((OOC: I apologize about the length.  Got a bit carried away.  :O ))<br/><br/>"Get a couple cups of ice," Rich asked Reinard after the latter had dropped off a bowl of cool, fresh water.  He pulled the bowl a bit closer, then bent down to examine the wounded lycan.<br/><br/>Alice's eyes were fluttering, and she muttered something when Rich leaned over her face.  He didn't quite catch it, but when Talton walked by, he realized that she was fretting over his Beta's injuries.  He wanted to talk to her, to console her further, but bit back his instincts and focused instead on her injuries.<br/><br/>Rich grabbed the First Aid Kit, sliding it down the table towards him.  He stopped it with the palm of his hand, then popped the plastic container open.  The inside was filled with various medical supplies: rolls of gauze, pill bottles, some basic antiseptic solutions, and a few hypodermic needles.  Rich plucked gauze out, then swore and grabbed at the alcohol wipes.  Ripping one open, he quickly disinfected his hands, fuming at his mistake.<br/><br/>When he finished, the Alpha grabbed the scissors out of the kit.  Normally, he would've carefully adjusted her clothing to expose the injured portion of her body while still covering up her intimate areas, but her skin was deathly pale, and she didn't seem to be staying conscious easily.  Finding the upper hem of the gown, Rich cut into the fabric, then pushed the scissors down to Alice's hip.  The dress parted effortlessly.  Carefully, he tucked the bottom part of the dress under her back, then folded the top part onto her stomach, making sure her breasts were covered.  He may be a godless fusion of man and wolf, driven by primal instincts and a carnal bloodlust...  But dammit!, he was at least respectful of the female form!<br/><br/>Rich couldn't help but to grimace when he fully uncovered Alice's injury.  He had seen some pretty fucked up things in his hundred and twenty four years of life, and he would remember this as one of them.  A intricate web of dark colored veins covered the right side of her torso, radiating away from a shallow, bloody furrow roughly halfway between the hip and armpit.  The wound itself was swollen and puffy, the flesh blackened where the bullet had caused silver-induced apoptosis.  As the silver worked it's way through the system via the bloodstream, the walls of the veins and arteries suffered a similar fate; thus the black coloring.  Usually, the lycan would die of severe internal bleeding as it's circulation system committed mass suicide, but - if the silver reached the chest quickly enough - the heart would stop functioning from muscle necrosis.  It was a terrible, painful process and a macabre sight, made all the worse by the fact that is was happening to a<em>female</em>.<br/><br/>Again, Rich found himself becoming infuriated: how could someone<em>do</em>this to a woman?!  He forced himself to calm down, sating his outrage by reliving the final moments of that miserable hunter.<br/><br/>By now, Reinard had returned with the boiling water.  For now, it wasn't necessary.  Instead, Rich removed one of the hypodermic needles from the First Aid Kit.  A thin strip of duck tape had been rolled around the plastic sheath, "Argentophilic sol.: 70mg" scrawled in black marker on the leaf of tape that was sticking out.  The Alpha slid the sheath off, tested the needle, then squeezed Alice's bicep to get her attention.  "This'll sting a bit," he warned, sliding the needle into a darkening, but not yet black, vein.<br/><br/>The solution was composed of a light sedative and millions of specially formed molecules, called argentophiles, Latin for "lovers of silver".  The molecules were composed of two simpler molecules fused together in the center: one of them is attracted to silver, the other is repelled by it.  This allows them to swarm and latch onto molecules of silver in the bloodstream, coating their surface like slivers of iron on a magnet, thusly preventing them from inducing apoptosis, or really doing anything at all.  The silver, now harmless, will be filtered out of the bloodstream like any other debris in the kidneys within the day.  Argentophiles are incredibly easy to make and store; the catch being that they only worked on very small doses of silver, or if injected right after being poisoned.  Even then, there's no guarantee of survival.<br/><br/>Considering the wound was only a graze, Rich was confident the argentophiles would work.  Judging by the inflammation, she had been shot no earlier than thirty minutes before.  If she had survived this long, the amount of silver in her bloodstream must be minute.<br/><br/>Once the needle was emptied, Rich discarded it onto the table.  The boiling water had cooled slightly, but it was still very hot.  He cooled it a bit more with the cool water from the bowl.  He then dipped one of the bandages into it, soaking it and lightly wringing it, wincing at the still scalding temperature.  The wound was a furrow, a light graze, and a cursory check confirmed what Rich had already suspected.  There were no visible silver fragments in the actual wound; the entirety of the contamination must have come from minute shavings that had been scraped off the bullet when it had struck her.  That simplified things greatly: now all he had to do was stop the bleeding, clean the wound, and remove the dead tissue.<br/><br/>That is assuming the argentophiles did their job and stopped the interior spread of the silver.<br/><br/>Rich grabbed a second bandage, wrapping it around the soaked bandage.  A little of the water soaked through, but for the most part it was dry and warm.  He grimly noted the blood that had started to pool on the wooden table<br/><br/>Knowing what he was about to do would be very painful, despite the sedative, Rich held Alice's hand, allowing her to squeeze.  Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn't help but revel in the feel of her skin.  It had been so long since he'd felt a female...<br/><br/>The Alpha refocused, then glanced at Alice.  "This is going to hurt like a motherfucker," he breathed, reluctantly.  "3...  2...  1..."<br/><br/>Rich pressed the warm, slightly damp wad of cloth against the swollen, exposed, and necrotic wound.