149
Few minutes later, Tina was sprawled across my old bed, pale and still, her body convulsing with tiny, unconscious spasms like she was trying to fight the pain even in sleep. Her shirt was soaked through with dark blood, brown at the edges now, sticky and stiff with time, and it clung to her skin like it had been painted on. She was dying right in front of us.
And I couldn’t breathe.
Gael stood over her, bare-chested, his arms slick with blood and sweat. He clutched the surgical scissors like they were a weapon rather than a tool, and when he slid them under the collar of her shirt, I could hear his breath catch. With a quick, brutal snip, then another, and another, he cut through the fabric until it gave way, flopping open to reveal what lay beneath. Her bra was still on, barely. A dark burgundy color, thin lace, the kind you didn’t expect someone like Tina to be wearing. One strap was already broken, and it had shifted with all the chaos, barely holding anything in place. Her breasts spilled out of the top, pushed up and out, streaked with blood. Her skin was sticky, covered in a mix of sweat and dried and fresh blood, some of it caked, some still trailing down in slow drips. It ran between the curve of her chest, under the bra, across her ribs.
The wound was... monstrous.
A jagged, swollen laceration curved from the bottom of her ribs down across her lower abdomen. The flesh had split open unevenly, like the blade had twisted at the last second or she'd moved as it went in. The edges were black and puffy, already turning necrotic. Dried blood crusted around it in thick, uneven clumps. It was wet but not fresh—hours old. No clean edges, no clotting—just infection and decay eating away at her inch by inch. I could see the tissue. Muscle. A glimpse of bone.
Gael froze for a second, eyes locked on the wound. Then he moved fast.
The first aid box Isabella had dragged in from the hallway had been dumped open on my desk, my desk, still cluttered with the sketch pads and coffee mugs I left behind two years ago, and Gael grabbed what he needed: antiseptic wipes, gauze pads, surgical tape, sterile saline, a suture kit still sealed in plastic, a pair of gloves that looked like they’d been sitting in that kit since the last damn pandemic, a small bottle of iodine, a roll of bandage, and one tiny ampoule of morphine that he was either too scared or too smart to use.
Dominic stood at the edge of the bed, unmoving for a moment, his knuckles white around the gun he clutched like it was the only thing anchoring him to the room. Every now and then, he’d step away, circle the room, back to the window, across to the door, then come back, only to shift again. His shoes thudded on the floor in irregular beats, and every time he passed Gael’s shoulder, I saw the tension spike in Gael’s jaw. I understood. I didn’t want a man with a gun pacing the room either, not while trying to sew someone back to life.
“Dominic,” I said softly. “Can you sit down?”
He didn’t even look at me. Just turned again, drifting to the wall, rubbing the side of his face, gun still in hand like he’d forgotten it was even there.
I stood across the room, trying not to wring my hands, trying not to scream.
It had been two years since I stepped foot in this place.
But nothing had changed.
The lavender sheets on the bed still clung to the mattress, stained now in Tina’s blood but otherwise perfectly made. My corkboard still hung on the far wall, cluttered with torn magazine covers and photos from the Milan shows I’d been obsessed with back then. My sketchbooks lined the windowsill, sun-bleached and brittle at the edges. My desk was untouched, my old silver laptop sat in the corner, its lid closed and dusty, and beside it, the last coffee I ever made in this house had fossilized in a chipped ceramic mug. My jewelry tray still held the pearl earrings I’d worn the day I left. A pair of stilettos, black suede, broken strap, never worn again—sat just under the chair, neatly aligned like I’d be back any second to slip them on.
It was haunting. Like a ghost of me had never left. Like I’d just gone for a walk and come home to a girl dying in my bed.
The ache in my chest was sharp, so suddenly I had to grip the dresser to steady myself. My fingertips brushed across an old fabric swatch I’d left pinned to the side, dusky rose silk, the shade I’d once insisted was me.
