Free Wounds - Book 2 by Ilsa J. Bick Page A

didn’t cry. Couldn’t. Her tears were all gone, and there was still so much to do.
    And no further. Because along every journey through adversity and darkness, a little bit of the self dies. Ego. Dreams. Hope. And love. Sometimes it’s right just to let go.
    She flipped the switch and sat back to wait.

    Bashir was freezing. His skin was prickly with goose-flesh, and he was shivering, like when he was little and came in from the cold. Only he didn’t talk very much or very well when he was little and so it always came out: I’m shibbering. His parents didn’t like it. But his aunt, the one on Earth who hugged him and told him his nose was cold as a brass button and his cheeks little bright apples, always laughed: Come in now, Jules; no need for shibbering anymore because Auntie loves you. Come now, warm up by the fire and have some nice hot cocoa and biscuits.
    The hand he hit Kahayn with throbbed. Felt like a bomb going off in his hand, like all his bones shattered to dust. Still hurt.
    His thoughts kept slewing right and left. Like trying to walk across an endless ice field with thin-soled slippers. His head was airy, too, like the inside of a big balloon, the kind with a thin string that Auntie tied around his wrist when he was very little so he didn’t lose it. When he walked, the balloon bobbed up and down and kept tugging to get free.
    The cold, maybe, or the sedative. His right hip stung from the needle. How much had they given him? Enough.
    The operating theater was very bright. Lights all around. He saw red inside his lids. The smell was sterile and icy, like the edge of a blade stuck in snow. He wanted to get warm. Couldn’t. Thin gown. Nothing underneath. Bare feet. The gown tied in back and his neck itched. Couldn’t move either. Thick bands around his wrists and upper arms. Legs. Restraints because he’d hit Kahayn and mustn’t get away.
    Maybe he slept because then there was a buzzing, brrring sound. Not bees. Time to get up? Too early. Not time for duty yet. Wanted to sleep. Where was his pillow?
    And then there were fingers on his temples, then a hand on his forehead, rolling him right. His head was very heavy. The hands had a sharp, chemical smell. Then, something itchy silting like grass around his ears. He tried to roll his head away, and he must’ve said something, too, or made a sound. Because the buzzing stopped and someone, a woman, said, “There, there. Just shaving your head. Doctor needs to see what she’s doing.”
    “Buh…” His tongue wouldn’t work. He tried opening his eyes, but his lids were very heavy, and the light was too bright, and he gave it up. “Coal…coal…”
    “That’s the cooling blanket.” The buzzing started up again. Something pulling at his scalp, and the hands nudged his head left. “Doctor said she wanted your temperature down. Don’t ask me why. She never uses the blanket for these things, but she says you’re different and it’s to protect you. Something about your system. But not to worry, you won’t feel cold in a few more minutes. You just relax and take a nice, long nap.”
    “Buh…nooo,” he moaned. But he was starting to drift again. The string knotting the balloon to his wrist was coming undone. “Coal…”
    “There, there, not to worry,” the someone said. “Doctor’s good. She’ll give you a nice, new scar.”
    And at that, the string came loose, and there was nothing more he could do.
    So Bashir let go.

Chapter
9
    A t first, the rain came hesitantly in big, fat, gray drops, and then picked up speed. Now Lense stood, soaked through to the bone and cold for once, and the rain was still coming, its sound a loud, continuous hiss. The desert was gushing with sudden streams sluicing through gullies.
    Saad’s men worked fast. From beginning to end, the ambush took, perhaps, ninety seconds. She watched now as one of Saad’s men hauled the seventh and last Kornak soldier from the transport, splayed the body out and started