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He stops outside a door before turning to me. “At least it wasn’t a bullet,” he says with a wink before pushing open the door and stepping inside.
I follow him into the brightly lit room. It looks like a mix of a doctor’s office and an operating theater. I scan the room and note the equipment, the locked glass medicine cabinet, which makes me smirk at the irony. Pretty sure anyone in this house could get their hands on whatever is in that cabinet and more.
But my attention is quickly drawn to the man on the bed in the center of the room, who’s bleeding profusely and howling in pain.
“I’m bleeding to death,” he wails.
“You’re not, Lenny. It’s just a fucking scratch, man,” Maximo insists as he holds him down. “Now stop fucking wriggling.”
“The doc is here to fix you up now,” Dante says as he reaches the bed. “Stop your fucking hollering.”
“I’m not a doctor,” I remind him in a whisper.
He shakes his head at me and frowns so I keep quiet. I can stitch a wound, no problem. If Lenny feels better thinking I’m a doctor, then I suppose that’s fine.
“D-Dante,” Lenny whimpers. “How bad is it?”
“It’s a fucking scratch like Max said. Now quit your whining and let Kat fix you up.”
Lenny looks up at me, his eyes wet with tears and blood seeping from the gash in his chest. “Please, doc,” he says, his lip trembling.
“You should find everything you need in here,” Dante says with a roll of his eyes.
“Great.” I eye the needle and medical thread on the tray beside the bed. “Can you grab me some morphine from the cabinet too? You have some, right?”
“He doesn’t need any morphine. Just stitch him up,” Dante snaps.
“I do, doc.” Lenny grabs onto my tank top, staining it with his blood. “Please.”
I look at the deep gash on his chest as I start preparing to clean the wound and stem the blood flow. “I’m going to sew his skin, and this is a deep cut. Surely you can spare him some drugs to help with the pain,” I snap at Dante.
“Fine,” he sighs before he walks over to the cabinet, and a second later, I hear the smashing of glass.
I turn and glare at him. “Why did you do that?”
“Only the doc has the key,” he says with a shrug.
I shake my head and turn back to Lenny. He winces and shouts in pain as I examine his wound, so I tell him exactly what I’m doing and everything I’m about to do. Assuring him that he is safe and he’s going to be just fine. He nods his understanding, whimpering softly as I tend to him. When I give him the shot of morphine, he relaxes, and a few minutes later, he rambles how pretty I am as I’m stitching up his wound.
“Enough, Lenny,” Dante snarls.
“It’s just the drugs talking,” I assure him. “I gave him a lot.”
“Pussy,” Maximo mutters under his breath, earning him a scowl from me.
But then I tune both him and his boss out while I sew careful stitches to try and leave as neat a scar as possible. There’s something quite cathartic about helping to heal others, at least for me. A smile stretches my lips as Lenny stares at me with a goofy grin on his face.
“You doing okay there, champ?” I ask him.
“Sure, doc,” he replies. “Never been better.”
* * *
After I fixed Lenny up,I went to my room to shower and change out of my bloodstained clothes. It’s late anyway so I pull on my oversized t-shirt that I wear as pajamas sometimes. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I feel a sense of something I haven’t experienced in a long time. Usefulness, perhaps? The sense of purpose that I always used to feel when I was nursing.
My stomach growls loudly, reminding me I’m also hungry. Ravenous, in fact. I was so engrossed in my book downstairs earlier that I didn’t have dinner. Pushing myself up, I look for some sweats or jeans to throw on with my t-shirt, but they’re all in the laundry hamper now beneath my bloody clothes. If I’m going to be here for a while, I definitely need to get myself more things to wear.
My t-shirt resembles a short dress. Hopefully, nobody would catch me at this hour if I make a quick dash for the kitchen.Right?
