Before You Knew Me

Chapter 8: The Wound She Missed

It was the middle of the night when Elara woke up.

Not slowly. Not groggily.

With a sharp, white-hot spike of pain.

One in her head, pounding behind her eyes like a drum. And one in her leg — deep, burning, wrong.

She sat up with a heavy, ragged breath, her hand flying to her head. The room swam. She winced and tried to shift her leg under the blanket, and a sound tore out of her before she could stop it — a loud, raw moan. "AHHHH!"

She had been wearing long black cargo pants that day. Thick fabric. She would never have noticed. Her adrenaline had been screaming all night — running, hiding, ducking, being tossed like a pinball, stitching Daniel together with shaking hands. Now that the adrenaline was finally gone, now that it was quiet, her body was collecting its debt.

She felt it all at once. The scrapes on her elbows. The deep ache in her ribs where she'd hit the car door. The bruises blooming on her knees.

And the pain in her leg.

Elara pulled the blanket off herself with dread pooling in her stomach.

Her pant leg was soaked. Black fabric turned darker, wet. The sheets underneath were stained, a rust-red bloom spreading wide.

"No, no, no—" she whispered.

With trembling fingers she lifted the pant leg. It stuck.

There, on her calf, was a deep, beautiful, terrible cut — three inches long, jagged. And right in the middle, catching the low light from the bedside lamp, was a thin piece of glass, its head poking out, glinting. Almost laughing at her.

She stared at it, nauseous.

"Stupid," she scolded herself out loud, her voice thick. "So stupid."

Rule number one of being a first aider — the first thing they drill into you: Make sure YOU are okay and safe before attending to anyone else.

She had ignored it completely. She had cleaned Daniel's wounds, stitched his face, stitched the cut beneath his ribs that had made her hands shake, all while she was bleeding out into her own pants. If she had caught it sooner, checked herself, she could have stopped the bleeding hours ago.

She gasped — partly from pain, partly from the stupid, dizzy feeling creeping in — as the bedroom door swung open with a bang.

As if he could hear through walls. Then again, she hadn't exactly been crying softly.

Daniel was there in an instant, barefoot, blanket still around his shoulders, his stitched side held protectively. His hair was a mess. His eyes were wild.

"What's wrong?" His voice was hoarse from sleep.

She didn't even have to answer. His eyes dropped to her leg. To the blood. To the glass.

"s**t —" The color drained from his face. "s**t, Elara, I should have checked — I should have made sure you were okay first," he scolded himself.

Panic hit him all at once. He ran — limped — for the first aid box they'd left on the kitchen counter, nearly knocking over a chair. He came back and dropped to his knees beside the bed, flipping the box open, hands shaking so badly he couldn't get the latch.

He was freaking out. Completely. Like a dad in the waiting room expecting his first child, with no idea where to put his hands.

"Elara, okay, okay, we need to uhhhh— do I pull it out? Do I —"

Elara breathed through her nose, trying not to pass out. If she let him keep going like this, he'd make it worse.

"Stop," she said, firmer than she felt. "Daniel, just stop."

He froze, looking at her, guilty and useless.

"I'll do it myself," she said, grabbing the edge of the bag and dragging it toward her.

"No." He put his hand over hers. His hand was warm. Steadying. "Tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Please."

She looked at him — really looked. Her own face was pale, she knew. Probably from blood loss. Her lips felt numb. He saw it too, and his jaw tightened with fear.

She nodded, swallowing. "Okay. Okay, listen to me."

What he had to do —

"First you need to open the box," she said, pointing at the clasp. He sighed. He felt like an i***t. He opened the box. "Now get some gloves," she instructed, her voice turning clinical to keep herself calm. "In the box, blue latex," she spoke, seeing he was confused. "Put them on. Both hands," she explained it like he was in kindergarten and she was a teacher.

"Daniel," she saw him freak. He was feeling so stupid. He had seen so much blood and gore, had to stitch so many people up, and use fire to cauterize wounds, and now he was freaking out and this was not the time to freak out. She didn't pull your pants down in front of the school so calm down, he told himself.

