Cured by Bethany Wiggins Page B

Kevin. You’ve got about ten minutes before the raiders get here, since your watchdog was stupid enough to turn on a flashlight.”
    My face starts to burn with fury and embarrassment. The beast-boy grumbles in his sleep, and I can see the gleam of Jonah’s good eye in the darkness.
    â€œJack? Please say you didn’t turn on a light,” Bowen says.
    I don’t reply because the room lights up with a rosy glowthat makes our shadows sweep across the walls. I look out the window as a pink flare arcs across the sky.
    Bowen groans. “That looks close. Fo, keep your gun on Kevin. Let’s get him to the master-bedroom closet where we can turn on a light. Jonah, come and get us if you hear or see anything.”
    â€œGot it,” Fo says, voice gruff. Jonah doesn’t say a thing.
    â€œJack, you lead.”
    Without a word I walk past Bowen, with Kevin hot on my heels. The master bedroom is on this level, past the kitchen and down a wide hall. The master closet is massive, with tattered clothes hanging on wooden hangers above rows and rows of rat-eaten shoes. I can’t see any of this in the dark, but I memorized everything about this house during the day—just in case.
    Inside the closet, Bowen shuts the door and turns on a flash-light, shining it in the stranger’s face. He flinches and covers his eyes. There is a tattoo on the back of his hand—the
mark
. But there are no lines drawn through the circle, no recorded doses of vaccination.
    â€œShow me your palms and arms,” Bowen demands. The man holds out his arms and hands, palms up, and Bowen moves the light over them, searching for raider marks. I don’t look for the marks because my eyes are riveted on the stranger’s left arm. It is covered with blood that is dripping onto the hardwood floor. Bowen moves the flashlight to the source of the bleeding—a gaping gash, exposing muscle, two inches above the man’s elbow.
    Bowen’s eyes meet mine. “Not bad,” he says. I shrug.
    â€œDo you have coagulant?” Kevin asks, gently prodding the wound. Compared to me, he’s tall, but not nearly as tall asBowen. He looks right at me and I almost gasp. He’s not quite a man. He’s young. And surprisingly handsome.
    â€œWe have coagulant, but we don’t have much. I don’t think we should waste it,” Fo says, still aiming her gun at the guy.
    â€œWaste it?” Kevin looks at his wound again. “It’s not like I did this to myself. Your little watchdog did it. I can’t be bleeding like this and wander around out there.”
    I take a closer look at the gash. I’ve seen worse. I’ve also fixed worse. “I can suture it.”
    Fo, Bowen, and Kevin all turn and stare at me.
    â€œMy dad does this sort of stuff all the time. Only, I’ll need water. To clean it out first and to wash my hands. I’ll go get Jonah’s pack.”
    Fo and Bowen look at each other, as if communicating a silent message. “We don’t have any water to spare,” Bowen says. I keep quiet, but I have to fight the urge to remind him that we have a backpack loaded with water. More than enough.
    Kevin glares at Bowen and Fo, then turns his fuming, accusatory gaze on me before rifling through the clothes hanging in the closet. He stops rifling when he gets to a white cotton button-down shirt. Taking it from the hanger, he holds his right hand out to me, palm up. “I need your knife,” he snaps, brows furrowed.
    â€œWhy?” I ask, wary.
    His jaw tenses and releases, and then he shoves the shirt at me. “Please cut me a large triangular bandage.”
    Aha. Now I understand what he is doing. I take the shirt and, without putting it on the filthy ground, do my best to cut alarge triangle. When I am done, Kevin holds his arm out. I wrap the fabric around his biceps and pull it tight to slow blood loss. He gasps as I knot the bandage into