And that’s when Tina groaned.
A horrible, hoarse little sound, barely there but it hit me like a shout. I snapped around.
Gael had flushed the wound with saline, and now he was pouring iodine directly into the gash. His fingers trembled, soaked to the wrist in blood, and the moment the liquid touched open tissue, Tina’s back arched violently. Her legs kicked weakly, and she let out another strained noise from the back of her throat.
“Jesus,” I gasped, stepping forward.
Gael didn’t look up. His voice was tight. “It has to be clean. If I don’t get the bacteria out, she’s dead anyway.”
His hands were slick and trembling. He was working fast, too fast, wiping, patting, using the gauze pads to soak the overflow. I could see bits of dead tissue tearing off under the pressure. He swore, reaching for the forceps, trying to pull something lodged in deeper, maybe part of the fabric, maybe splinters of whatever knife had done this.
Dominic stood at the corner of the bed again, breathing hard, eyes locked on Tina like she’d come back to life and accuse him of letting her go this far.
And me, I was frozen in place, surrounded by ghosts of who I used to be, watching someone bleed out in my sanctuary. The perfume I used to wear still lingered faintly in the sheets, just beneath the sharp scent of iodine and blood.
Gael’s jaw was clenched tight, his bare chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Sweat rolled down the side of his temple and disappeared into the curve of his neck. His fingers trembled slightly as he pinched the forceps, hovering just above Tina’s open wound. Blood gushed steadily from the site, darker now, thick and sluggish, clotted in some places, still fresh in others. The wound had been left too long, untended and angry, red and raw with jagged, uneven edges. It wasn’t just a clean slice, it looked torn, like the knife had twisted while still inside her.
“Come on,” Gael muttered, mostly to himself. His voice was strained, more breath than sound.
He dipped the forceps in, slowly, gently. Tina’s entire body flinched. Even unconscious, her nerves responded. Her back arched slightly, a guttural noise catching in her throat, like a moan trying to claw its way out.
I stepped back. Just one step. But even that felt too loud in the stillness of the room.
Dominic shot me a glance, then went back to pacing. The floor creaked under his boots, four steps forward, five steps back. He was gripping the gun so tightly his knuckles were white, his jaw locked, a nerve twitching along his cheek. His eyes kept flicking from Tina’s face to the bloody sheets, then to the stained scissors on the bed, like any of those things might jump up and accuse him. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. His silence was screaming.
Gael’s hands weren’t steady, but they were trying to be. He leaned closer, squinting into the wound as if it were whispering something. Blood pooled around his fingers, soaking into the edge of the gauze he’d tried to place underneath. I could hear the wet, horrible suction sound as he worked the forceps deeper, searching. Then—he stopped. His breath hitched.
“There’s something still in there,” he said quietly. “A piece of the blade, maybe—bone fragment—I don’t know.”
He moved quickly, grabbing a syringe from the kit. The local anesthetic. He jabbed it near the wound, Tina’s body jolting at the intrusion. Her head lolled to the side, her brows pinching slightly even in her sleep. Gael waited a few seconds—barely long enough—then went back in, this time with tweezers.
“Hold still, dammit,” he said through gritted teeth, even though she wasn’t awake.
I couldn’t look away.
His fingers were slick with blood. The gauze he'd tried to use was soaked through and cast aside, a useless red mess on the floor. I saw him switch tools—forceps, tweezers, a hooked probe—each one coated in crimson by the time he dropped it back onto the towel beside the kit. He used a saline syringe to flush the wound and the burst of blood that followed turned the bedspread into something from a nightmare.
Gael’s chest heaved as he finally found it—something small, blackened with blood and glinting faintly in the light. He yanked it out with a hard twist, and Tina’s body seized violently. A choked scream clawed its way out of her mouth, guttural and raw, and I felt it scrape down my spine like nails on concrete.
“Jesus Christ,” Dominic hissed.
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