he was roof hopping to follow me or was waiting where he thought I might go. I was headed for the Asylum entrance near my regular bank to come see you.” In reality, I would have made some detours first, but I mostly spoke the truth. “I’d checked on my cellars on the way.”
“I know. I was about to go knock on your cellar to see if you were home when I heard the gunfire, and since gunfire isn’t common around here, I checked it out and found you doing your best to bleed out. You’re lucky I’m a universal donor. There’s been a pretty nasty shortage of blood, and I gave you a lot of mine to keep you breathing.”
“You’re not going to let me forget that any time soon, are you?”
Sandro smiled. “Absolutely not. I’m hoping it’ll go a long way convincing you to upgrade our provisional contract to permanent. I’m looking at ways to make my competition in the East regret targeting you—after I make them finish paying off your medical bills. I’ll give my competition some credit. They’re prompt, and they didn’t question any of the bills. They did suggest you were being given too light of a painkiller, though. Drug supplies are slim, but they’re giving you what they can.”
“We did receive additional medications as a result of the bounty and their interest in keeping Miss Tamrin healthy,” the doctor said. “That’s helped. Miss Tamrin’s been given the lion’s share, and we’ve been spreading the rest around as we can.”
“I’ll request more antibiotics,” Sandro promised. “Anything else you require? Also, concoct an infection concern regarding the high number of injured and deceased in the area. Perhaps the next shipment will have some base vaccinations to go with it.”
“I’ll play extra close to death if it gets more medical supplies here,” I offered. “If I can help with that, I will. We need it. I can fake tears if you want. Or wiggle my toes. I have a feeling if I wiggle my toes, I won’t have to fake the tears.” I stared at my left hand, which was still tied to the bed. “If I promise to behave and leave the IV line alone, can I have a hand? I’m guessing I tried to inflict injury to myself in some fashion or another.”
The doctor nodded. “The first few days after your arrival, you kept trying to pull the IV line out with your teeth, so we restrained you. You’ve progressed enough that removing the straps should be safe. You are typically a side sleeper as far as we can tell, but the location of your more severe injuries would have made being on your side dangerous. Unfortunately, there was no perfect position for you, but Mr. Moretti opted to cauterize the injury on your back to help staunch the bleeding. That has healed surprisingly well. Unfortunately, it will scar.”
Shrugging hurt. “What’s one extra? If you were looking for some pristine beauty, Sandro, you picked poorly.”
“I’m not looking for a pristine beauty, and I’d rather have you with some scars and still alive, and you were losing a lot of blood. I cauterized what I could safely. I was severely scolded upon arrival with you.”
The doctor grinned at that. “I really did scold him, too. Cauterization helped keep you from bleeding out, but it presents some challenges for later healing. But, as he says, it is better than dying before you reached the hospital at all. I’m Dr. Thresher, and I’m your surgeon. I’d like to keep you under observation for another twenty-four hours before releasing you into Mr. Moretti’s care, with a nurse visiting you three times a day to check your bandages, administer the appropriate medications, and monitor your general health. You’d return to the hospital every three days for testing, but this would free up a bed for another patient who needs the care more than you do.”
“I must be doing pretty well, then. Do I want to know what day it is?”
“It’s Tuesday, Miss Tamrin,” Dr. Thresher replied.
The last thing I recalled, it had been Thursday, and it hadn’t been that late into Thursday. “I’m going to pretend I haven’t lost almost a week, and I’ll be grateful I don’t remember anything of it, because I bet it hurt like hell.”
“You were sedated to keep you as comfortable as possible during the initial healing. Tonight, depending on how well you handle solid foods, we’ll do your next set of tests. If the