Page 18 of The Glass Empire
Someone was trying to hurt him. Someone almost succeeded.
"I can stitch this," I say. "It won't be pretty. I don't have lidocaine. I don't have sterile thread. I have fishing line and a sewing needle and a bottle of vodka that's been sitting under the register for six months. It's going to hurt. It's going to leave a scar. But you won't bleed out on my floor."
He swallows. "Do it."
"Who are you?"
"What?"
"You're waiting for someone. You won't go to a hospital. You're carrying a knife wound like it's happened before." I hold his gaze. "Who are you?"
"My name's Dmitri." He hesitates. "I work for someone. That's all I can tell you."
"Does that someone have a name?"
"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
I laugh. It comes out before I can stop it—a short, sharp sound that surprises both of us. "You can barely hold a towel. You're not killing anyone tonight."
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. "You're not wrong."
"Come to the counter. I need better light."
I set up in the same place I set up three weeks ago. The counter. The same stool. The same cheap fluorescent light that makes everything look yellow and diseased. The vodka is stillunder the register—I replaced the bottle after last time, because Del noticed it was low and gave me a look I didn't want to explain.
The fishing line is from the back closet, where we keep the supplies no one remembers buying. The sewing needle is from my own coat pocket—I keep one there, for buttons, for hems, for the small repairs that come with clothes that weren't expensive to begin with. I sterilize everything with vodka and Del's lighter, and I don't think about the last time I did this.
I don't think about grey eyes and silver temples and a smile that looked like a crack in a stone wall.
"Put your arm on the counter," I say. "Palm up. I need to see the edges."
Dmitri does what I say. His arm is trembling—not from fear, I think, but from adrenaline. The body's way of burning through everything it has left. He's running on empty, and he doesn't even know it.
"This is going to hurt," I say. "I need you to stay still. If you move, I'll have to start over, and I only have so much vodka."
"I can stay still."
"Good."
I pour vodka over the wound. He gasps—a sharp intake of breath, his back arching off the stool—but he doesn't move his arm. His other hand grips the edge of the counter, knuckles white, and I watch his face go through something that looks like a prayer.
I thread the needle with the fishing line. My hands are steady. They're always steady. That's the gift, my mother said. That's the curse.
The first stitch is the hardest. The needle has to go through skin that's still trying to pull itself apart, and the fishing line is thicker than anything a surgeon would use, and I don't have any way to numb him except the alcohol that's already burning itsway through his nerves. I push the needle through the edge of the wound, and he makes a sound—not a scream, not a cry, just a low, guttural exhale—and I pull the line through and tie the knot.
"Eight more," I say. "Maybe nine."
"Great."
"You're doing fine."
"I'm not doing anything. You're doing everything."
"That's the idea."
I work quickly. Not fast—fast is how you make mistakes—but efficiently, the way you learn to work when you have a limited window and a patient who's running out of blood. Each stitch pulls the edges of the wound a little closer together, a little more aligned, until the gash that was gaping begins to look like a line. Like something that might, eventually, heal.
I'm on the sixth stitch when the door chimes.
