Page 71 of Perilous Healing

“A knife. The guard ripped it out and confiscated it.”

“He pulled the knife out?” I snap, dipping my hands into the clean water basin, drying them with more gauze, and pulling gloves on.

The man nods.

Anger burns hot through me. Anyone with any common sense knows you don’t remove something when it’s punctured the body. Not until a doctor has a chance to evaluate and remove it themselves. Which means either the guard is an idiot, or he didn’t care.

Either reason infuriates me.

“Which guard stabbed him?” No one answers, so I look up at them. “Which guard?” I snap.

The translator looks at the man standing beside him. His eyes are wide, red, and full of tears. “Not a guard,” the translator says.

Silas wheezes, a horrifying sound that alerts me to internal injuries. “The blade must have pierced his lung,” I tell Abana. With shaking hands, I dig into my bag, searching for the stethoscope. After placing it in my ears, I press the diaphragm against Silas’s chest. His breathing is faint and strained, his pulse racing so fast I’m worried his heart’ going to burst. “It’s collapsed, and I need to get the air out. Get me some iodine and a chest tube from the cabinet.”

She leaves my side, only to return a few moments later. I move around Silas’s side, cleaning the spot with iodine before making a small incision. I take the tube and shove it into the pleural space around his lung, praying that it’s enough to alleviate the pressure in his chest. Without any kind of imaging equipment, all I have is a shot in the dark.

I suppose it’s a good thing I spent most of my career as a medic making exactly these kinds of calls in the field. An easy thing to do when it’s nameless soldiers on a battlefield. But this is Silas.

Please, Lord. Please guide me. Don’t take him away.

Air rushes out through the tube mere seconds before the liquid begins to drain, and he sucks in a breath.

“Hold him down!” I yell as he tries to jolt up off the table.

Idra, the translator, and the man who stabbed him rush over, each of them gripping Silas and pinning him to the table as the rest of the air in his thoracic cavity releases.

“Just breathe, Silas,” I tell him. “Please breathe.”

He draws in a breath, though it’s strained.

Putting my stethoscope back in my ears, I place the diaphragm onto Silas’s chest again, listening to his breath sounds. They’re better. Still not great, but better. But it’s enough that I can work on stitching his skin back together.

I take a moment to steady myself, taking a deep breath, then head over to my cabinet. As far as pain meds go, there’s practically nothing. The strongest we have is ibuprofen, and since that won’t do anything right now, I walk over to Silas.

He’s staring up at me, green eyes wide. “I don’t have anything to numb the area around the wound.”

“Just do it,” he wheezes, closing his eyes.

I look up to the men. “I need to make sure there’s nothing foreign in the wound, then stitch it back together. It’s going to hurt—badly—and I need you to hold him still.”

Abana translates before the other man can, and Idra and the man who stabbed Silas both nod. Abana turns to me. “Tell me what you need.”

Two hours later,the wound is sutured, a bag has been placed near the chest tube still in his side, and I’ve given a round of IV antibiotics to prevent any infection. Silas is asleep, and Abana, Idra, and Laring have all retreated to their bunkhouses, along with the translator and the man who’d stabbed Silas.

Just thinking about him angers me, even though the translator insists it wasn’t done on purpose.

Night has fallen just outside, and I’m sitting at the table reading my Bible. We should be going back to the house so they can place us in our cells, but I can’t bring myself to wake Silas when he finally managed to sleep.

The door opens, and River walks in. His gaze lands on Silas before he turns to me and nods. “Glad to see he’s still breathing.”

I don’t dignify him with a response.

“I heard what happened at the pit today. Next time, Silas needs to remain out of the arguments. They happen often, sometimes resulting in death or punishment. Other times, they fizzle out. Either way, it’s not his place.”

“Tell your guards that the next time one of them removes a weapon embedded in an injury, they’ll answer for it,” I reply, ignoring his warning.

“Fair enough.” He crosses his arms. “You two didn’t gather your meal tickets. Did you forget how it was explained to you?”

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