Freaked out, he looked at her. "I need you to just take a step back," she said, looking at him still trying to find the latex gloves. "Center yourself," she said to him. He stopped what he was doing, lifted his hands. "Breathe in," she started. "1, 2, 3," she counted, "and out, 2, 3," she spoke, seeing him calm.

"Now open your eyes," she spoke. He didn't even realize he had closed his eyes. "Before I bleed out I need you to focus," she looked at him. He was shocked. How could she be so calm? "Get those gloves, it's right in front of you," she spoke. He saw them. He felt more calm and more centered. He put on the gloves, focused. "Okay, I'm ready," he said, slapping the edge of the glove to his wrist.

He did it, fumbling but fast.

"Now, I need you to not pull the glass yet. We need pressure around it first. Get me the gauze —" she pointed, "the big square pads — and the saline bottle."

He handed them to her. She shook her head. "No, you do it now," she spoke. He had to focus now.

"Pour the saline over it. All around it. We have to flush it. It's been in there for hours, it's dirty."

Daniel poured with careful hands, and Elara hissed through her teeth as the cool liquid hit the open wound and diluted blood running down her ankle. The sting made her vision blur.

"Good," she said with a heavy breath, like she was about to pass out. "No, no, Elara," Daniel spoke, slapping her cheeks softly. "Stay with me," he spoke. She blinked her eyes violently open, breathed deep. "Okay... okay... Now — tweezers. The metal ones. Wipe them with an alcohol swab first."

He did.

"Now you have to take it out," she was dizzy and slowly drifting. He slapped her cheeks again softly. She woke, slurring her words. "S... Sslow. Straight up. Don't twist. If it resists, stop."

"I can't—" he whispered.

"You have to," she said, meeting his eyes. "I trust you." She didn't really, but he needed to focus.

He took a deep breath, braced her calf gently with one hand, and with the other, gripped the tiny shard of glass. Elara gripped the sheets and bit down on her lip so hard she tasted blood.

It slid out with a sickening little tug. Smaller than it looked — half an inch — but sharp as a razor. He dropped it onto the metal tray with a ting.

"Good," she breathed, tears now running freely. "Now use that flashlight," she pointed. "Look in the cut to see if there are any pieces in there, they will be small and shiny," she sighed, and he looked. "I see a small piece," he said, looking up at her. "Take the tweezers, you will need to pull it out," she sighed. "No," he gasped, "it will have to go into the wound," he spoke, worried. "You have to, or I will get an infection," she sighed. "Rinse it with the solution to clear the blood, put in the tweezers, grip and take it out slowly," she said. "Hand me your belt," she asked. He was confused but took it off and gave it to her. She shoved the leather strap in her mouth, held her gaze and nodded to say she was ready. Daniel was hesitant but sucked it up.

The tweezers going into her cut, she bit down and screamed in pain, biting down. He lifted it slowly, dropped it on the table. She was breathing heavy, almost passing out from pain.

Daniel saw it and he shook her slowly. She blinked. "Throw that gauze away, get fresh ones, and press. Hard. Right on the cut. Hard, Daniel."

He pressed. She cried out once, then covered her mouth. Blood welled fast against the white gauze.

"Keep pressing. Count to sixty. Don't let up."

He counted out loud, his voice shaking.

"One... two... three..."

At thirty, the bleeding started to slow. At sixty, she made him look.

"It's slowing. Okay. Now we clean again. More saline. Then I need you to close it."

"Close it? Like stitches?"

"Butterfly strips," she said. "In the little white envelope in that pouch. We stitch if we have to, I don't think I'd be able to instruct you through that without passing out — try the strips first."

His hands were steadier now that he had a task. He cleaned the wound again, patted the skin dry around it, and with intense concentration, pinched the edges of the cut together and placed the butterfly closures across it. "Place the middle of the butterfly strip across the cut, with the adhesive wings on either side," one by one. "The strip should pull the wound edges together, but don't make it painfully tight," he did it. Five of them, neat and tight.

Elara watched his face while he worked. She was so drowsy and dizzy — his brow furrowed, his lower lip caught between his teeth, his whole body focused on not hurting her.

"Last one," he murmured.

He covered it with a large non-stick dressing and wrapped it firmly with a crepe bandage, not too tight, tucking the end in as she instructed.

