“Ok. Vexar, I need you to listen to me carefully. Don’t take the gauze off. Layer the remaining roll on top andkeep pressure. Then add whatever else you have on top of that. Towels, sheets, whatever. And keep the pressure. Can you do that for me?”
“Anything for you,” he says in a breathy grunt, followed by what sounds like a chuckle.Was that … is he flirting with me?No. He’s clearly delirious.
I turn to the lizard. “He needs more gauze. Hemostatic gauze and bandages.”
The lizard orders the pale guard to go, and a few secondslater, the lanky humanoid is sprinting around the corner and out of sight.
“How big is the wound?” I ask the lizard.
He holds up his hands to show me. The wound is big. About the length of my forearm. But wound size is relative. A big cut to me might be a paper cut to an elephant. “How big is Vexar?” I ask.
“Big,” Vexar says through the door, his rumbling voice strained but still somehow playful.
I press my lips together and focus on the lizard as he extends his arm above his head and says, “Bigger than this.”
“Much bigger,” Vexar adds with a rumbling laugh.
This fucking guy.We’re in the middle of a medical emergency, and he’s joking around like he’s still in middle school. Am I blushing? Maybe, but I’m also trying to focus on keeping him alive.
I turn back to the door. “Vexar? How much of the wound can you cover? Is it bigger than your hand?”
“Yes. But not bigger than my?—”
I interrupt before he can finish that sentence. “Are you able to put pressure on the entire thing?”
“No. But you…” His voice trails off into a faint groan.
Fuck. If he loses consciousness?—
No. Focus on the task.
“Vexar? I need you to take a sheet or something. Something big. And I need you to wrap it around your body to add pressure to the whole area. Can you do that for me?”
There’s a long pause. Then he whispers, “Do not leave, Xelora.”
I frown. “Vexar? Did you get the sheet around your body yet?”
A weakened grunt, followed by an unintelligible word, is the only response.
“Vexar?”
Silence. My stomach drops, and a surge of adrenaline rushes through me. I don’t know why, but the urge to keep him alive is overwhelming.I can’t let him die.
“Let me in,” I say to the lizard, my voice firm and unwavering.
“No.”
“Would you prefer he dies?”
“We have no sedatives,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest in the universal sign for ‘end of conversation’.
I thrust my hand at the door, outraged. “He’s already unconscious, and if you don’t let me in there, he’s gonna die.”
The scaly dickweed is impossible to read, but it’s clear he isn’t moving, and I don’t know what to say to convince him.
“Acquired,” my translator says as the pale guard sprints towards us with boxes of supplies under his arms.
To the lizard, I say, “If I can’t go in there, thenyouhave to. Take the gauze. I’ll tell you what to do.”
