Page 46 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

I bought the stapler off a vet supply site. I’ve used it once, on my leg, and I swore I’d never use it again.

So much for that.

I flush the hole with saline. It hurts like a bitch, enough that I have to stop and breathe.

That’s good. Hurting means the arm’s still mine. I flush it again. Then I pour the brown stuff in, then I sit there with my eyes shut until the room stops moving.

Then I get the stapler.

It’s awkward. It’s my left arm so I have to do it right-handed, which is fine, but I have to hold the edges together with my left hand at the same time, and my left hand isn’t up for obeying me right now.

I get the first one in crooked, but it’s in. The second one goes better. I stop counting after that and just do it, one at a time, pinch and click, pinch and click, until the front is closed. The exit wound is at the back and I can’t see it properly. I do it by feel with the little mirror out of the kit propped against a can.

When I’m done, I’m sweating in a room that’s a few degrees above freezing and breathing hard.

I soak it in more antiseptic then tape gauze over the whole thing, front and back. I swallow two of the antibiotics dry. I sit there for a while with my hand pressed over the dressing.

Then I get out of the rest of my wet clothes.

There are clean ones in the first crate. Jeans. Two sweaters. Socks, which I put on first because I can’t feel my feet. Thermals. A wool hat and coat.

I put all of it on. It takes forever because I only have one arm and I am shaking.

Then I get into the sleeping bag on top of the camp bed, turn off the lamp and pull the sleeping bag up to my chin, still shaking.

I don’t so much sleep as pass out. At least I think so because I have no dreams at all. Everything goes black, then I wake up feeling like time has passed and feeling groggy.

When I wake, I lie in the dark for a long time trying to get myself awake. It’s like all the energy has completely drained out of me. My arm is aching in deep, painful pulses.

I’m not cold. The sleeping bag is graded for winter camping. I’d be snug in a snow storm, but I can feel that the air is cold. The last thing I want to do is get up.

When I finally do, I don’t get out of the bag. I don’t need to. I just carefully maneuver my arms out of it, then swing my legs over the edge of the camp bed, still with the bag tucked up to my armpits.

I reach out and turn the lamp on before taking a deep breath. I stand, pushing myself up with my good arm, then I waddle over to the crate.

The cash is in the crate under the clothes in a freezer bag, rolled tight. Eleven thousand dollars and some. Under the cash, I have a phone.

It’s a cheap one. Prepaid. Bought with cash from a store in a strip mall and still in the box.

I plug it into the socket by the lamp and I wait for it to wake up.

While it’s waking up I open a can of beans and eat them cold with the spoon from the kit. I need to be able to think and I can’t think on empty.

When I’ve eaten, I pick up the phone.

The screen’s small and it’s slow. I go straight to the news.

I’m on it. Of course I am.

The picture’s the same one as it was at the river. I’ll have to grow a beard at least. That won’t be hard. I’m not leaving the factory, not for a while.

They also say that a man matching my description was seen entering the river and that the search is ongoing. It’s accompanied by images of boats and scuba divers. That means the FBI believes I’m probably under the water somewhere, and it means nobody is looking for me on land yet. At least not seriously. That’s good.

There’s nothing about Sully. Nothing at all. No arrests. No other names. It’s like the whole job was me.

But I don’t care about me. I know I’m fine. Or as well as I can be in the circumstances.

I want to know about him.