her kidneys were beginning to work again.
Her hunger was kicking in. Before she made herself something to eat, she went to the bedroom and opened the closet. She pulled back the carpet, and found the floor safe. It had an entry system that looked like an old push-button phone, with several letters on each number. Erica typed the word ‘MAGIC’. The safe opened with a mechanical whirr. Inside were new credentials, an encrypted satellite phone, the usual ten thousand dollars of ‘escape’ money, and another gun. This one was another automatic, but with a little more stopping power: a Springfield XD-S 9 mm, with a fourteen-round clip. It was heavier than the .380, but she might need the extra firepower. After she test-fired it without bullets, she loaded the clip and placed both it and the money in her purse.
The powdered eggs were fine, even without salt, and she made herself a second helping after she’d finished the first. The last time she’d eaten was yesterday morning, before the shooting at the school, and she’d only had time to have an apple on the way in. She was ravenous and thought about a third helping, but decided she’d better not overeat until she knew what condition her insides were in.
She took the bag of stolen medical supplies with her into the bathroom. She lifted her shirt and pulled the top of her panties down. A huge bandage covered the left side of her abdomen, from just below her rib cage down to just above her pubic area. Pulling at the edges of the sticky adhesive, she managed to remove the dressing. It was ugly. A giant swatch of dried orange Betadine coated her stomach. Inside this swatch was a grotesque three-inch line of stitches that looked like a hairy, black caterpillar on her upper left quadrant. She had hoped they would’ve been able to do a laparoscopic procedure if the splenectomy was partial, but it looked as if they had to do the full tilt boogey. She wondered how much they took because, depending on the answer to that question, she could approximate how long it would take her to get her red blood cell count back up. She was naturally anaemic; this wouldn’t help.
The ugly orange swatch also contained over a dozen small incisions puckered up with one or two stitches in each where surgeons had removed the buckshot that had felled her at the school. Anger built up inside her as she thought about it. She wished she’d had a shoulder-held rocket launcher to blow those motherfuckers away. Recalling the little girl who had been grazed by one of the bullets made her blood boil and brought back unpleasant memories of another time, one in which she wished she could have made a difference.
Standing nude in the tub and using the peroxide, Erica scrubbed as gingerly as she could to clean the wound. Still weak, she showered quickly then dab-dried the area with some four by four gauze pads, let it air-dry, and covered it with fresh bandages. She used some cling film wrapped around her torso, rather than go back to the adhesive tape that had pulled off her skin when she had removed it. Her injuries and muscles were sore after she’d finished, but it felt good to be clean and have fresh dressings. She knew she’d have to keep up this routine if she wanted to escape infection.
One thing she had going for her was her physical condition. She’d been doing her own CrossFit programme of sprint running, burpees, mountain climbing, jump rope, and several hundred crunches, sit-ups, and other abdominal strengthening exercises almost every day for the past couple of years. She hoped that conditioning would help her heal quicker.
Filling a syringe with some of the Amoxicillin she’d stolen, she gave herself a dose using the IV hub she still had in place, pushing the drug in slowly over several minutes. Had she been thinking more clearly, she could’ve just included it in the IV bag, initially, but she forgave herself for that minor exclusion. She’d been through a lot in the past twenty-four
Her hunger was kicking in. Before she made herself something to eat, she went to the bedroom and opened the closet. She pulled back the carpet, and found the floor safe. It had an entry system that looked like an old push-button phone, with several letters on each number. Erica typed the word ‘MAGIC’. The safe opened with a mechanical whirr. Inside were new credentials, an encrypted satellite phone, the usual ten thousand dollars of ‘escape’ money, and another gun. This one was another automatic, but with a little more stopping power: a Springfield XD-S 9 mm, with a fourteen-round clip. It was heavier than the .380, but she might need the extra firepower. After she test-fired it without bullets, she loaded the clip and placed both it and the money in her purse.
The powdered eggs were fine, even without salt, and she made herself a second helping after she’d finished the first. The last time she’d eaten was yesterday morning, before the shooting at the school, and she’d only had time to have an apple on the way in. She was ravenous and thought about a third helping, but decided she’d better not overeat until she knew what condition her insides were in.
She took the bag of stolen medical supplies with her into the bathroom. She lifted her shirt and pulled the top of her panties down. A huge bandage covered the left side of her abdomen, from just below her rib cage down to just above her pubic area. Pulling at the edges of the sticky adhesive, she managed to remove the dressing. It was ugly. A giant swatch of dried orange Betadine coated her stomach. Inside this swatch was a grotesque three-inch line of stitches that looked like a hairy, black caterpillar on her upper left quadrant. She had hoped they would’ve been able to do a laparoscopic procedure if the splenectomy was partial, but it looked as if they had to do the full tilt boogey. She wondered how much they took because, depending on the answer to that question, she could approximate how long it would take her to get her red blood cell count back up. She was naturally anaemic; this wouldn’t help.
The ugly orange swatch also contained over a dozen small incisions puckered up with one or two stitches in each where surgeons had removed the buckshot that had felled her at the school. Anger built up inside her as she thought about it. She wished she’d had a shoulder-held rocket launcher to blow those motherfuckers away. Recalling the little girl who had been grazed by one of the bullets made her blood boil and brought back unpleasant memories of another time, one in which she wished she could have made a difference.
Standing nude in the tub and using the peroxide, Erica scrubbed as gingerly as she could to clean the wound. Still weak, she showered quickly then dab-dried the area with some four by four gauze pads, let it air-dry, and covered it with fresh bandages. She used some cling film wrapped around her torso, rather than go back to the adhesive tape that had pulled off her skin when she had removed it. Her injuries and muscles were sore after she’d finished, but it felt good to be clean and have fresh dressings. She knew she’d have to keep up this routine if she wanted to escape infection.
One thing she had going for her was her physical condition. She’d been doing her own CrossFit programme of sprint running, burpees, mountain climbing, jump rope, and several hundred crunches, sit-ups, and other abdominal strengthening exercises almost every day for the past couple of years. She hoped that conditioning would help her heal quicker.
Filling a syringe with some of the Amoxicillin she’d stolen, she gave herself a dose using the IV hub she still had in place, pushing the drug in slowly over several minutes. Had she been thinking more clearly, she could’ve just included it in the IV bag, initially, but she forgave herself for that minor exclusion. She’d been through a lot in the past twenty-four
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