hoping I’d be home to take him to a hospital not knowing I could heal him myself? He wouldn’t have been thinking clearly with an injury like that. I peel up his shirt. I have to roll him to the side to see the wound. Just under his ribs is a knife slash. I squint, trying to remember anatomy. Left side. Whoever stabbed him hit the spleen. Once it was ruptured, he would have bled out in minutes. He probably hadn’t thought the injury was that serious.
My fingers slide across the sticky mess of the two-inch slice, debating. The cut is clean, too small for someone to have gotten a hand inside, drawn out a fist. All his major organs are present and accounted for. “I can work with this,” I whisper.
My trembling, bloodstained hands in front of me, I walk to the bathroom. Under the sink, behind a box of maxi pads is a medical kit. I knock aside mouthwash and a bottle of lotion and grab it. Next, I go to my room. Under my bed where I’d hidden it earlier, is my messenger bag. Clutching them both to my chest, I stagger back to Ploy.
What are you doing? a voice in my head screams. All Ploy was ever supposed to be to me was an alert system, which means he served his purpose. Maybe whoever cut up that kid in the boxcar was coming after me next. Maybe Ploy stopped them. Maybe they’re dead, too. But if it was a hunter who mixed Ploy up with one of us, they failed. They didn’t get to his organs. There’s a chance, however small, that Ploy saw something that I can pass along to Sarah. And what if he was only robbed? Or attacked by another kid? I think. He said he didn’t carry the knife for fun. Better to cut ties then, leave him. He’ll only hold you back. If I let him go, anything he possibly saw will die with him.
“Then I need him alive,” I say aloud. My voice sounds strange. I never meant to get close, to make him my friend.
I should be calling Sarah. We run our cases through a point person, get permission, document them. Call in favors from those who will owe us forever for saving their lives. To Sarah, Ploy’d be some random homeless kid. He can’t pay the prices we demand even if she gives him a sliding scale. “This is why I hate this shit,” I mumble.
What if she says no? I think. She doesn’t know him like I do. I can deal with her anger if it means Ploy lives. I can tell her I’ve reconsidered. That I’m ready to step up. This resurrection, I can be the one she blackmails to get favors from.
I wipe my sticky hands on my thighs and get to work. I don’t stop, don’t reach for my phone. Instead, I sew individual stitches carefully, but quickly, snipping the thread and moving on to the next one, the wound in his side pulling together. Skin is the last to heal. My mother taught me to always do what I could to help it along.
With the last stitch, I set the needle and thread aside. I’m not after cosmetic perfection. I’m after less blood loss, keeping it inside his body when his heart gets going again, because I don’t have the setup for the slow transfusion messier jobs sometimes require.
Upending the messenger bag, I shake it until the contents spill onto the carpet. My eyes flit to the small coin purse containing my vial. I brush it aside.
I’ve still got the syringe from yesterday night. Sanitation isn't exactly necessary in what I’m using it for. I pull the cap off the needle’s point. I want to throw up but my hands move of their own accord, muscle memory burned deep. I lay the syringe on his chest and rummage through the mess on the floor for the rubber tubing, loop it around my upper arm and tie half a bow to hold it. I catch one end between my teeth. When I twist my head away, the knot tightens. I pump my fist, watch the veins in my inner elbow bulge. Taking up the syringe, I stare at the railroad spike of a needle. My hand is shaking. I have to stop shaking.
I take a deep breath and ease the needle into my vein, focus on a slow steady pull of the plunger. The