“We are in so much trouble.” Kelsey’s voice was high-pitched. She put a hand over her mouth to stop it.

“He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine,” Shirley-Rachel repeated.

“But I’ve never seen so much blood.”

“Kelsey, stop it! Knock it off. Jesus, why did you let me do this?”

Kelsey stepped backward, trampling one of the life jackets. “Me? This was your idea!”

Shirley-Rachel finished securing Miig. Isaac strained, trying to reach him. “Yeah, well, you’re the one who went all Annie Oakley in here with your damn teensy gun.”

“Ladies, ladies.” Rania raised her voice, and surprisingly, they stopped. “I’m a nurse. I can help him.”

“How? We’re not untying you.” Even now, Shirley-Rachel was hard and calculating. “It was just a cut. Well, a few…the first one wasn’t big enough, so we had to kind of go sideways…”

“All you need to do is tie my hands in front instead of behind my back. Leave them a little looser so I can reach him, and I can stop the bleeding.”

The women looked at each other, thinking. “Maybe they won’t be so mad if he can still be harvested, right?”

“For god’s sake, do something! He’s still bleeding!” Isaac screamed.

That snapped Kelsey into action. She pulled out her gun again and pushed it into Shirley-Rachel’s hands before retying Rania’s rope so that her hands were in front with a few more inches of give.

“Good, now run inside and get me some supplies. I need a sewing kit and clean towels. And antibacterial cleanser, if you have it.”

“Why the hell would we have that?” Shirley-Rachel was getting calm again. She was also getting sober.

“Saline solution. Like for contact lenses. Hand sanitizer. Or bring me hot water and salt.” Rania was already pulling Miig into a better position. Now I saw where the bleeding was coming from. The whole front of his shirt was soaked through.

“I’ll go. I don’t want to lose a whole unit. We’ll get kicked out for sure,” Shirley-Rachel huffed.

“We’ll get kicked out? I didn’t plan this,” Kelsey squealed.

“Yes, you idiot. This happened on both our watch.” Shirley-Rachel was angry now.

She turned and ran. We waited for long minutes while Rania bit the edge of Miig’s shirt until there was a small tear and then ripped it straight up the middle. The gash was on his right side, just above his stomach, and it was wide and oozing. Thankfully, he had passed out.

“What the hell did you take?” Rania asked, pushing gently around the edges of the wound.

“A rib. Well, a piece of one, really,” Kelsey answered.

“Monsters,” Isaac hissed, tears on his cheeks.

The older woman came back with a round cookie tin, a stack of dishcloths, a personal-size hand sanitizer, almost empty, and a cooking pot filled with steaming water. She carried a glass saltshaker in her mouth. She put everything down beside Rania and spat on the concrete floor. “Yuck. Salt.”

“We’ll need drinking water as soon as possible, too,” Rania said, already opening the tin and assessing the contents—needles and thread and an assortment of useless buttons and thimbles. “And pain relievers—aspirin, ibuprofen, whatever you have.”