Across the room Entho is setting a broken arm on an elderly man. I can tell he is in a lot of pain. Thoughts of Winter fade from my mind…there is too much work to be done here.
“Hold his arm like this,” Entho instructs. “I’ll wrap it. It must be immobilized.” I hold the man’s arm, engaging in small talk in an attempt to keep his mind off of his pain…and my mind off of Winter.
“So, how did you do this?” I ask the man as Entho smoothes something I am unfamiliar with around the man’s arm, a white gooey substance.
“I fell on the steps,” he moans. Entho is swift and finishes the arm as I hold it still. The gooey mixture dries and a cast forms around his arm. Then Entho mixes medicine and I give him instructions on how to take it…very similar to Winter’s. Entho sends the man on his way and moves toward the waiting room.
He calls out, “Next pat…”
Before his words are finished a loud crash thunders through the clinic, and the side door flies open. Three men covered in more blood than I have ever seen rush in, holding a woman’s body – a Light Skinned woman. One man tenderly grasps her head as the other men clutch her body tightly. Her head dangles precariously from her body, blood spilling out like a fountain, and I instantly know what happened. Her neck has been slit, almost severed from her body. I wonder if she is even alive.
I lose all feeling in my body as Entho rushes over to them. “Place her on the cot,” he calmly instructs. The men quickly set the woman on one of the cots, as blood pours out of her almost disconnected head.
Entho immediately starts to work on her, not even bothering to numb the gaping, immense wound. Blood continues to spurt from her neck – an enormous red waterfall.
“Teak, rags…now.” Entho’s voice is calm but firm. It is enough to shake me out of my fog. I run to the cupboard and pull out a stack of clean white rags. “Put pressure on her neck while I suture,” he instructs. I take several rags and place them on the woman’s neck.
“Push harder,” Entho orders. My stomach churns, and I am afraid I might throw up, but I push on the rags, pressing into the woman’s neck with more force than I knew I had. Entho sews the wound quickly but calmly. I am in awe at how he does this.
“What happened to this woman?” he asks the men as he works on the woman’s neck, step-by-step closing the enormous wound. Silence. He asks again, more firmly this time.
Finally, one of the men answers in a whisper. I strain to hear. “Destroyers got her…she’s a Light Skin.”
“I can see that,” Entho retorts. “But she has the Mark of Power…right here on her arm.”
“It’s getting bad out there…” the man adds, his voice quavering. “She...she’s my wife…will she make it?”
Entho doesn’t’ stop working, putting the finishing stitches on the enormous cut. He minces no words. “It doesn’t look good.” Eventually he looks up, meeting the man’s eyes. “But I’ll do my best.” He mixes a topical medication and orders me to place it on her neck. I seize the bowl and gently dab the medicine on the stitches, staring at the raw and ragged wound. She has the Mark of Power, but the Destroyers tried to kill her anyway. It’s getting bad out there? The man’s words echo over and over in my mind. And Bello’s words join in. I can still be destroyed…even with the Mark of Power. Siv Gareth can order me to be destroyed. Like all the rest.
“I need you to wait in the lobby. We’re going to move her to a private room,” Entho tells the men who brought her in.
Why would we move her, I wonder? It seems dangerous to me. I continue to dab the dark brown medicine on her wound, watching her gasp for breath. The smell of metallic blood and acrid medicine turns my stomach into mush.
The men quietly leave, glancing back at the woman, and Entho bends down and fiddles with the bottom of the cot. “Wheels,” he says without looking at me. “Let’s move her…now.”
Together, Entho and I push the cot into another room. The door slams behind us, seemingly on its own. I stand, unsure of what to do, my eyes wide open. The room is dark, and Entho leans over the woman’s body. He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath. Then he takes his hands, palms out and slowly moves them above the woman’s neck. He holds them there, unmoving, and I can almost see light emanating from his hands. I feel cold, as if the air has gone out of the room. I am afraid to interrupt – to even make a sound. At long last Entho stops. His light brown eyes darting up at mine, and I am startled by how hollow and empty they are.
“That’s all I can do for now.” He drops his hands to his side, and his face is pale – he is shaking, breathless. His eyes lock onto mine. “Will you talk to her family?” he whispers, shoulders sagging. “And cancel the rest of my appointments for the day?”
I nod my head, watching helplessly as he slumps into a chair by the woman’s cot. I don’t know who looks to be in worse shape…Entho or the Light Skinned woman who is fighting for her life.