The bullet glistened on the tongs of the forceps.
Elyssa dropped it into a stainless tray. Her gorge rose. Propping on her forearm against the wall, she let her head rest in the crook of an elbow. "Ok, ok," mumbling to herself, she puffed the air thick with the metallic smell of blood. "Now the gauze." Her hands trembled, skimming across his pale skin as she wrapped the gauze around his tight chest and his back corded with muscle. Needles of sweat prickled her back.
He grabbed her wrist and nearly made her jump, his sculpted straight nose dangerously close to her cheek.
"Your pulse is racing" he crooned, his voice deep and soft, like an air bubble under the sea, a half smile flitting across those burgundy red lips that wobbled her knees. "You alright?"
"Shouldn't I be the one to ask you that?" she retorted, tucking her cheek to a shoulder, her eyes searching every corner as if she could excavate a channel out of her plight by looking.
"Why so shy all the sudden?" he teased. "Never seen a man's body before, Evan?"
"I, I, wasn't, I mean I'm not, I –" Her eloquence which she found readily at her disposal had abandoned her altogether. A whimper slipped out through her throat unbidden. She harrumphed, praying to all the gods who had mercy on humanity that small, giveaway sound had gone unnoticed. "Just let me finish it up."
He chuckled. His hand swept around her waist. Pulling her to him, he put her head on his shoulder. "You were fantastic. Thank you."
Elyssa skipped a breath, her teeth chattering.
"Are you still afraid of me? Surely I can't be worse than the one on your heels?"
"I'm not afraid," she replied, her voice a tremor.
"You're shaking."
"Just the aftershock. This isn't something you see or do every day!" She managed another riposte that took all the guts she left.
The man smiled. "You're safe with me." He patted her head. "No one can hurt you here."
Elyssa ventured a glance up. Despite the harsh overhead lights, his ink-black eyes looked soft, gleaming at her like onyx peering from the depth of a half-open chest. An intoxicating scent of cedar emanated from him amidst the blood that thickened the air. Her mind screamed danger while her heart tempted fate. She shut her eyes with force.
"Do me another favor?" He let go of her.
Her eyes popped open. Clamping a hand to her cheek, she stifled a hiccup. "Ye-yeah," she hawked, summoning her sanity. "Sure."
"You see the medical fridge there with a glass door?" He flicked a glance over the direction. "Can you find the blood bag tagged with the initial W?"
Elyssa did as bid. Bags labeled PRBCs with three different initials each occupied a rack. W, E, and A. She wondered who the other two were.
"Here." She handed him the bag with a tourniquet.
His onyx eyes narrowed, looking amused. "You do it." He gave her his arm.
"Me again?" She threw a thumb at herself.
"You've already plucked a bullet. This should be a breeze, besides," he took a pause, as though a hunter relishing the moment before owning his quarry. "Didn't you say you want to study medicine?"
Shouldn't have blurted. She squeezed her eyes shut, and her lips primmed. Why did I blurt it? What have I done to get myself implicated in whatever this is?
Her breath hitched in her throat while her lungs toiled for air. She chewed back her words, too bone-weary to protest. Her escape from the Customs had incurred one major oversight: she left behind all her belongings, including her asthma inhalers. She risked another glimpse of the man sitting with his back hunched on the reclining chair like an alabaster god, timeless and nonchalant, as he looked down at the river of time that carried the sufferings and joys of all mankind. "Does E, or A, or you happen to have asthma?" she asked, unease laced in her voice. If any of the three happened to share her condition, there must be inhalers here among all the medical supplies, and she might be able to borrow one.
The man looked at her sidelong, his smile lopsided. "What?"
"Never mind." Blowing out her cheeks, she dropped her head. Her hope deflated. She could only keep her fingers crossed that she wouldn't have an attack any time soon. "I suppose you'd like me to warm the blood first?" She tossed a timid look at the man.
"Do you know why?"
"To prevent hypothermia?"
A smile tugged at those burgundy lips so red she doubted if he needed a blood transfusion. "See," he said, "you're clever."
"Common sense."
"Which isn't common these days."
She jolted with a shudder. If only common sense were common, perhaps Reynold would still be alive. Her heart clenched, front teeth deep in her bottom lip.
"You alright?" he asked, the gleam of his eyes hot on her cheek.
She replied with a flippant shrug.
"What's wrong?"
"What do I do? I've never used a blood warmer before."
He paused, "Second drawer to your left, " his head tilted in the direction. "It goes with the IV tubing."
"No extra steps?"
"Just set the temperature."
She nodded.
