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The only way to survive was to imagine a future in which I would be with them again and cling to the memories I still have. The memories that no amount of pain can take away.
The guard pushes me through a door and then slams it shut hard enough that the walls seem to rattle. I close my eyes and press my hands over my ears, trying to keep my brain from rattling around inside my head.
“You need to lie down.”
I open my eyes and squint against the light from a lamp in the corner. The voice is familiar but it takes me a minute to place it.
“Kari.”
She doesn’t look up, her head bent over a bed in the room. “There are ice packs here for your bruises. I’ll look you over in a minute when I’m done here.”
“Is this your room?” I ask, lifting myself slowly to my feet.
“No, it’s yours,” she says. “At least for now. Until you two are better.”
You two.
I look up and notice there are two beds.
And next to Kari is a table covered in medical instruments. And blood.
My heart realizes Luka is nearby before I do. It lurches in my chest as though it wants to leap out and cross the room to be with him.
“He is doing okay, but he needs time to rest,” Kari says. “And I’m not sure the Cartel will give him much time.”
I tiptoe to the edge of his bed and look down at him.
It is so nice to see him without his mask on. I could see him without it at night, of course, but during the day, all I could see was his square jaw and his mouth. Now, though, I get to take in all of him.
His face is still handsome, but pale. So pale.
“Has he lost a lot of blood?”
“Three bullet wounds will do that,” Kari says.
When I gasp, she winces in apology. “Two of them are grazes, so it isn’t quite as bad as it sounds.”
I grip the side of the bed to keep standing, and Kari reaches out and pushes me back towards the second bed. “Sit down before you collapse. Like I said, I have to take care of him first before I can tend to you.”
I’m too tired to argue. I sit on the hard mattress and watch her work. She cleans and disinfects and then grabs a suture thread and needle.
“Are you qualified to do this?” I ask. Not that we have any other options.
Kari nods and pulls aside the flaps of Luka’s suit pants to reveal the wound in his thigh. It is gaping and bloody, and I can’t look. “I was a surgical student. I transferred to the city to pursue better educational opportunities. It is part of the reason Edgar was interested in me at all. The Cartel needed in-house medical assistance.”
Her hands are steady as she works and that is enough reason for me to trust her. In her position, I would be shaking like a leaf.
“There are ice packs in the cooler,” she says, tipping her head towards the door. “If you need something for your bruises.”
Mostly for something to do other than try not to pass out at the sight of my husband being operated on, I go to the cooler and pull out an ice pack.
The cooler is also full of blood bags.
“Will you need these?” I ask.
“He lost a lot of blood.”
My stomach turns and I close the lid quickly, dropping down onto the mattress.
