The girl snickered. “You’re so not a college professor.”
“I’ll take the fifth.”
Silence from the bed now. Willadean’s outsized intellect was doubtless pondering a multitude of titillating former professions for him. But when she spoke, he realized he was wrong.
“I think our best bet lies in a different direction...”
“What? Wait. Don’t answer that.”
“I hadn’t planned to,” she said. Then, “Trust me. No more talking. Okay?”
The subtle chastisement made him smile. She was right, of course. If Lizzy were somehow listening, the less she knew about their state of mind, the better.
After what seemed like hours, his scythen pinged, immediately followed by footsteps outside the door.
Lizzy entered the room. She hadn’t yet flipped on the light switch. He listened to her labored breathing with a jolt of excitement. Was she ill? Injured? He had his answer seconds later when light flooded the room.
Thorny vines twisted their way through strands of normally sleek locks, creating a tangled hairdresser’s nightmare. Her pants were shredded and muddy, and her pale face was pinched in pain. Blood oozed from a small hole in the fabric of her left sleeve.
Fergus opened his mouth to speak, but Willadean beat him.
“Oh, you’re hurt,” she said, using that childish voice from earlier. “Can I help you?”
Lizzy clutched a first-aid kit with fingers that might have been broken.
“I can’t do it myself,” Lizzy said to Willadean. Her voice sounded calm on the surface, but Fergus heard a sub-harmony of pain.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to remove my shirt and clean the bullet wound. I’ll guide you through it.”
Fergus watched with fascination as the drama unfolded. He knew Willadean well enough at this point to recognize that she was playing a part: that of a concerned, caring child.
“I don’t know if I can do that with these chains.”
Brilliant!
Lizzy nodded, set the first-aid kit on the tiny bed, and then pointed to a front pants pocket with one of her functioning fingers.
“Got it,” Willadean said, after fishing out the key that would release her from her bonds.
“Don’t do anything stupid, child, or your friend will pay for it. You know what they say about injured animals?”
“They can be even more dangerous than healthy ones. I won’t do anything stupid.”
Fergus found himself being persuaded of the girl’s sincerity.
Several heartbeats later, Willadean was free. Fergus shuttered his scythen so as not to transmit excitement. He might not make it out of the kill room, but Willadean now had a fighting chance. He tried to get her attention by shifting loudly in the cage, jangling the chain’s links against each other. As soon as she looked his way, he would mouth the word: RUN!
Willadean pointedly kept her attention on Lizzy. She peeled off the tattered outer shirt with care, revealing a fitted tank top. Its bareness exposed outlines of scapula and thoracic vertebrae. Lizzy was skin and bones.
Mirroring his thoughts, Willadean said in a sweet voice, “We need to get some food in you. You’ve been so careful to keep us fed, but you probably haven’t eaten a decent meal yourself.”
From his vantage, Fergus could only see Lizzy’s backside, but something about her body language indicated surprise.
“Child, open the kit and remove the peroxide and a sterile gauze pad. Pour two capfuls of the peroxide on the pad, then clean the outside of the wounds. The bullet went through, so there are two areas to tend.”
“Willadean is my name, but my mama calls me Willa. You can call me Willa, too.”
Victim strategy 101: make it personal with your captor...become a human being, not just a body or a number. The red beard twitched.
“Very well. Once you’ve cleaned off the blood, I need to get a look, but I can’t do it from this angle. Take the compact mirror from my other pocket and place it next to my arm.”
Willadean did as she was told. Apparently Lizzy didn’t like what she saw reflected in the mirror.
“The next part is going to be tricky. I’ll need you to take the tweezers and fish out the fabric stuck in the wound. Do you see it?”
“Yes. Okay, Miss Lizzy,” Willa said. “Should I spray it with the Bactine first? Mama uses that to clean our scraps. It says on the bottle that it relieves pain.”
“Yes, do that, though I fear an over-the-counter pain-relieving spray will be a bit like using a blanket to smother a forest fire.”
“That’s a wonderful simile. Did I tell you I’m a writer?”
Lizzy’s head dipped once.
“I’ll add it to my list of metaphors and similes. A well-written simile feels like March sunshine on winter-pale skin. See what I did there?” Willa grinned at her captor.
“I do. Very clever, Willa. Now, let’s get this over with quickly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Fergus heard a sudden, hissing intake of air. The next moment, Willadean brandished the tweezers, with the bloody swatch of cloth caught between its pointed tips.
“Got it!” she said.
“Very good,” Lizzy said. “Now get more gauze and hold it firmly against the wound for a few minutes. It’s begun to bleed again. We can’t apply the butterfly strips until the surrounding area is dry. No talking for now.”
Fatigue had joined the pain in Lizzy’s voice, no longer a sub-harmony, but a dominant note.
Several minutes passed. No one spoke.
Fergus jangled his chains again, but Willadean refused to look his direction. The child was not being obtuse — she probably couldn’t be if she tried — she was being stubborn. Or maybe she was trying to stay in character. Lizzy would surely sense a ploy if it were too overt.
“It’s time to put the butterfly strips on. Both sides. Do you know how they work?” Lizzy said.
“I sure do. We used them once back in Knoxville when I cut
