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The following day, Miles calls both Vanya and I to his surgery room.

The situation's already become too dire, and one of Vanya's eyes is so bloodshot and swollen, I feel it's going to burst out at any point.

"Don't worry," Miles smiles down at me. "This is an opportunity to learn," he says as he instructs Vanya to get on the bed.

She looks at me, her eyes almost sparkling with undefined feelings. But she doesn't protest as she sits down.

She doesn't even make a sound as Miles makes an incision around her eye, cutting dead tissue that had been rotting in her socket.

I'm on the sidelines, watching as her eye is semi-detached, hanging out of her socket, tiny movements denoting she is aware and she is watching me even through that limp eye.

Though I show no reaction, there's a small prickle down my spine as I watch the blood pool down her face.

"This shouldn't be here," Miles tsks as he removes a rather large maggot larva from behind her eye. "I wonder how it got here," he muses.

Taking out the larva from behind her retina, he drops it into a small glass.

Then he just struggles to put her eye back.

For all his brilliance, I know he's not an eye surgeon. So the prospect of him working so in depth around Vanya's eye has me feeling a little off. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it's not a pleasant feeling.

"Done," he exclaims, telling her to get off and instructing us to go back to our room after he administers one more shot of venom in each of our arms.

"How's the eye?" I ask Vanya as she goes to her small corner. Miles had slapped a small bandage on it and called it a day.

She shrugs, her features blank as if she doesn't care.

"V, how's the eye?" I ask again, something bursting to the surface at seeing her so indifferent.

"It's okay," she replies, her voice soft but there's something lacking.

Unable to help myself, since something keeps bothering me and I'm not one to back down in the face of a challenge, I go to the small supply I'd taken from the lab, taking out some disinfectant.

"Show me." I take a seat next to her, my hand going to her bandage.

I know Miles didn't use any anesthetic, or disinfectant—he never does. So she needs to get the area cleaned, at least to the best of my abilities.

But as I peel back the gauze, her eye immediately drops, falling about an inch off her eye socket.

Not wanting to scare her more than necessary, I pour some disinfectant and I dab it around her eye.

She looks at me blankly, examining my features in detail. I don't question her sudden interest in my face, happy that she has something to distract her from her eye. When I'm finished, I gently push the eye back, plastering some new gauze on top of it.

As I make to move, though, something happens. Her hand reaches out, touching my arm.

"You called me V," she utters the words so softly I barely hear her. "You never call me V anymore," she notes, tightening her fingers over my arm.

I shrug. "It depends on the moment," I tell her, not wanting to examine the meaning behind her words, or the fact that I had, indeed, stopped calling her V a long time ago.

"I like it." Her lips pull up in a small smile. "It reminds me of old times."

I grunt.

"When we were a team," she continues, looking at me expectantly.

"We still are, V. But you need to pull your weight too," I retort. "You know I'm doing this forbothof us," I continue, shaking my head at her.

Her smile immediately drops, her good eye unblinking as it takes me in.