Chapter 7 - The Needle And The Cold Iron
Grace brought the Mercedes to a halt beneath the concrete overhang of an abandoned switching station deep within the subterranean rail line.
The air was bone-chilling, smelling of stagnant rainwater, rusted iron, and mineral salts leaching through the concrete roof.
She left the car’s engine idling on park, utilizing the faint yellow glow of the dashboard lights to preserve their battery.
Stepping out of the vehicle, she opened the rear passenger door and felt the wall of feverish heat radiating from Luca’s body.
He was shivering uncontrollably, his teeth chattering in erratic spasms as hypovolemic shock took hold of his vascular system.
"Luca, sit up," she commanded gently, leaning her shoulder beneath his arm to pull him forward.
He groaned, a sound torn from the deepest marrow of his bones, but he obeyed, leaning his heavy torso against the backrest.
Grace reached for the canvas trauma kit, unzipping the heavy brass teeth to reveal a strictly military-grade field surgeon’s ensemble.
There were three pressurized canisters of coagulant powder, sterile curved suturing needles, rolls of woven cotton gauze, and a surgical scalpel.
Beside the instruments sat a small, amber glass vial of veterinary-grade morphine, but the rubber stopper was dry and cracked with age.
"The morphine is useless," Grace said, examining the expired date stamped across the label.
"It will cause anaphylaxis if I inject it."
Luca opened his eyes, the irises dilated until they were almost pitch black.
"Throw it away," he rasped, his voice barely louder than the hum of the engine.
"Just do what has to be done."
Grace stripped off her heavy wool winter coat, rolling up her sleeves with clinical determination.
She tore open the front of Luca’s ruined silk shirt, exposing his bare, muscular chest and the mangled expanse of his left flank.
The sight made her stomach heave violently.
The high-velocity nine-millimeter bullet had plowed through the serratus muscle beneath his ribs, leaving an eight-inch jagged trench of torn flesh.
Dark, venous blood still welled sluggishly from the deep margins, pooling over his hip and saturating his trousers.
The wound was already showing early signs of thermal necrosis where the muzzle blast had scorched the edges of his skin.
"Take this," Grace said, rolling her damp woolen scarf into a tight cylinder and shoving it into his hand.
Luca placed the rolled wool between his molars and bit down, his knuckles white as he gripped the door handle with his right hand.
Grace cracked open the first bottle of medical isopropyl alcohol, taking a deep, steadying breath.
"This is going to burn like the fires of hell, Luca."
She poured the entire bottle directly into the open wound.
Luca’s back arched violently off the leather seat, his body convulsing in pure, unadulterated agony as a muffled roar tore through the woolen rag.
His head slammed back against the window frame, tears of sheer biological shock streaming from the corners of his tightly squeezed eyes.
The pungent smell of alcohol and scorched iron filled the cramped interior of the Mercedes.
Grace did not hesitate; she knew that sympathy was a luxury that would kill him before sunrise.
She ripped open the pressurized canister of Celox hemostatic powder and dumped the contents into the weeping laceration.
The chemical agent hissed on contact with the warm blood, binding the platelets into a thick, artificial clot that stemmed the flow.
Luca’s breathing was a shallow, agonizing whistle, his chest trembling beneath her bare hands.
"Almost done," she lied, picking up the curved steel suture needle and threading it with heavy nylon filament.
Her hands shook for three terrifying seconds, her mother’s pale, dying face flashing across her mind’s eye.
You are not helpless, Grace, she reminded herself fiercely, closing her eyes for a single heartbeat to find her center.
You survived the wards, you survived the debt, and you will survive this bastard.
She sank the curved steel needle into the torn edge of his dermal tissue, pulling the ragged margins together with a square knot.
One stitch.
Two stitches.
Luca’s fingernails punctured the vinyl leather of the door panel as he endured the torture in stoic silence.
Blood smeared across Grace’s wrists, mixing with her sweat as she worked with methodical, desperate precision.
By the eleventh stitch, the gaping trench was closed, held together by a crude, ugly zipper of dark nylon thread.
She packed the surface with sterile gauze pads and wrapped his entire torso in wide elastic tension bandages, pulling them tight.
When she finally tied off the cotton wrap, Luca slumped sideways against her shoulder, completely depleted of strength.
The wool scarf fell from his slack jaws onto the carpet.
His breathing had slowed, deep and heavy, the feverish trembling beginning to subside as the shock peaked and leveled off.
Grace sat beside him on the edge of the leather seat, her chest heaving, her hands covered in his blood.
"Why did you stay, Grace?" Luca whispered into the darkness, his cheek resting against the coarse wool of her sweater.
Grace looked down at the man who commanded thousands of men and owned half the city’s waterfront.
"Because when I opened that car door, you weren't a boss," she answered softly, her voice catching in her throat.
"You were just a dying boy with nobody left to call."
Luca stayed silent for a long moment, the rhythmic drone of the car engine filling the damp concrete cavern.
"My grandfather has a safehouse," he murmured, his voice fading toward sleep.
"A hunting lodge in the Blackwood Ridge... forty miles beyond the city limits."
"Nobody knows the coordinates except the direct line of succession."
"Can you drive us there?"
Grace looked through the cracked windshield at the endless black void of the subterranean tunnel ahead.
"I don't have a choice, do I?"
May you like
"No," Luca whispered, his fingers weakly brushing the back of her bloodstained hand.
"None of us do anymore."
