I step away and catch my breath. A low groan floods the room. It should fill me with victory, but instead I’m filled with other things.
A memory.
A pain so acute it takes the point out of life.
And a need to fix it all.
Gian’s voice is calm behind me. “Shall I move him?”
“No.” I cast my eyes over the instruments Gian has laid out on a length of cloth.
I reach for the saline and sterile wipes first. I need to see what I’m dealing with and rapidly drying blood has a way of concealing the truth.
My sneakers are soundless as I make my way back to the kid. Lowering to my knees beside him, I take a long look at his face. It’s screwed up in agony, the skin a patchwork of blues, purples and blacks.
As my gaze homes in on the pale skin and perspiring surface, my vision cuts to someone else.
She’s lying at the foot of the stairs, her breaths short and staccato. Her usually vibrant green eyes faint and watery, her lips dry.
A flash of panic stabs my chest from nowhere, drawing a choke from my lungs and my attention back to the boy on the floor. My pulse slows again when I focus on the three deep cuts on the left side, to his eye, cheek and jaw.
Dragging my gaze downward, I assess the rest of his torso. I pull up the hem of his tee and inspect the bruises forming around his ribs.
I run a hand carefully around the bone structure. When I reach the side I laid a few kicks to, he winces between clenched teeth. I drop the tee and return to his face, since that’s where most of the reparable damage is, then I set to work cleaning the skin.
Once the blood is cleared from his eye, it opens and stares back at me, narrowed. He attempts to speak but his top lip is swollen and dry. Gian offers him a sip of water and we lift him enough that he can draw from a small cup, then lay him back on the ground.
He tries again.
“I heard this about you.”
I don’t care what he heard. My focus is singularly on fixing his face. Most of the blood is coming from his cheek. The cuts across his eyelid and jaw can be covered with gauze easily enough, and they’ll heal within a few days. His cheek, however…
“He needs stitching up.”
Gian knows I’m speaking to him without me lifting my gaze. He’s assisted me hundreds of times and knows the drill.
Within seconds he’s by my side, handing over a surgical needle.
The kid’s breathing quickens when he sees what I’m holding.
“The Surgeon,” he says, in a dry breath. “That’s what they call you.”
I glance back at the cut. It’s deep.
“I’m assuming since you were happy for me to beat the shit out of you, you don’t require an anesthetic?”
The kid sighs. “No. Just do it.”
The room stills while I thread the needle carefully.
“Some say it’s because you only fight down here.”
I look down as his gaze cuts to the walls. This was once a surgical ward for the district’s main hospital, but it was decommissioned about fifteen years ago. Its location underground and out of sight makes it ideal for our purposes.
“But others say it’s because you like to stitch people up.”
A wry smile pulls at a corner of my mouth, then I lower my hands and line up the needle. His eyes track mine, curiously, until the point pierces the surface and he sucks a breath in through his teeth.
