“Right,” Alison said. “Hopefully the new one will be enough, but if not, we have options.”
“Smart girl,” Feral said.
Alison beamed a huge smile his way.
Frenzy bobbled his head side to side a bit and made a funny face at Jack. “Ohhhhhhhh, smart girl,” he repeated.
“Frenzy, I’m a little busy at the moment, but I will kick your ass later,” Feral said.
Frenzy laughed. “Welcome to the jungle!” he sang, making his voice raspy and strained to sound like the singer who’d made a song by the same name famous.
“Do you mind?!” Rance demanded.
“Hey, this is how we operate! You know that. You met me when I was operating on Findley,” Frenzy said.
Feral kept pressure on Gwen’s wound as Storm plugged in the new soldering iron and waited for it to heat up.
“It’s ready,” Storm said, handing the iron carefully to Feral, who shook his head.
“I’m going to need your fingers, Storm. Take a close look. Make sure you see where I’m holding, see where the fingertips of my left hand are pressing.”
Storm held the iron out to the side so she didn’t burn anybody and leaned over to get a good look at where Feral’s fingers were.
“You see that? Fingertips of my left hand?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to slide my fingers out of the way, but not completely. I’m going to keep holding the wound open as much as I can. You keep your eyes on the place my fingertips were in. When the blood starts seeping through, that’s where you cauterize. Pause for a second and see if any more blood is seeping through, if so cauterize that, too. Once the blood stops, go back and cauterize the spots again to make sure we’ve got them good. You ready?”
Storm stared into the wound. “Yep,” she said.
Feral slid his fingers apart, widening the spot Storm was looking at as much as he could.
“I see it!” she exclaimed, applying the soldering iron to the bleeding spot within the wound. Steam and the smell of burning flesh filled the room immediately.
“Watch for more,” Feral said as he gently began to move his fingers first one way, then another.
“Got it!” she said, applying the soldering iron again, twice. She watched as Feral moved his fingers back and forth again, two more times. “I think that’s it,” she said.
“Okay, cauterize the same spots again, and then we’ll stitch her up,” Feral said.
Storm did as she was told, grinning as she stepped back out of the way as Frenzy cleaned the area, sterilized it as best he could, then started stitching it closed.
“Blood?” Storm asked.
“Yes,” Frenzy said.
Storm reached over and opened the valve on the transfusion line between Gwen and Rance, and watched it for a few minutes, checking both Rance and Gwen’s IVs and veins before she was finally satisfied.
“Would you take some of those alcohol wipes and clean some of this blood off her side and her back? It’ll be easier to tell if she’s bleeding again if she’s cleaned up,” Frenzy said.
“On it,” Storm said, following his instruction as he stepped back and removed his rubber gloves.
Feral had already removed his and was leaning against the wall as he watched Frenzy closing Gwen’s injury.
“Nice job, doctor,” Feral said.
“Right back at you,” Frenzy said.
