“Pressure,” I ordered, my voice tight as a coil, my brain doing what it loved, what it knew.

Elise nodded and grabbed a gauze pad, pushing down on both sides of the wound. Ermil moaned in pain as she applied pressure.

“You’ll have to stitch the artery,” Matt muttered in our direction, hoping Ermil was too out of it to hear him.

Ermil’s head snapped up suddenly. No luck there. “Are you serious?” he said through gritted teeth.

All the doctors’ eyes connected knowingly.

Elise held the torch over the wound as she removed the gauze. Blood bubbled up. “Hold it still so I can find the source of the bleeding,” I said, my eyes connecting with hers.

Matt shuffled closer and dabbed as much blood away from the wound as he could. I sterilized my hands with hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes, pushing my fingers into Ermil’s calf. He started to scream, and Matt put his hand to Ermil’s mouth.

“I know it’s hard but you have to be quiet, so they won’t find us,” he whispered.

Ermil’s eyes were bugging out of his head but he managed to nod, and Matt released him. He gripped Matt’s leg desperately, searching for comfort.

“It’s going to be ok, Ermil. We won’t leave you,” I said quietly.

Warm blood ran over my fingers as I fished around for the torn artery. It was a strange, reassuring feeling: The flesh under my fingertips, the work that needed to be done. This was part of me.

I thought I could feel it and I moved upwards, tracing the artery, and then pushed down hard to stop the blood flow.

“Suction,” I said automatically.

Elise laughed.

Matt understood what I meant and dabbed at the blood to see if it had slowed. We all relaxed a little when we realized it had.

“Quickly, sterilize your hands,” I said to Elise.

“Already did, Doctor.” She anticipated what I needed and moved her hand over to where mine was, sliding her finger into place behind mine and pushing down.

“How long before they take their fingers out of my leg?” Ermil gasped to Matt, his face sheened with sweat, his skin pale as the moon.

Matt flipped open the suture kit with his good hand. “You’ll have to tie it, Joe. I can’t,” he said, holding up his injured hand.

Everything fell into place. My actions, my breathing, my timing. It was natural. I tied the artery easily, swiftly. I was at home with the needle in my hand.

I leaned back on my heels and stared down at the wound.

“Ready?” Elise asked all of our intensely focused faces, lit up by torchlight.

I nodded. “Do it.”

Elise lifted her fingers, and we waited for blood.

Matt dabbed away at the wound again. It seeped a little, but it wasn’t pouring anymore.

My shoulders sank a few inches, my body relaxed. Elise threw an arm around my neck and pulled our heads together so they knocked. “Well done. We make a good team.”

Matt smiled. “You certainly do.”

Ermil even managed a half-grimace, half-smile. “So I’m not going to die?”

I chuckled, something warm and unfamiliar growing in my chest, blotting out the sadder feelings. “Not today.”

Cleaning his wound, we wrapped it tightly. We would have to carry him up the hill, but he would live. He would walk. We did that.

It was an amazing feeling.

Misery had been following me. I had been uninvolved and uninterested in everything around me.

No more.

As I packed up our gear, tumbling the bloodied gauze and dirty needles into the plastic sheeting, she came back to me. I tied a knot around the top and shoved the waste into a hole at the bottom of a tree, my hands scraping on the charcoal and coming back all black and slimy. I hadn’t thought of her through that whole process. And I was ashamed to say that it felt good to forget.

“You coming?” Elise asked, turning around with Ermil’s arm over her shoulder as she supported his weight.

I smiled a genuine smile at her. “I’m coming.”

She seemed surprised but she returned my smile with a toothy one of her own, her freckles pushing high up under her eyes.

The sun rose over the peaks to our right. Shafts of light slipped through the crags of rock and poured through the brittle trees as I jogged to catch up to them. I slung Ermil’s other arm over my shoulder, and Matt took my pack.

We did a good job last night. Apella would have been proud of me.

We saved someone’s life. That had to count for something, push the peg forward one short inch.

I left any other feelings behind, jammed into that tree with the blood and contaminated instruments.

ROSA

I wish I could hate you. I want to hate you for leaving me here.

I HATE you.

I love you.

I love you.

The door eased over the carpet. My face pressed against the floor, my knees folded over as if I were praying. I focused on the tiny little threads, bending, waving like red grass as the wood swept over the top. I would hold my heart hostage to lie in grass right now. I wanted the frozen spikes digging into my back. I wanted the melted snow to seep into my clothes.

I didn’t want to feel dead, to relive dying.

A polished shoe wedged in the gap and Red’s legs, body and face appeared. She glowered from her position above me. I hadn’t moved in hours. It had taken me this long to remember how to breathe properly, to pull myself from a very real nightmare.

“I have to take you downstairs,” she whispered regretfully, her countenance changing. Pity grimed the corners of her mouth. I had no energy to dislike her face. I was stretched past caring.

I turned my forehead to the carpet, rubbing it back and forth slowly. “Where’s Harry?” I murmured, my lips picking up pieces of carpet fluff.

Red’s voice was warmer than I expected, but disappointed as well. “Harry has been repurposed. He, er, wasn’t suited to this position. You need to get up, Miss Rosa. I have to take you downstairs again.”

Again.

I blinked, and tears met the carpet.

“You’ll have to help me up,” I whispered. I couldn’t take another step. I couldn’t willingly walk back in there.

She knelt down, a ladder in her stockings stretched wide over her knee as her weight pressed into the floor. She hooked her arms under mine and pulled me up. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t answer. Most of me was still on the floor.

I love you.

Don’t forget.

Please don’t have already forgotten.

They strapped me down in the chair again. They asked the questions again. I refused to answer them again. They pressed play again.

My soul coiled inside my body, winding round and round in a tight dressing— protecting me, shielding me.

Este’s voice, high and shrill, squawked from the screen, her thin frame teetering in those red heels. “I d-don’t want b-b-blood on the carpets.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the rest. I knew it by heart now. This was unnecessary. These images would never leave me.

“What have you done?” Joseph asked. I opened my eyes, waiting for the screen to go black and start at the beginning again.

But it didn’t. This was the after part. The part I didn’t remember because I was already gone.

A squeal, hard and piercing. Este stood on the tiles, her hands straight at her sides, her fingers anchored to her thighs. So taut, so distressed. Joseph leaned down to my body, his hands shaking. Before he could touch my neck to check for a pulse, a guard jumped on his back, his arms wrapped tightly around Joseph’s throat.