“It will wear off quickly now that you’re awake,” she assured me.
As she began to unwrap Maxine’s right hand, I whimpered. The middle, ring, and pinky fingers were completely gone; a few dangling pieces of flesh were left. The thumb and pointer finger were swollen, as well as her palm.
“Shit.” I felt bile rise in my stomach and immediately felt sober.
“Compartment syndrome. She’ll lose the hand if we don’t work fast. Don’t watch my cuts or you’ll pass out. I know you. Just stare at a spot a few inches away from what I’m doing.”
Oh God. Oh God. Why couldn’t Brisk have gotten locked in? Why me?
She grabbed her scalpel and I prepared for the bloody show that I knew was about to happen. With precise movements, she made two long cuts across the top of Maxine’s hand. Blood and a clearish fluid oozed out and dizziness overtook me. I realized I was watching her cut like she told me not to and not looking off to the side.
Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, I stared at a piece of white cotton on the sterile pad Ronnie had placed under her hand.
“Clamp!” Ronnie barked, and I fumbled to grab one of them, handing it to her.
She clamped something that I tried not to look at. “Hold.”
I held the clamp while she worked her magic. Sweet Maxine. I realized then why Ronnie was so frantic to wake me. This was a surgery that required two people. Most times Ronnie could just patch you up herself; when she needed two people it was serious. If I hadn’t woken, Maxine might have lost her hand. She still might, but at least we were working on the problem now.
“Tendon stripper,” Ronnie’s robotic call came next.
Tendon stripper! That was not one I was familiar with. How bad was this damage?
“That!” Ronnie pointed to a weird-looking tool using her eyes.
I picked it up, while still holding the clamp, and she nodded.
We worked like this for the better part of an hour. I was tired, pain was returning in my head full force, and I had to pee, but I continued to do everything Ronnie said.
Once we were done, after God knows how long had passed, she started to close her up.
“Will she keep the hand?”
Ronnie shrugged. “If there’s no infection. These aren’t the best surgical conditions.”
I was just leaning back to relax my neck when Ronnie spoke again.
“I think I need to operate on Dawn.” She sounded exhausted, like she didn’t want to.
My eyes flew open. “What?”
My bestie sighed and rubbed her face. “I don’t think she’ll fly again if the tendons heal wrong. I need to at least go in and take a look.”
Dawn had been in and out during the surgery, making sure to stay inside the cave in case the breeders started up with the acid rain again.
Ronnie coaxed me: “You can talk to her. Tell her what I need to do.”
Galadrias were extremely intelligent beings, but there was a definite cultural and language barrier. Dawn didn’t know what surgery or tendons were.
But I didn’t want my friend to lose her ability to fly. Just thinking of her pulling all three of us up into the air while I was unconscious made tears swim in my eyes. Galadrias were the fucking golden retrievers of the Dream Wars. So damn loyal.
I side-stepped Maxine, feeling fully alert and missing that morphine right about now. But my pain was manageable with an ibuprofen. There was just a lingering dull throb at the base of my skull. Kneeling down, I stroked Dawn’s neck and her eyelids fluttered open.
‘Are you okay?’I asked her.
‘Dawn is better with floating medicine friend gave.’
I grinned. Morphine was most definitely floating medicine.
