the hospital as early as possible. The nursing staff allowed them to come back to my room today. They were all still amazed at how ripped I was.

Julia had gone down to get breakfast when I woke up. The girls were all in my room when I first opened my eyes. Alexa and Ally were both standing by my head with their hands gently resting on my shoulders.

Sarah and Laura were sitting on the bed on either side of my legs. They both had one of their hands resting on whichever one of my legs was closest to them.

Alicia was sitting in a chair and holding onto one of my hands. I could hear them mumbling something but I couldn't make out the words.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I was disoriented. My vision was blurry at first but I could tell where each one was by their voices. I couldn't figure out why they would all be in my room. I blinked a few times and looked around and realized that I wasn't in my room.

I remembered everything that had happened then. I could feel that my wounds were all healing normally. I knew that I would need to get out of here quickly before the doctors realized how fast I was going to heal.

Lycanthropes don't heal as fast as Hollywood tried to portray but we do still heal much faster than a regular human will. We also don't get sick from regular diseases.

I tried to say something to the girls but my mouth was to dry to make any noise. I squeezed Alicia's hand. I'd closed my eyes before doing so. I heard Alicia gasp. She got excited and when she told the others, they all got excited as well.

"It's ok Tim." Alicia said. "You're among friends."

I squeezed her hand again and opened my eyes. All the girls had tears in their eyes. I just smiled at them and tried to help calm them down.

"That was a very brave thing that you did for us." Ally said. "If you wouldn't have stepped in, that asshole might have hurt Alexa. We'll never be able to repay you for that."

"Yeah." Alexa said. "Anything you ever want is yours. I feel even worse since you got hurt in the process."

I blew a raspberry at her. The girls were all surprised by my response. I smiled and they all started laughing. It was while the girls were laughing that Julia came back into the room. She saw the girls laughing and had a confused look on her face. That was until she saw that my eyes were open.

I smiled at her and she started to cry, this set the other girls off and they were soon all sobbing. They all joined together in a big group hug while I just sat back and watch their antics with a smile on my face.

Julia and the girls stayed in my room with me until the rest of the family showed up. Jeff and Mark both shook my hand and Alice just looked at me funny.

I couldn't figure out why she would be looking at me funny but I figured I would learn the reason soon enough. I did keep an eye on her the entire time I was interacting with the rest of the family.

I happened to be watching her eyes at one point and I noticed her look down towards my body. She thought I wasn't looking so she was kind of staring at me. I looked down at my body then and that was when I noticed that my body was barely covered.

I blushed profusely and tried to cover up. I didn't want any extra attention so I was trying to cover up without anyone else noticing. I had barely started to move when everyone in the room stopped talking and just looked at me. I blushed an even darker shade and pulled the covers up quickly. I figured that since they already looked, than I had might as well cover up fast.

"Wait Tim." Laura said. "You don't need to cover up. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yeah man." Mark said. "If I had the type of muscles that you do, I'd want to show them off all the time."

"Yeah Tim." Alicia said. "Please wear a tight t-shirt to school when you return. I promise you that the girls will like what they see. Even Becca will tell you that."

I looked shocked at them all for a minute. Jeff was nodding his head in agreement with the rest of them. I was very confused, and also embarrassed, by what they were all saying. I have never liked anyone talking about my body.

"Has Becca already been in here to see me?" I asked the room in general. Everyone nodded at me with smiles on their faces so I just groaned and tried to hide my face.

No sooner had I groaned then Rebecca came walking into the room. I groaned even louder when the girls thought they should tell her why I was groaning when she came walking in. I covered my eyes with my arm when Becca started laughing along with the rest of them. My actions made them all start laughing even harder.

"You really should stop wearing all those hideously baggy clothes." Becca said. "You wouldn't have such a hard time with the girls if you did."

The girls started giggling again. Sarah explained to Becca why they were giggling. Becca smiled and tried to keep from laughing. At least one of my friends was trying to leave some of my dignity intact.

I refused to uncover myself and the girls finally stopped bugging me about it. I was blushing almost the entire time that the girls were in the room.

The doctor finally came in to check me out. He was nice and had the nurse chase everyone off as he started hi examination. He looked surprised at how quickly I was starting to heal. I sat calmly through it all and waited for his verdict.

"Well son." He said. "You are doing remarkably well. You are healing at a remarkable pace. We should be able to get you out of here by tomorrow at this rate."

"So, I can go back to school on Tuesday right?" I asked him.

"If you feel up to it by then, I don't see a reason why not." He said.

"Good." I said. "I am trying to improve my grades and I can't do that if I am stuck at home."

"Well, that's a great goal to strive for." He said.

The doctor finished his exam and left the room. The family was quick to return after the doctor had left. The girls were quickly surrounding my bed again. They took up the same positions that they had vacated when they were chased out. I was still very self conscious about them talking about my body but I couldn't get them to stop.

"Sorry Tim," Becca said. "It's just that you have no idea how nice your body actually is. You shouldn't be trying to hide it. You should be very proud of it."

I hung my head and tried to hide my face again. I didn't like them talking about my body the way they were. I was barely able to keep my body covered.

"How about you let us pay you back a little bit for what you've done for us by buying you some new clothes?" Alexa said. "It's the least we can do for our hero, after all. Besides, the clothes we could buy would look so good on you."

I shook my head and tried to come up with a good excuse to get me out of this whole predicament. The hard part was trying to come up with something that wouldn't make them completely mad at me. The only thing that I was able to think of was a compromise.

"I would very much prefer if you guys wouldn't do something like that." I said. "Besides, I would very much prefer to keep my own clothes. Besides, I didn't do much, I aint no hero." I saw the girls' faces start to fall and look like they were going to cry so I quickly added. "It is too late in the year to change my style anyways. But if you are so set on this path then I suppose I can let you buy me one of two outfits for next year when you all join the high school.