What if I fuck it up? What if Ikill him?
I worry my lip between my teeth as I take Caden’s arm. I watched that Higgins guy hook me up to a drip just days ago. It’s the same process, right? I can do this.
You can do this,the darkness whispers.
I take a deep breath and start scanning the crease in Caden’s arm.
“Do you know how to find veins?”
I clear my throat. “I grew up around addicts,” I say blankly, already disassociating. “I’ve seen a needle or two go into an arm.”
I swear Fiz shudders beside me.
It’s hard to concentrate with him breathing down my fucking neck, but something tells me he won’t back up if I ask him to. “Connect the tube to the bag,” I say. There’s movement behind me that tells me he’s doing it.
After long, endless seconds, I find a vein. I think.
I take the cannula and bring it onto Caden’s skin.
I’m pretty sure all the air goes out of the room.
I fight off the shiver when the needle breaks Caden’s skin. All the moisture in my body evaporates.
I hold my hand out. “Tube.”
Surprisingly, Fiz obeys.
I connect the tube, and we both follow the trail as the blood flies down the long wire and into Caden’s arm.
Everything goes still. What if it’s not compatible blood? Shit. I didn’t even think about that.
I resist the urge to palm my forehead or tear my hair out. But after a paralysing moment, nothing happens.
“I guess that means it’s fine,” I say, almost silently.
“Great. Now sew him up.”
I whirl around. He’s holding the bag up. “Get the IV pole to hook that onto.”
“Start sewing him up then.” Fiz balances the bag over one of the high-backed chairs and darts back out.
I grab the embroidery needle and thread, staring at it. There’s no way I can sew this man back together. One poke with a needle was more than enough. I’ve contributed more than enough.
Fiz comes back in a flash and puts the bag onto the IV pole, then turns to me. “Well? What the fuck are you waiting for?”
I extend the needle and thread to him. “You do it. I can’t do any more.”
Fiz jerks back like I’d offered him a live rattlesnake. “I told you, Ican’t.”
I start to buckle under the overwhelming stress of it all. “I can’t fucking sew him up!”
“Fucking do it, Elodie.”
“He’s your friend, you do it!”
The gun’s back out. “You will sew him up, and you’ll do it right now.”
“Alright, alright! Just stop sticking a fucking gun in my face!” Swearing my disapproval under my breath, I take the needle and thread, and it takes me several attempts before I get it through the hole.
