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“They don’t have any familial ties to worry about,” Kyle added.
“Good.” I washed my hands and put on my surgical gloves. Next, I pulled out the preservation solutions we would need to flush our donors and the organs. The transport container was already on the counter ready to receive its precious cargo.
Each looked like a larger, much more complex air-pod case. I turned away from them and approached Patricia first. She was the one who mattered most. Her right kidney was a perfect match for the client.
Amber was only here to witness the spectacle before she died. If she were lucky, she’d suffer from aspiration before I was finished with the nephrectomy. Since I skipped on having my extra exclusive patients fast before surgery, the risk of them succumbing to any food-related complications was higher.
If either of them was to cough, gag, or vomit right now they wouldn’t be able to clear their airway. The paralyzing agent had stolen their ability to do so.
“Let’s get this done.”
“I’ll be over here,” Niklaus implored, getting comfortable beside Amber’s table.
He was always so fascinated with all of this.
He’d been fully capable of studying in the medical field, but the law had called to him more, ironically. It was for the best. My brother was a damn good lawyer.
I could have gone for the psychology or psychiatric route, but I didn’t need any education in that department. I could handle people remarkably well. All of my exes could attest for that, apart from a select few who were no longer with us. Eventually, Catalina would agree with this too.
I rounded the table and stood on Patricia’s right.
Zoe came to stand on the left while Kyle began to fumble with the data station that would track our cargo. He was our people person, the one who had strived to learn more about the human mind.
I grabbed the scalpel from the OR table and traced an invisible path down Patricia’s side with my index finger to note where I would make the first cut.
Her hazel eyes rolled to follow my movements, her pupils slightly expanding. Shame she couldn’t speak. Sometimes I allowed them to scream, usually when I was alone and taking someone apart to brush up on my skills. However, she could see, hear, and feel everything going on. It would be rude for me to take away all of their senses, wouldn’t it?
“Ready?” I asked Zoe.
“Go for it.”
I pressed my blade to Patricia’s body and began to make my first incision on the side of her chest, going about eight inches horizontally. The scalpel had no issues slicing into her creamy flesh. I ignored the blood running down onto the table and made the next cut, this one on her upper abdomen.
“Catalina hasn’t tried to call the cops yet?” Niklaus asked.
“You would have been the first to know if she had.”
“That’s true. You don’t seem worried about the possibility.”
“Because she won’t. She’s got more common sense than that. If I’m somehow miraculously wrong, it would give me something to look forward to in the event she tries to use them for her benefit.”
“She doesn’t know about the conservatorship then,” Kyle stated.
I sat the scalpel down and peeled back the first flap of skin, fully opening Patricia up where I had cut her at.
It lifted like a sticker coming away from its adhesive, nice and easy with a satisfying sound. “No, but that’s irrelevant. I don’t plan on doing anything with that unless she begins to misbehave.”
Zoe scoffed. “She’s not a dog, Alaric. Jesus.”
“She may not be a dog, but she is my special pet. I have to take good of her and make sure she’s trained well enough to thrive without needing to be baby-sat.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“Retractor,” I ordered, ignoring her question.
She huffed and passed me the metal instrument that strongly resembled a pair of Frankenstein-like scissors with jagged hooks on the end. I inserted it into Patricia and used it to spread apart her ribs. Tears streamed in a continuous river from her eyes. She only needed to hang in for a bit longer. I’d have her kidney out in no time.
We were on a timetable. This little bean would only be good for about twenty-four to forty-eight hours. It would still need flushed, packaged, and then taken to Demitri who would handle the next step of its transportation with the client.
I probed the area, working swiftly to remove muscle, fat, and tissue, dropping everything I took out onto a separate tray. I carefully cut the ureter and some lymph nodes away before working on the glands.
It took approximately two and a half hours to complete this portion of the process. Next came flushing out the organ with perfusion solution. This was a critical step in ensuring it remained viable and healthy once it was placed in its new home.
