Page 24 of Gunpowder

Nolan’s face darkened at that, but it didn’t look like it was news to him that Adam’s injuries could kill him. He left to get the medical equipment he had brought in his car, and Blair looked up at Wren as soon as the door closed behind him. “Look, I’m definitely no doctor, but what can you do about internal bleeding without doing x-rays? I mean, you can’t see what’s going on in there,” Blair said.

“No, I can’t.”

Spencer had been silent so far, standing by Felix, but he stepped forward now. “Then what’s your plan?”

“Use what I know about the accident and the physical evidence of the bruising to narrow down where his chest wall is bleeding from. Then, I’ll know where the blood is pooling.”

Spencer lowered his head for his eyes to be visible above the tint of his glasses. “I thought you said it was some cavity in the chest.”

Nolan returned, putting an end to Spencer’s questioning as he spread out two armfuls of equipment onto the next empty table. Sleeves of surgical tools, a respirator, some plastic tubes wrapped in more plastic, a few small machines that Blair didn’t recognize, it all fell from his shaking hands on to the polished wood. An ill-timed thought occurred to Blair that they were going to have to do one hell of a sterilization job before they served any customers.

“Blair, put on a pair of gloves.”

“What, me?”

Wren took an elastic out of his jeans pocket and pulled his hair up in a ponytail. He cocked his head toward Nolan. “He won’t be steady enough to help and I need another set of hands. Put on some gloves or let this guy keep bleeding internally until his lungs can no longer expand under the weight and he suffocates. Take your pick.”

“God, you’re an asshole.”

Blair took the damn gloves out of the box, though, and pulled them on.

“There’s a grey sleeve of tools rolled out to your left. Hand me the second scalpel.”

Blair did as he asked, and saw the rigid form of Felix move from his place a few feet away.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Felix asked, looming over Wren, so much as he could with only a couple inches of difference in their height.

Wren only smirked, spinning the scalpel between the fingers of his left hand—his non-dominant hand, for fuck’s sake. “Let’s find out.”

Felix snarled, but Julian put a hand on his shoulder and reeled him in.

“Blair, hand me that rubber tube.” In a flurry of movements, Wren had flayed the end of the tube into strips, and put it to the side. “I need a dry plastic jug, preferably one that’s only held water.”

“Got it,” Spencer said, already making his way behind the bar and into the storeroom.

“The sealed plastic tube that has the number thirty-two on the wrapping,” Wren added when he saw Blair looking down at the array of them on the table.

Blair finally found the one Wren was looking for and passed it over. Wren never raised his eyes from his patient. Unease had spread throughout the room, a mutual feeling of anxiety as Adam’s skin lost more and more of its color, but either Wren was unaware of it or was able to tune it out.

Wren fastened the rubber tube he had cut to the end of the plastic tube he had just unwrapped. “We don’t have a drainage system so this is going to have to suffice as a flutter valve, make sure airflow is directed away from his chest and none goes back into it. Blair, pull out a chair for this jug. It needs to be below his chest level. Gravity is going to be our vacuum.”

“What now?” Blair asked after he sat the jug in its place.

“Now we make the incision.” Part of Blair had expected to see him show some emotion, being in his element, doing what he was in school training to do, but his indifference was unwavering. Wren extended his gloved fingers. “The clamps.”

Blair picked up the only thing he thought Wren could be referring to, which looked like a small pair of scissors with more square blades. Adam’s shirt had already been cut away, letting Blair see the glisten of antiseptic as Wren cleaned an area on his ribcage. He met Felix’s eyes from further down the table. The hostility had left Felix’s gaze, leaving only the suffocating tension of watching Adam’s life hang in the balance. Nolan stood at the other end, by Adam’s head, and he looked one staggered breath away from a panic attack. The rest of Incindious gradually moved in closer until they could all see what was going on. Marie pushed Jake’s hand away when he tried to cover her eyes.

Wren felt along Adam’s ribs for a couple of moments, and then silver flashed among red as a slit opened in his side. Blair wanted to look away, felt his stomach churn as Wren opened the hole wider, but it almost felt like a disservice to Adam, who was laid out on the table for trying to get a lock on Phantom’s base. He steeled himself and fixed his eyes on the wash of blood over latex when Wren held the hole open with his finger.

“The tube.”

Blair handed it to him. A sour taste rose in the back of his throat as the tube was inserted, and began to disappear further into Adam’s body. He couldn’t help but flinch when blood began to surge through it. Someone sucked in a sharp breath at the sight but Blair didn’t look to see who.

He couldn’t count how many times Nolan and Adam had saved their asses. They had the most anatomical knowledge of anyone in the gang, and Blair had seen them close up stab wounds, reset a dislocated shoulder or two. Always them. Always together. They were not individual members of Incindious, they were a team who didn’t seem to function separately or be inclined to try. Adam’s blood looked as dark as an omen, running through the clear tube. There was so much of it.

Then the lopsided appearance of his chest began to change, and Blair realized only one side of it had been rising and falling when he breathed. He jerked his head up to see a look on Wren’s face that could almost be called relief.

“The thoracostomy was successful. Blair, sutures.”

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