When he was done, she laid back, relaxing her body. Her leg pained. Daniel, he sat back on his heels, breathing hard, gloves bloody.

Elara was so exhausted she couldn't hold herself up anymore. She sank back against the pillows, sweaty and pale.

"You did good," she whispered.

"You lost a lot of blood," he said, pulling the gloves off angrily and throwing them away. "You shouldn't have had to tell me how to do that."

Before she could answer, his phone buzzed once on the floor. He checked it.

"He's here. The doctor I called. He'll come in as a beggar with a trolley — maintenance entrance. It's cover. I need to go get him."

Elara could only nod.

Ten minutes later, the door opened again. Daniel came in with a small, older man in a tattered coat, pushing a battered supermarket trolley that squeaked. But under the coat was a crisp shirt, and inside the trolley, under old blankets, was a locked medical case and a duffel bag.

Dr. Albie Jansen. Sixty, kind eyes, hands that had seen war zones.

"Daniel," he said softly in a thick German accent, dropping the beggar act the moment the door was locked. He looked at Elara first. "Daniel said the lady did his stitches. Now who is stitching the lady?"

He washed his hands in the sink, put on fresh gloves, and knelt by the bed, all business.

"Hello, my dear. I am Dr. Albie. Can I see?"

He unwrapped Daniel's hasty but good bandaging and nodded approvingly. "Good job in a bad situation. But we will do it properly now, yes?"

For Elara, he injected a small amount of local anesthetic around the wound — the sting made her jump, then blessed numbness spread. He irrigated it thoroughly with more saline, checking that no smaller glass splinters remained. He checked her for signs of shock — pale skin, rapid pulse — and made her sip a rehydration salt drink Daniel fetched.

"You need three sutures," he told her gently. "The cut is deep but clean. It missed the tendon, thank goodness, no artery."

He stitched it with three neat black sutures, tied off, applied antibiotic ointment, and re-dressed it with a sterile pressure bandage. Then he took her blood pressure, checked her pupils for the head wound, and gave her a tetanus booster from his case. "You will have a nice scar to tell stories about," he said. "You will keep this dry for 48 hours." He had brought 3 bags of universal donor blood, hooked her up to one of the bags and hung it on a hanger above the bed. He showed Daniel how to change the bag after, so she would at least get 2 bags. Elara had passed out, she was sleeping. The doctor was working on Daniel for a while.

For Daniel, he was less gentle.

"Let me see this handiwork," he muttered, making Daniel sit on the couch and lift his shirt. He examined the stitches Elara had placed beneath his ribs. "Not bad. Not bad at all for someone who was bleeding herself.

But you — you are going to rip them if you keep running around like a hero."

He cleaned Daniel's wounds again, applied fresh Steri-Strips over Elara's stitches for reinforcement, checked his chest sounds, gave him antibiotics and stronger painkillers.

"You both need rest, fluids, and no more heroics for at least three days," he said, packing up. He left the duffel bag — inside were clean clothes for both of them: simple t-shirts, sweatpants, socks. And fresh sheets.

At the door, he paused.

"Daniel," he said quietly, "you call me if that fever comes back. And you —" he pointed at Elara — she opens her eyes — "if that leg gets red, hot, or you get a fever, you tell this stubborn mule immediately. I don't want to see either of you in my morgue."

"We won't," Elara whispered.

After he left, squeaking his trolley back into the night, the safe house was quiet again.

Daniel came back into the bedroom with two glasses of water and the sweatpants.

He looked at Elara's newly bandaged leg, then at her face. It was so weird that after one bag of blood she was feeling better, more alert, still groggy.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice raw. "I should have checked you. I was so focused on—"

"Hey," she cut him off, reaching for his hand. Her fingers were cold. "We both missed it. We're both bad at letting people take care of us, clearly."

He sat on the edge of her bed, careful not to jostle her leg, and handed her the water.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked.

"Not right now that it's numb," she said. "Ask me in about 3 hours," she let out a small hoarse laugh. "Now that someone else is the worrying."

He laughed softly, and for the first time since the safe house door had closed behind them, the tension broke just enough for them both to breathe.