When the man straightened, I didn't see the shock or horror or disgust I felt myself, just a blankness, a resolve even.
"Do you need anything specific for that?"
"Uhm, not right now. When they heal—if they heal—she might want some glue."
"Glue?"
"To put on the nail beds," I told him. "Your nail beds are sensitive. They feel sore if they are exposed. The glue would protect them and stop the soreness."
"Got it. Anything else?" he asked, not bothering to move out of my way, making me squeeze in front of him to move to the other side of the bed, my whole back brushing against his front.
I tried to inspect the woman's front without pushing her onto her back. "Ice packs," I decided, seeing how swollen her face was, her eyes nothing but little slits above dark black eyes. "Maybe some braces or elastic bandages?" I said, shrugging. "I don't know if anything is broken," I clarified. "I don't want to touch her without cleaning her wounds first. Oh, and gloves. I'll need gloves."
"Alright. I will get all of that," he agreed, turning, making his way back toward the door, closing it with a loud snap, making me jump.
"I don't know if you are in your right mind right now," I said to the woman, feeling a sting of tears at the backs of my eyes as she screamed against her gag. "But I am going to try everything I can to get you out of pain and well again. Whoever did this to you is a monster," I added, sitting down on the very edge of the bed, at a loss for what to do until I had the supplies I needed, so starting to hum because it was the only comfort I could give her.
The door opened a couple of minutes later, making my heart leap up as I looked over my shoulder.
But it wasn't the man from before.
This one was tall as well, but a little rougher-around-the-edges looking with his dark hair, beard, jeans, boots, and a leather vest thing over a black t-shirt.
"Sorry, babe," he said, making his way toward the windows, and it was right then that I noticed the hammer and box of nails in his hand. "Ace said I gotta seal off your exits," he told me.
Ace.
The other man's name was Ace.
"Did you do this to her?" I asked him as he grabbed a nail, held it against the frame of the window.
"Fuck no."
That was it.
Fuck no.
But at least I knew that was two of the people in this house who wouldn't pull out my toenails. It was a small sort of comfort, but I was going to take all that I could get.
The sound of the hammer seemed to ricochet through my skull, making my body jolt with each strike, leaving me feeling jumpy even after he was done.
"Uhm, excuse me, Mr..."
"Drex," he corrected, looking horrified at me calling him mister. "Just Drex."
"Drex," I repeated, finding the name clumsy on my tongue. "Can I have some water?"
To that, he shrugged.
"Guess I can manage that," he agreed, moving off, closing the door behind him.
Maybe I should have been trying to see if I could grab the heads of the nails and rip them out of the window, get myself out of there.
But if I left, this woman was probably going to die. And I wasn't sure I was heartless enough to let that happen. Maybe I'd never taken the Hippocratic Oath, but I'd never been the kind of person who could watch someone hurting and not at least try to help.
I would get her cleaned up and stitched up as best as I could, then I would try to find a way out of this situation.
Because they weren't just going to let me go, right?
I mean, I'd seen their faces.
Sure, as a couple hours passed, the Lenore woman and Drex's faces started to blur in my memory. For some reason, though, Ace's face was tattooed on my mind.
But only because I'd seen him for longer, of course. That was the only rational explanation.
If they let me go, I could absolutely give a police sketch artist enough to go on for Ace.
"Here," Drex said, coming back with a wine glass full of water.
"Thank you," I said, trying to give him a smile even though it felt—and likely looked—fake. "That other guy was a, ah—"
"Dick?" Drex asked, smirking. "Go on, you can say it."
"Well, yeah," I agreed.
"Don't get it twisted, blondie," he said, shaking his head. "We're all motherfuckers here. Save the smiles for someone else. You aren't going to butter me up."
With that, he was gone again, leaving me feeling very foolish for thinking there was something good inside these men to appeal to. Good men brought horrifically injured women to the hospital. Even if all they did was drop them off at the emergency room and ran off out of fear of getting implicated.
Alone as the time dragged on, I found myself pacing the room, humming at first to try to comfort the woman. Then, as minutes turned to hours, to soothe myself.
"Here's your shit," Ace said, making me jump, a stifled scream escaping me as I turned, finding him already moving into the room when I hadn't even heard him open the door.
I decided not to concern myself with his bloody hands.
It wasn't my business how he got the supplies.
And whatever he had done to get them wasn't my fault just because I needed them.
At least that was what I was trying to convince myself of as I laid everything out on the dresser, rearranging it in the order I thought I would need.
"Ace, here," yet another voice said, making me turn to find two more men moving into the room.
Both were tall.
One was dark-skinned with loc'd hair and a more muscular, stockier build.
The other was a little thinner with inky black hair kept a little long and tanned skin that maybe spoke of Middle Eastern descent.
Both had brown eyes.
And both appeared to have those strange red flecks in theirs as well.
What the hell was that about?
"What is that?" I asked as the Black man handed Ace a bottle.
"Goodfellas," the other man supplied, looking me over.
Goodfellas.
You didn't work in hospital rooms without learning a few street names for drugs.
Goodfellas. China Girl. Dance fever. He-man.
They'd gotten fentanyl.
Which was fifty to a hundred times more potent than morphine.
"Ace told us to get something strong," the Middle Eastern looking man supplied. "Is that strong enough?"
"They use it after surgery," I supplied. "So, yes."
"Will it be enough to knock her out while you work on her?" he pressed.
God, I hoped so.
I couldn't imagine doing what I needed to do to the woman if she was conscious.
"But, um, I still might need all of you to help hold her down," I told them, even if the idea of all three of them in the room put me on-edge.
"Whatever Red needs," he agreed, sounding pained. "She's a good friend," he supplied, to what must have been a question in my eyes.
"Aram," Ace called to the man who was speaking to me. "Go get some water. You are going to need water, right?" he asked, looking at me.
"Yes. Right," I agreed, taking a steadying breath as I moved toward the woman. "I need to take the gag off to get the medicine in," I told them.