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“Get out!” Salma answers in Arabic. She waves her bloodied hands at them. “Can’t you see that she has lost her baby?”
The men hesitate, taking in the lifeless baby cradled inside the metal infant scale.
Figuring out quickly what she’s doing, I take over, pushing at them physically, “Outside, outside. She’s lost much blood and might die.”
On the table, Justice begins to moan. There’s a moment of resistance from the men I’m trying to push out, but they finally give way, turning on their heels and leaving. I follow them out, making sure they’re going.
They’re not. They stop a short way away, fish out a cell, and make a call.
They’ll be back.
By the time I return, Salma has pulled Justice’s abaya up, revealing a foam belly. She pushes it aside and locates the wound. “There is a piece of metal in your flesh. Not deep.”
“Not a bullet?” Justice whispers disbelievingly.
Salma shakes her head. “No. I am going to pull out the metal. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Quickly. Please.”
My heart in my throat—why would she think she’d been shot?—I slip on hospital gloves. “Salma, what do you need?”
“Watch the door.” She doesn’t glance up as she begins to work. “The men. How long?”
“Not long.”
I move to obey her, even though I’m filled with doubt and anger. And regret. I left my gun outside in the truck and don’t dare retrieve it.
“Wait. Take this,” Justice says, removing a gun she had hidden up her sleeve and holding it out to me.
I step back, take her weapon with the hard, stinging acceptance that she is no public relations specialist.
Salma cuts off the foam belly and begins to tear at Justice’s dress. Justice puts her hand on top of Salma’s. “I need this dress.”
She tucks the abaya up as high as it can go, exposing delicate pale skin, black panties saturated with blood, and a deep gash, a quarter-inch wide, below her hip. A slice of metal fills the wound.
Salma cleans the blood from the wound only to have it refill as she picks up a pair of forceps and bends close to it. “A tiger stalking, no sound, brave one.”
Justice nods, and even when Salma begins to dig into her skin, plucking at the edge of the shrapnel—once, twice, three times—she remains impassive. Her face is blank with concentration. She’s putting herself somewhere else, like someone accustomed to dealing with pain.
I open the tent flap again, check the men. They aren’t there. That’s good—I hope.
I turn back to the room. It’s nearly silent. The only sound from Justice is slow, deep breathing. She’s some type of operative. She has training.
Salma digs in again, grasps the metal, twists, and pulls it out.
Justice lets out a sharp breath. Tears roll down her cheeks. “Is it over?”
“You need stitches.”
Salma grabs alcohol and cleans the wound with quick, almost brutal actions.
This time, Justice does cry out, a whimper that has her tossing her head back and closing her eyes.
With steady, learned fingers, Salma stitches her up quickly.
Justice inhales and exhales with each pinch and pull of needle and thread. She does not cry out.
Whatever she is, this woman is highly trained.
