Page 41 of Red

The room hums with restless energy. My chest tightens, though I don’t move. This isn’t my place, but the earlier calm in the room is gone. What are they all waiting for? What was in the boxes they took away?

The front door swings open. Hudry and Graden step through the door with Jocko slung between them, one leg dragging. My jaw drops and blood pounds in my ears. Fire pricks my fingertips and I force myself to breathe.

I follow them to the other side of the house, into a room with two tables laid out. Medical supplies line a side counter. They help Jocko up onto the table. I need to help him. I step past another one of them and get closer to the table. Faira starts cutting the bottom of his pants open, and there’s a large gash in the side of his calf.

“How can I help?” I ask Lirea.

“Everyone, out.” Faira takes charge.

“No,” Jocko croaks out. I step closer to his head, and he gives me a pain-streaked smile.

“Jocko, we need space, and this”—she eyes me—“can’t help you.”

He grunts. “Fine, but Aloka can stay if she wants.”

I nod a yes, and Faira slices through the rest of the fabric on his leg as the four others leave the room.

“What do you need me to do?” I ask.

“Nothing. You’re only in here to keep him calm,” Faira instructs.

I shift over to the opposite side of his injured leg, and Jocko reaches out his hand. I grip it tight.

“Stark wasn’t kidding about the heat in this house being off.” Faira wipes the back of her neck with a cloth. I imagine the lake water and pull the coolness into me.

“So, guess it’s your turn to answer. What’d you get into yourself now?” I ask.

His eyes soften, then go wide, the hand in mine crushing.

“Sorry, we need to clean it,” says Lirea.

“Technically, it missed. Just a bullet,” he says.

My stomach twists, and the fury of Pratt’s bullet marks appears back under my skin.

I eye the wound. It’s something I could heal quick. With what they’re doing, it will take at least a week or two, and it could get infected. Heat rises in my hands.

Helping others will expose you, Pratt once warned.

I suck in a breath and cool the heat.

Jocko is distracted, trying to keep his breath steady as Faira opens a suture pack.

Before she finishes, the door swings open and Tryd is lifted onto the table next to him. Everyone shuffles back out, and I start handing Lirea supplies. Faira can get over her shit. Tryd’s shoulder has two graze wounds, though they are shallow enough not to need stitches.

The other men and Mitus come back to aid Tryd and Jocko to the bunk room to sleep off the pain.

“Thank you,” Lirea says after they’re done.

“It’s not a problem.”

Faira says nothing and leaves the room while we clean it up.

Weeks go by in a blur of blood and white cotton. Five are off duty. Stark has stepped into the house less than a handful of times, not that I am keeping track.

I grip a young man’s hand as Faira pulls debris from the wound on his stomach. No one has had a penetrating bullet wound yet, but they’ve been close enough. I keep a glass of cold water with me at all times and have been ice showering after each doctoring session if there’s time. We’re reaching another record for me not turning, and I thought the distraction of helping the wounded would reduce the need, but the desire to use my abilities to heal them, rather than go through this slow process, is tortuous. The magic in me agrees and keeps lashing out. I melted the plastic on a bottle of herbs and have had to watch what I touch since.

Nikki strolls in carrying a box of new medical supplies. She huffs, lifting it to the table. “This should be enough for the next few days, if things don’t get worse.”