As Josef counted down, for a second Chloe went to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder like he had done for her but she quickly pulled back and instead simply looked down at him, “Everything is going to be alright.” She whispered, mostly to herself to calm herself down. Even in sleep he looked like he was in pain and Chloe didn’t like it. Quickly she turned her head away and instead looked down at the hand. It was better to concentrate on the work; Joan could worry about how he was doing. It would do no one any good if she was worrying too much.

She didn’t let all the blood get to her as they cut through the arm. It was necessary if they were going to keep him from turning. She followed the doctor’s order as best she could, occasionally pausing when he asked for things that she didn’t understand, but she did her best to try to understand and not waste a second. During the entire procedure, she realized that she could never be a doctor, the stress was too great for her and she probably wouldn’t have been able to handle everything as well as the doc did. 

Finally they finished and after washing up as much as she could, Chloe finally felt like she could breathe again. She leaned back in her seat and looked at Josef with a rather blank expression. What if he didn’t survive? Sure they had successfully taken off the arm, but what about blood loss and what if he still turned. Quickly she shook her head to stop herself from thinking about such things and did her best to close her eyes and try to sleep. She was exhausted but the past few days had taught her to be a light sleeper. 

It was a troubled sleep full of nightmares, but she managed to rest for the most part. A growl quickly jolted her out of it and she looked around for a moment in panic. Again she heard a growl and she swallowed hard, trying to get that growing lump out of her throat. She thought about waking up the others but feared that if they woke up too abruptly they would attack her. As the growling began to get louder she quickly ditched that thought and made her way over to the doctor, lightly shaking him to rouse him from sleep.

She paused for a moment, making sure he was actually conscious before she spoke. “Hey, we need to go. Now.” It occurred to her that it had been the second time she had said that. “Those ‘things’ are outside.” She wasn’t sure if he had heard them too but figured that she needed to give some sort of warning. Slowly she moved over to Joan. “Joan.” She whispered softly, softly putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Joan.” She repeated once again. “We’re leaving. Those things are outside.” She was very careful with her, the girl had been through a lot today. 

Her eyes wandered down to the torn t-shirt around her hand, with dried blood on it and she winced. How had she not noticed that before? Had she not been paying attention? She looked back up a Joan, a slightly troubled expression on her face before she shook her head. Although she was worried about her, it really wasn’t her place to say anything. She didn’t know what the girl had gone through up till now and almost losing Josef was probably hard as well. Still, self-harm wasn’t the best answer.

Quickly she made her way back to her seat. If anyone had the right to talk to her about it, Josef was the guy, but at the moment he was out cold so she decided to keep quiet. If there was a time, perhaps she would talk with him about it.