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I keep moving, ignoring my swelling eyes. Each groan of pain from him brings the tears closer to the surface. I can barely look at his wrecked body, but I somehow manage to keep my shit together. I slide his pants down to his ankles and a flash drive tumbles from his pocket onto the floor. I grab it and pile his bloody clothes — everything but his boxers — beneath the table and wait for her to come back.
When she does, she carries a large bucket of warm water, several towels, a sewing kit, and a doctor bag that looks about as old as she is. “Are you squeamish, dear?” she asks as she drops it all on the table.
“Probably,” I answer.
“You’ll get over that pretty quick.” She grins at me and then looks down at Fox. “Now, what’s he gone and got into now?”
My tongue twitches in my mouth. “I, uh…”
She leans over his shoulder. “That’s a gunshot wound.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Help me roll him onto his side.”
She scoots her hands behind his back and waits for me to reach across him. I move with my eyes on her, following her nods of approval until I grip his side.
“Just like that,” she says.
I pull him up and I try not to watch the grimace spreading across his lips.
“Oh, goody! An exit wound,” she says. “That’s what I like to see. Hold him steady for me.”
I keep my hands on his side as she opens her doctor bag.
“You sound… excited,” I say.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve treated one of these.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“Retired nurse.”
I look at Fox’s face as so many unanswered questions plague my mind. Who the hell is this woman and how does Fox know her? Why did we drive over seven hundred miles to get here when we passed dozens of hospitals on the way? What the hell is this place?
She wets a towel to clean the blood off his skin. “Do you pluck?”
I blink. “Do I what?”
“Pluck. Your eyebrows.”
I nod with confusion. “Yes.”
She gestures me around the table to stand beside her and she hands me a pair of large, metal tweezers. “He has a few pieces of glass in his back. See what you can do.”
I stand over him, completely frozen, trying to figure out if I heard her correctly. His back has several long, deep cuts and I spot the small shards sticking out of his skin. I cringe. He had them in him this whole time.
“It’s just like plucking eyebrows?” I ask.
“Pretty much.”
She reaches into the doctor bag and slides a bottle of whiskey toward me.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“You drink it, honey.”
I twist the cap off and pour a large portion down my throat.
