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Lexi reached the bedroom with her first aid box in her left hand. She fumbled away the tape installed by the manufacturer to hold it closed before purchase. Not so much as a sticking plaster had ever found its way into the light. She stared down at the shrink-wrapped bandages and crimped scissors in confusion. “I need Garima,” she mused. “He’s great at this stuff.”
Strong fingers closed over hers to still her panic. He shook his head and squeezed. Lexi sank onto the mattress beside him, the box still clutched in her hands. Her instincts didn’t clamour or protest at his nearness. “What’s your name?” she asked, turning to face him. A sun-streaked curl had slipped into his left eye, and he bowed his head. Pursed lips made her wonder if he would refuse. But when he stared up at her, his green eyes sparkled with an inner voice. It reached across the distance between them like the prickle of a faint electrical current. He shook his head from side to side as though in regret. He still clasped her hand, but his other rose to point to his lips. Another head shake.
Lexi swallowed hard, picking through a list of sentences. Nothing seemed appropriate. “You don’t speak?” she asked. Her deliberate choice of words steered her away from wondering if he couldn’t talk, or if he didn’t wish to.
She received a sad smile for her understanding and his shoulders relaxed. But the lessened tension in his muscles pressed blood and liquid from the channel in his shoulder. It slid down his arm and dripped onto his chest, snagging in the downy hair which dotted his pectoral.
Lexi whimpered and sifted through the medical items. “I could beat you to death with a night stick,” she remarked, “but I have no clue how to mend this.”
The man smirked and jerked his head to the right, indicating he knew of the weapon languishing between the pillows behind him. Lexi concentrated on her task with renewed vigor as embarrassment lit her cheeks. “I should clean it first,” she concluded. Her fingers shook as she drew free an unopened packet of surgical wipes. She fluttered her eyelids closed while steeling herself for the task. “I should warn you I have zero maternal instinct. And this is going to hurt.”
Every time Lexi touched the weeping channel in the man’s arm, it released more fluid. As fast as she cleaned the residue, more appeared. He bore it with infinite patience, sitting through her sighs of exasperation and the unsteadiness of her fingers. Lexi sat back and stared at him, inadequacy infusing her with rage. “I need help,” she stated. “This is worse than a simple bullet graze. It needs stitches and perhaps antibiotics. I can see shards of missing bone. Is there anyone you would trust? I’ll call them for you.”
To her surprise, he gave a definitive nod. His gaze misted as he jostled the wound by pulling a cell phone from the pocket of his leather trousers. Deft, left-handed motions deactivated the screen and set a number, trilling through the speaker. He held it out to Lexi with a nod.
“What the hell?” The rebuke echoed around the bedroom. A litany of cuss words followed it. And then the man’s tenor stilled as though realizing the phone’s owner never used the call function. Lexi heard a crackling and feared he might hang up.
“Hello?” she gushed. “This is Lexi Allen. I have a man here with me. He rides a black motorbike with the registration number ADP 10.”
The rider blinked in surprise at her method of identification. Perhaps of the million descriptions he had in mind, his bike featured last on the list. The phone crackled again. “I don’t know who you mean,” the voice replied in a harsh tone.
The rider sagged and more ooze emanated from the hole in his shoulder. He took the phone from Lexi with extreme gentleness. As the caller waited, he opened a fresh text screen and tapped out a message one-handed. Then he gave the device back to her. Lexi stared down at what he’d written to a contact named Zero. ‘Speak to her.’ A simple command. Lexi heard a beep as the other man received the instruction and then he cleared his throat.
“What does he need?” he demanded. The tone changed to concern. Perhaps this had never happened before and he ascertained the phone’s owner had become incapacitated.
Lexi exhaled. “Someone shot at me. He pushed me to safety, but the bullet carved a channel in his upper arm. Just below the ball of his shoulder. The blood is oozing, but I’m making it worse by mopping at it. He won’t let me take him to the hospital.”
The phone speaker emitted the man’s heavy sigh. It added to the weight of the device in Lexi’s hand. Encased in army grade rubber, it showed no impact damage despite the man falling heavily on the pocket containing it. Yet her screen had cracked when she dropped it following the first shot. “I’ll come myself,” the man said.
“Okay. We’re at Drake Street,” Lexi began.
“I know where you are.” The call ended with an abrupt click and then silence. The air molecules seemed to crackle around Lexi and the stranger.
She handed the phone back to him as a lump lodged in her stomach. The caller had rendered her surplus to requirements with consummate ease. Lexi squatted before the silent patient and tugged open a small plastic bag containing gauze. She pressed four layers together and then covered the man’s wound with them. If she couldn’t help him, she could at least hide her inadequacy behind the busyness. She fixed the gauze in place with medical tape. Her fingers had turned into bananas and stuck more of it to herself than to him. And all the while, he stared down into her eyes like a kicked puppy, grateful for even the smallest kindness. The unexpectedness of his open gaze turned her inside out and left her raw.
“I’ll fetch you some water.” Her voice cracked, and she rose from her aching knees. The blood surged back into her calves to create a fizzing discomfort. Lexi busied herself fetching a glass of water and adding ice cubes. She rounded up the prescription painkillers from her trip to the hospital and bore them back into the bedroom. Nahla delayed her along the route, winding around her legs and almost pitching her over. Mindful of the cat’s previously ignored warning, Lexi located her small handbag hanging from a spindle of the hall chair. Keeping the boxes of tablets beneath her armpit and the glass in her left hand, she eased the can of pepper spray free. She pushed it behind her back and used her hip to nudge aside the bedroom door.
