Bastien crouched in front of her and lifted her chin. He took her in slowly, trying to find where the issue lay since she refused to talk. His attention fell on a red smear across her dress, looking an awful lot like blood. “Did you get hurt?”
She shook her head. “I told you, it’s nothing.” Tears welled up, glistening in her eyes. But not spilling. She was determined not to cry in front of him.
“It’s clearly not nothing. You better tell me who is to blame. If that Franz—”
“It wasn’t Franz.”
“Humour me then.”
Seconds turned to minutes before Celine moved her arms from behind her back. Any suspicions Bastien had harboured towards Franz Olivier vanished when he saw her left hand coated in blood, gleaming like syrup under the sun.
Celine tried to stifle a sob. “I s-sewed through my finger.”
And the needle was still inside. Bastien couldn’t make out where it was poking out from or how it had entered, but it had clearly pierced through the flesh. He quickly dropped to a crouch in front of her, reaching for her other hand that was shaking.
“I was on the s-sewing machine,” Celine started, choking on a sob, “when something across the hall rattled loudly, like someone had f-fallen or I don’t know, but I-I looked over and—”
She brought her hand forward, still not daring to look at it.
“Merde, that’s a lot of blood.”
Bastien stared at the injury, transfixed, as he tried to hold back a grimace. He jumped to his feet the second the bloodbegan dripping onto the pavement, saturating it with glistening drops. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go check if Monsieur Baudelaire has a quick aid or something in his office.”
“No!” Celine clasped her good hand over his sleeve, pulling him back. “No, you can’t! He'll think I’m incapable. I-I got distracted. Who does that when sewing?”
“Celine—”
“Please!” she insisted. “Please, I cannot fathom being made an example of in front of the other contestants.”
Bastien shifted on his feet. “Well…I have to do something—take you somewhere, at least.” He craned his neck to check the end of the street for…there!The pharmacy sign was barely visible amidst the other shops’ awnings, but it was right on the corner. Careful not to touch the wound, Bastien crouched slowly and brushed a tear away from her cheek.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” He glanced at the blood. “Try not to die.”
He returned quickly, carrying a bag filled with everything he could find for mending wounds. Celine was still curled over herself by the back door. She looked up, rivulets of tears marring her cheeks. Her eyes glistened like two chips cut from the sky.
“Bas—” she choked.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right. You will be all right. I’ll fix it,” he said, returning his focus on the task at hand. “Let me see it. I’ll pluck it out.”
“You willwhat?” Celine began moving frantically. “Don’t you dare touch anything! I mean it, Bastien.”
“You won’t even feel it. It will be like a bee sting.”
She wasn’t listening. The strain she was putting on her wrist to release it from his grasp caused more blood to sputter out of the wound, speckling the pale chiffon of her dress with red polka dots.
“Alright, alright,” Bastien assured, carefully matching her movements and wrapping an arm around her waist so Celine wouldn’t get up too fast and faint. “I won’t do anything without your consent, you have my word. But close your eyes. Looking at it will make you more scared.”
“I am notscared, Bastien—I am in pain!” she bellowed, dropping down again on the hard marble steps. But she heeded his advice nonetheless and closed her eyes.
“That’s the spirit. For a moment I thought my quarrelsome Celine was lost to panic forever.”
“I am notyours, either.”
“You are when you’re furious.”
She scoffed, her eyes still closed. “And how did you figure that out?”
For someone who had run a needle through her finger and was literally sitting with her hand dripping blood, she sure had the audacity to forget about the pain in seconds if only to chide him. But that was just the reaction Bastien was looking for. If he could keep her talking, long enough for her thoughts to scatter away from the needle, then he could remove it without her notice.
