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Enzo hesitated, then turned to the chirurgeon. “May he?”
“He may,” the chirurgeon conceded. “To a point.”
Fiore dreaded that point. Still, he didn’t fight back as Enzo’s hands descended to slide his breeches down from his waist to rest just beneath the crests of his jutting hip-bones. He submitted more willingly when it came to his shirt, raising his arms as Enzo drew it up over his head.
“Can you give him something for the pain?” Enzo asked as he folded Fiore’s shirt and set it aside.
“No.” Fiore would have shouted if he had the strength for it. As such, he put everything he had left behind the word. He had to stay awake, He couldn’t have his head muddled. He knew what they would do to him if he fell unconscious.
Enzo stared at him. For an instant, Fiore feared he’d seize him, hold him down, and pour opium down his throat or strangle him into sleep. Death would prove preferable.
But when Enzo moved, it was to drop his hands to his own waist, and after a moment, bring forth his own belt. He doubled it over in his fist and held it up to Fiore’s lips. “Bite this.”
The black leather, richly tooled with intricate scales of twining serpents, must have cost more than everything Fiore owned and his rent besides. After this, it would be ruined.
Fiore opened his mouth. The belt slipped over his tongue. He bit down. An intoxicating scent—one he typically loved, though he found it difficult to delight in at the moment—filled his lungs. The leather gave way easily between his jaws. His teeth destroyed the tooling. Yet the belt held out for now. Enzo didn’t seem to give it a second thought.
“Secure his legs,” said the chirurgeon.
“What?” Fiore blurted.
“If you insist on remaining awake, we must prevent you from moving,” said the chirurgeon in the same pitiless tone.
Fiore gave Enzo a pleading look. Beneath the mask, Enzo’s eyes gave him a sympathetic glance in return.
Yet when the chirurgeon withdrew leather straps from his bag, Enzo accepted them with an open hand. And when Enzo began to belt Fiore’s ankles to the boat’s prow, Fiore did not resist him.
This done, Enzo returned to his seat at Fiore’s side and took Fiore’s left hand in his own.
“Shall we begin?” said the chirurgeon. Sunlight glinted off the silver blade of their upraised scalpel.
Enzo looked to Fiore.
Against every instinct, Fiore nodded.
Enzo passed the nod along to the chirurgeon.
The scalpel descended. The silver blade bit into his skin. Crimson spilled out. The scalpel drew a line across his belly, as wide as his palm. His flesh split beneath it, a scarlet maw yawning wide even as Fiore clenched his own jaw tight.
A hand touched his cheek.
“Look at me,” said Enzo.
Fiore shook his head.
The scalpel lifted from him only to plunge in again, drawing another line to cross the first, more agonizing than the last. Pain bid him swoon. Fear forced him awake.
Enzo did not relent. “It’ll be easier if you don’t watch.”
Fiore shook his head again. He might’ve told Enzo why, if it weren’t for the belt clenched in his teeth and the scream erupting from his throat as the scalpel sawed through gristle and muscle to reach his purpling guts and something jaundiced bubbled up from the fresh wound. The moment he glanced away, the knife would descend below his belt, and then—
Still, Enzo tried anew. “I will tell you all they do. Just look at me. Please.”
A pair of long silver instruments entered him. The pain of the invasion screwed his eyes shut. The sickening sliding sensation turned his stomach. His head lolled. It came to rest facing Enzo. His eyes opened.
Enzo’s gaze held all of Fiore’s pain and fear. Yet his voice remained steady. “They are cutting out the source of the infection. It will be done soon.”
Something tore within him. Something deep. Far too deep. His heart hammered in his throat. His breath came in shallow and left him in screams forced out through his teeth. Tears blurred his sight.
