𝟮𝟮𝟳 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀 [𝙏𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙚]

8. 𝘽𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙮 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙮

◑━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐

"Bloody hell, darling," Tangerine let out a low whistle. "And I mean that in every sense of the phrase."

The man in the white suit had utterly gone to work on Nadine's arms. It was hard to find a patch of skin below her elbows that wasn't spattered with red or cut with lesions that perforated her forearms. It made the brunette wince, figuring soapy water probably wasn't going to be enough to deal with what was in front of him. It was a miracle the woman leaning against the wall wasn't contorted with pain, her expression looked more like one of exasperation and annoyance, as if this was merely an inconvenience.

"I think the adrenaline must have numbed feeling this," She joked weakly.

"That's not how adrenaline works, trust me." Came the suited man's reply. "Was the first carriage a bar? There seemed to be some sort of alcohol display from what I could see through the door." Nadine frowned.

"This isn't the time for a drink, I could bleed out at any second." She said indignantly.

"I think we've got time before it gets to that point. I'll be back in a moment," His hand curled around the mechanism to open the door. "Stay here and try and clean the cut on your head while I'm gone." Tangerine slid the door open and vanished, leaving Nadine alone.

She sighed, standing up straight and staring into the mirror. A semblance of blood and determination looked back, eyes lidded from a lingering concussion. The noirette gingerly picked up the discarded towel that has been used to clean the back of her neck and dunked it in the filled basin. The dripping wet material was brought up to her temple and she experimented with pressing it against the small wound left by the barrel of the gun. She flinched slightly at the pressure, in a fleeting moment wishing it could be Tangerine doing this with his practiced and delicate movements. Nadine stopped suddenly, breath catching sharply in her throat as she banished such wishes. It seemed a weird dichotomy to have just fought with the man only to then, moments after, be wishing he could be there to clean her wounds.

Yup, definitely still concussed.

She decided for now to focus on teasing the blood tracking down her cheek off her skin. It took something resembling scrubbing to remove the merlot hue entirely, but she certainly felt better once it was gone. The green-eyed woman smoothed her hair down also, trying to regain some degree of pristine presentation so that nothing would look amiss once she had to return back to the main body of the train. Her clothes were another matter entirely. The sleeves of her blazer were practically shredded, torn apart beyond repair. Nadine's face dropped at this realisation, she had really liked the wine-red suit, and now she was going to have to buy another one. Sure, the trousers were fine, if not a little crumpled, but now they had nothing to match with. The area around the cuffs of her shirt were slashed too, but not to such a bad degree. The glaring issue there was the stains of blood they had succumbed to. If she had a way of getting the stains out she could simply push the sleeves up messily and no one would be any the wiser to its fraying manner. At least her tie was untouched.

The bleeding woman quickly addressed the actual contusion on her head, dabbing away any of the excess blood around the actual cut before rinsing the now scarlet tinged towel. Nadine sighed, figuring the best way to deal with the state of her shirt would be to soak it and hope. She drained the basin before refilling it with water as hot as the tap would allow and pumping a sizeable quantity of soap into it. She loosened her tie and slipped it over her head without actually undoing the knot so it would be easier to put on later and began to undo the buttons on her white collared shirt. She winced when slipping it off her shoulders, but managed it before balling it up and dropping it into the basin.