Page 43 of Savage Reckoning

“Yeah. Jack wants him kept alive.”

“When Jack Morgan gets a medical degree, he can call the shots as far as my work is concerned. Until then, I’ll decide what requires to be done for my patient.”

“He’s not a patient. He’s a condemned prisoner.”

She glares at me. “Perhaps it would be best if you wait here.”

“Not a chance.” I stalk past her and lead the way to the cell where we left Gregory Mitchell.

The cell door also has an electronic lock, and Megan shoulders me to one side while she types in another code. She swings it open to peer within.

Mitchell is still where we left him, curled in a ball on the stone floor, moaning to himself and clutching his fingerless right hand to his stomach. A growing pool of blood surrounds him.

Megan mutters something incomprehensible and rushes to kneel beside him. She lifts each eyelid in turn, then glances in my direction. “What’s his name?”

“Mitchell. Gregory Mitchell.”

“Mr Mitchell? Can you hear me?”

“Nothing except a strangled moan.

“Mr Mitchell? Gregory? My name is Doctor Alexander. I’m here to help you. Can you hear me?”

His eyelids flicker. He looks up at her with a sudden and entirely unwarranted flare of hope. “Please…” he groans.

“I’m going to make you more comfortable,” she tells him, digging in her bag. She retrieves a syringe and a small bottle of colourless fluid and proceeds to draw some up into the syringe.

“What’s that?” I ask. “Jack said no pain relief.”

“Jack can go fuck himself.” She checks the measure, then reaches for Mitchell’s left arm. She sinks the needle into the muscle and slowly depresses the plunger. That done, she discards the used needle into a sharps container and proceeds to try and drag Mitchell across the floor by his shoulders. “Since you’re here, you might as well give me a hand. Help me get him onto the bunk.”

“What’s the point?”

“Either help me or get out.”

I concede the point and take over at the shoulders end. “You grab his feet.” What’s left of them…

Between us, we manhandle the inert form onto the stone bunk built into one wall. Whatever Megan gave him has knocked him out cold. He doesn’t move a muscle when she sets to dressing his injured feet, swathing them in pristine white clinical gauze and bandages. She does the same with his right hand, all the while her features set in an expression I find hard to decipher.

Not anger, especially, and not empathy either. I finally put my finger on it. Resigned acceptance.

“It had to be done,” I tell her. “We needed the information. The Savages needed it.”

“I get that.”

“But?”

“But did you have to be quite so… brutal?”

“It worked. We now know for sure who was behind the shooting down of the chopper.”

“Well, I suppose that’s something,” she mutters and gets to her feet. “I’m done here.”

I straighten as well. “Okay. I’ll stay, in case he wakes up and says anything more.”

Megan glances back at the man on the bunk. “He won’t be waking up again.”

“What? Why? You stopped the blood loss.”

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