“Free to go. I’m sure,” Cradle’s voice was quieter, not because he was quieter, but because he’d shifted position, turning his back to us as he straightened up. He turned back to us, and his voice was stronger, “You don’t see the hypocrisy? How wrong it would be for him to be free while we’re in custody? He killed people. He laughed about it, to my face, to Love Lost’s, to Snag’s.”

“He turned himself in,” Capricorn retorted. “He tried. At the first opportunity, he left the camp and went to confess. He was so twisted up about it he wasn’t coherent. They had him talk to people, but he couldn’t say much. I guess because of Mama Mathers.”

“He tell you that too? I was always fifty-fifty on it being a lie,” Cradle said. His tone was so casual and conversational, even pleased with himself. Maybe he was, with Rain bleeding out.

“It’s true,” Sveta said.

I focused on what I could do. Cuts marked Rain’s upper chest, shoulders, and stomach, until there wasn’t much of his top that wasn’t wet and shiny with blood. In one place where the cuts ran in horizontal parallel, the flesh had come away in a ribbon, the ribbon dangling toward the ground. I fixed it as best as I could, pressing a hand down on the wound.

It felt futile.

The wounds to his right leg were as bad as the defensive wounds to his hand. I could assume they were early wounds, intended to keep him from running. Vista was bandaging them with strips of cloth.

There was only so much I could do. I could go through two first aid kits and still run out of material to bandage and tourniquet this. I staunched the wounds with my hands, as best as I was able.

“Capricorn,” I said. He turned his head. My voice was tense as I asked, “Can you use your power? A cast, or something to seal the wounds?”

The first orange lights appeared.

Cradle kept talking, like we weren’t trying to save a life. “He killed Love Lost’s daughter. The girl’s friend died too, and another one is devastated, even after a year.”

“He knows!” Capricorn said, raising his voice. “He went to the authorities! He wants punishment! He wanted jail, because it would at least get him away from this, except you all were coming after him, Mama Mathers had him locked down with her power.”

And because there wasn’t necessarily room, I presumed. If it was as serious as Cradle was saying, though…

“That way doesn’t work, this way does,” Cradle said. “Tidier.”

Operator Red clicked his tongue, “Tidy is high praise.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Capricorn said.

“This is a fucked up way to go about it,” I growled the words, adding my anger to Capricorn’s. “This is barbaric.”