Morning light sliced through the infirmary blinds and hit the steel exam table like it had a grudge. The doctor worked in silence, needle dragging through the fresh slash on her forearm. Each tug yanked heat straight up the muscle. She kept her jaw locked and her eyes fixed on the far wall. No stronger painkillers. The tape around her ankle had already been sliced away and rewrapped—tight enough to hold, not tight enough to lie about what the joint had taken last night.
The Butcher had used the taped ankle against her. Opened her forearm. Carved his message into a guard's chest and melted back into the dark. The memory sat right there in her arm where the needle did. Hot. Alive. She didn't reach for it. Let her pulse throb around it and kept breathing.