Following his instructions, she prepared the blood, priming it with normal saline, then tied the tourniquet two inches proximal from his elbow crease.
His bicep flexed, veins bulging.
Her pounding heart threatened to break free from her chest cage.
"It's a thick vein," he whispered, lowering his head to hers, his voice caressing her ear. "Take a deep breath, relax. You can do it."
She gulped, steadying her hand, and inserted the large-bore IV cannula. The second the blood flowed into him, she leaned to a wall and dropped to her knees, gasping for air that felt thinner with each breath she drew. She wiped her brow damp with sweat and turned, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. A small laugh rang in her throat. "So cool!"
"Seems like you're cut out to study medicine," he observed. His eyes smiling, never strayed from her.
Momentary peace fled the second she met his eyes. Panic seized her. She chewed her lips, her eyes on the floor.
"Are you still afraid? Of me? Or are you shy?"
"No, I'm not! Why do you ask?"
"For one, you haven't asked me for my name yet."
Burying her head behind an arm as she drew up her knees, she snuck a sidelong glimpse of him. "Like you'll give me your real name…" Her mumbling trailed off at the sound of his laugh.
"Are you talking about yourself?" he asked.
She crouched up against the wall, her mind racing for a reply. "Was I wrong though?" she ventured, stifling the tremor in her voice. "Gathered from everything I've seen tonight, and this place, you're definitely not a normal dude. That W can stand for anything. Maybe you're a woman. I'll eat my shorts if you give me your real name –"
"Warshond," the man said. "Warshond Qusbecq."
Dread weighed upon her. Many years ago before the Revolution that had thrown the world topsy-turvey, in an afternoon when all the leaves had turned into a palette that colored the hills, she and Reynold sat on the bay window in his study. Over a game of chess she was losing, the old man asked her to stop looking at each piece and what it could. "All the pieces do this and that by the command of the one sitting behind them," he said, as she could still summon his voice to her head, as if everything had only been a bad dream, as if he sat still right across the chessboard, smiling at her – she refrained from a sob. When she asked for an example of such a man, the name Erhan Qusbecq was the reply. "Few people pay attention to him, and seldom indeed he makes a public appearance. That's their mistake. People are easily fooled by their eyes. Think about the force controlling those you see. If you know me, you know how to beat me. And if you know a man such as Erhan Qusbecq, free of the restraints of any moral qualms, you know you should steer away from sitting across his board. Let's hope you will never need to know such a man as a Qusbecq."
Surely there are other families with such a name in the Republic? – she thought. But can there be another Qusbecq powerful enough to own a bunker like this under the sea that isn't unrelated to Erhan Qusbecq?
Her breath hitched.
"Now you have my name," said the beautiful man who introduced himself as Warshon Qusbecq, his deep voice measured and soporific. "What is it you said you'd do if I gave you my name?"
He's toying with me, like every serial killer does to their prey! She banged her head on her arm. He's announcing my death sentence! "Sir, I know you probably don't give a shit, but killing the one who's just saved you is bad for your karma. Next time you won't come across a human crotch that can also be used as a scalpel. And judging from this," she paused to glance around the spherical bunker. "The chance for a next time isn't small."
"You are…" He laughed, his head shaking, his brows a quizzical arch. "Who says anything about killing you?"
"You're not?"
"I'll eat my shorts if you give me your real name, didn't you say that?"
She batted her eyes while her mind went blank, her lips hanging apart by a hair.
"Don't eat your shorts," he continued. "Eat with me."
"What?"
"You're right, killing you will be bad for my karma. But letting you roam free from me will be my mistake. Eat with me from now, that's for losing the bet."
"You mean like a hostage?" She sagged on the floor. "Sir, you can't be serious!"
"I assure you I can."
Elyssa clamped a hand to her mouth just in time before another whimper betrayed her.
"Now," he lifted his chin, a loaded smile lingering in those onyx eyes. "Tell me something about yourself, Evan."
She twiddled her thumbs. The way he pronounced the name roasted her. "Wh-why?" she stuttered a reply at length. "Why does it matter?"
"Since you'll be my dinner guest, I think it does." He sat up a little from the reclining chair. "You can start with the easy ones."
"Like what?"
"What do you do for fun, for example."
Her hands clenched. A gut feeling told her that he knew it was a fake name. Yet he didn't interrogate her. He didn't even bother asking why she was sneaking around the Port at that hour. He didn't because he knew she'd lie. He'd rather have the irrelevant truth he might be able to piece into something useful later. And she needed to offer a piece that was the least specific from the jigsaw puzzle of her life.
She puffed out her cheeks. "I used to write."
***