Page 97 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“She’s kidding,” I explained to a taken aback Malaya.

Hopefully.

33

KALI

“What happened?” Eislyn held the infirmary door open. “Get him on that table over there.”

Together with Gedeon, we maneuvered Zion toward the steel table in the center of the room. We heaved his legs on top, coaxing him to lay back, and his slashed stomach stretched out.

“Fuck,” he hissed, arching his neck.

I staggered a step back, too petrified of an accidental touch causing him more pain. Hauling him the short distance from the car to the infirmary had already pulled enough curses from him. And more than enough winces from me. And grunts from Gedeon.

“A knife. Where’s the doc? He needs to see to her.” Gedeon gestured behind us. “We’ll take care of Zion.”

“Here, come sit.” Ava guided a shaken and unseeing Malaya to sit on a stool. Her eyes had been glazed over since we left Ilasall, shock written all over her heart-shaped face.

“He’s out in the training rings with the rest of our med team to tend to some mess. Something about a brawl and broken bones,” Eislyn shared, digging into their med supplies closet. Having found what she required, she brought back a silver trayloaded with instruments and rushed to wash up in the sink. “Did he get stabbed again?”

“No. It’s a slash wound.” Gedeon untied our makeshift bandage—a strip of my dress—from Zion’s abdomen.

With a pair of disposable blue gloves covering her hands, Eislyn cut off Zion’s blood-soaked shirt with a pair of long metal scissors. “Anything else I should know about?”

“Nothing worth wasting time,” Gedeon said.

I lingered at the edge of the table, fiddling with the neckline of my dress, heart racing, unsure what my role here was.

Inspecting the wound, she rattled off between Zion’s curses. “No visible damage to his organs, no ruptures or affected major arteries. He’ll survive.”

“Not my first time,” he gritted out, and gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Nothing to worry about.” Except the deep crimson on my green dress objected to his statement. The fabric drenched in his drying blood was plastered to my waist.

Eislyn disinfected a spot on his stomach, uncapped the syringe, and drew in the clear liquid from a tiny vial. “Pain meds,” she explained before I could open my mouth to ask.

The needle vanished in Zion’s abdomen, and his neck arched once more. A grunt slipped past his clenched teeth. “This is worse than getting cut up.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Eislyn scolded, earning a snort from him. She threw her bloodied gloves in the trashcan and gestured to the tray. “You know the drill. Shout if you need anything. You two, come with me,” she ordered Ava, then ushered her and Malaya into the adjoining room. A click signaled the door closed, but I couldn’t peel my eyes off the gaping wound in Zion’s stomach.

The result of my uselessness.

Wetting my dry mouth, I mumbled, “She’s impressive.” Eislyn truly was. Firm and no bullshit. A different personcompared to our daily interactions. Like a switch had gone off inside her.

“That’s why she is second to the doc.” Finished washing his hands in the sink, Gedeon pulled on a pair of latex gloves and jerked his chin at the brown glass bottle sitting on the tray. “Pour it over the needle.”

I untwisted the cap and generously doused the curved needle, flooding the tray with raised edges. My nose scrunched up at the pungent odor of alcohol destroying the tiny hairs inside my nostrils.

“You know how to stitch someone up?” I asked, as Gedeon threaded the needle with a dark blue thread.

“I have done it too many times to count. Mostly on him or myself.” Hovering above Zion’s abdomen, a smear of scarlet on his forehead, Gedeon instructed him. “Hold on to the table. You will need a dozen stitches or so.”

“Just do it,” Zion bit out. “The meds will dull the pain.”

He pierced Zion’s skin at the left corner of the nasty gash and began meticulously placing stitch after stitch. Blue thread weaved his flesh back together, his fingers grasping the edge of the table paling, and without thinking, I gave them a small squeeze.

It was my fault.

We had reached the smallest of northern gates without a hitch. And then it’d all gone haywire.