Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Chapter Nine

Damiano "Scarface" Capone

Her brows are scrunched in pure concentration, I assume she is trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my shoulder for some reason. My eyes never leave her face, though she amuses me, I don't trust her being this close to me, and I'm preparing myself for what her true intentions might be. Nico and Malcolm seems to be doing the same thing. After a short while, she lets out a small sigh and meet my eyes.

"The best I can do is to try to remove some of the wooden splinters, and maybe clean it a little bit, somehow." She looks around the room as if a bottle of antiseptic is going to show up out of thin air. She seems to spot something in the corner of the room behind me and makes a move towards it. I try to turn as much as the chains from the ceiling allows me to. She has spotted a pipe dripping water into a puddle on the floor. She cups her hands to make a hand-bowl to allow the water to gather in it. It takes a few minutes, I estimate, for her to gather enough to look satisfied. She brings her hands closer to her face and looks at it, though it's probably too dark to see anything back there. She looks back up to take another look around the room and moves towards the lightest part. She looks at the water in her hands again, smells it, and then takes a small sip.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask her, what if the water is sewage water? What the hell is she thinking.

"It's fresh water, it's clean." She responds and uses the remainder of the water to scrub her hands. "I mean, as clean as it's going to get down here. I'll try to clean my hands as much as possible before I try to remove some of the splinters in your shoulder." I give her a shrug, I don't really care all that much about my shoulder. She walks back to the pipe to wash her hands some more and then returns to stand before me again.

"Clever girl." Isaac observes out loud.

"Alright, I'm sorry, this will maybe hurt a bit. Or maybe it will hurt a lot, I don't really know I haven't really trie-"

"It's fine." I interrupt her rambling. Her mouth thins awkwardly.

"Alrighty then." She quickly gets to work and methodically removes all splinters she is able to spot. I keep still while she is doing it so she doesn't mess up or make it worse. Don't get me wrong, it hurts, but I've tried much worse – this is nothing compared to that.

"You're cool." She states. I quirk an eyebrow at her statement and Malcolm lets out a small chuckle and smiles widely.

"Wait, that's not how you say it," She frowns at herself and continues; "You know when you're kind of badass, and look like you don't care about anything or anyone and nothing hurts you?" I lift both my eyebrows in confusion, where exactly is she going with this? "I forgot the word for it." She sounds a bit frustrated with herself, I recognize the frustration she is feeling. Being bilingual is not always easy, and she is definitely not American.

"Tough, I think the word you're looking for is tough." Malcolm helps her. The tension leaves her face and she turns towards Malcolm.

"Thank you Small Cha- I mean Malcolm. Sorry." She corrects herself. "But yeah, you are tough. I'll just quickly finish up your shoulder." She rips a piece of fabric from the bottom of her shirt and hurries back to the pipe to wet it. She returns and starts to clean off all the blood from the wound and the surrounding area.

"There, all done." She looks proudly at her work. "This is the best I can do under these conditions, but I would like to keep an eye on it, if it's okay with you of course." She awaits my answer patiently.

"Thanks," I mutter out, it does feel a bit better not having leftover wood penetrating my flesh. She returns to her seat on the floor, and I decide to question her some more. Just because she cleaned up my shoulder, doesn't mean I automatically trust the girl or woman. She's not as young as we all first assumed, that was revealed when she came back almost unclothed, but she is still young.

"So, are you some kind of fucking doctor?" I hear Isaac scoff at my approach.

"No, I'm a fucking nurse." She answers my question monotonously, making Isaac laugh loudly and Malcolm smile even broader. Nico's nostrils twitches a tiny bit as if he wants to laugh.

"How did you end up here?" I inquire her.

"In this country? In this basement specifically, or in this state of life in general?" She fires back.

"Basement." I simply respond. She nods a little to herself.

"Wrong place, wrong time I think. I'd just arrived at the hotel and wanted to have a cigarette before going inside, and I think I spotted you guys out front. I was going to ask you for a lighter, and then, Tada." She explains making jazz-fingers at the end, fucking weirdo. If her story checks out, she's got serious bad luck. 

// Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think! :)