Because I can see it, there’s more.
“But,” the doctor continues, and the word lands exactly where I expected it to, settling into my chest like something heavy, “she’s lost a significant amount of blood, and there are high levels of narcotics in her system.”
My jaw tightens.
Not visibly.
But I feel it.
“We’ve stabilised her,” he says, “and we’ve repaired the internal damage. The knife missed any major organs, which is what saved her.”
Saved her.
The words echo.
He gestures slightly as he continues, explaining, clinical, detached in a way that makes it easier to hear.
“It entered the lower abdomen, just off to the side. There was internal bleeding, but we were able to control it and repair the damage before it became catastrophic.”
I see it again.
Too clearly.
Her on that floor.
The blood. The angle of it. I force it down. Hard.
Alive.
That is what matters.
“But right now,” he continues, “it’s touch and go. Her body has been through a lot. We don’t know how she’s going to respond over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, or when she’ll regain consciousness.”
The relief shifts.
It doesn’t disappear. But it changes. It stretches thinner. Turns into something unstable.
Waiting.
Uncertainty.
A different kind of tension.
I nod once.
“Is she stable?” I ask.
“For now,” he says.
For now.
The words settle badly. They don’t give anything solid to stand on.
Then the thought I hadn’t even wanted to consider surfaces in my mind.
“She was...She had been taken by a man. He was...” I swallow, not wanting to say it out loud and give it any weight. “When we found her he was on top of her. Can you find out if he... took advantage of her?” I say, the words bitter in my mouth.
The doctor studies me for a long moment before he nods.
