Nothing At All

7.1

I was woken by a frantic pounding on my door. When I opened my eyes, darkness enveloped the room. Only a faint moonbeam struggling to enter the window guided me to the door. My bare feet dragged sleepily along the cold floor.

I opened the door and was instantly blinded by the torch Andrei held. "What's wrong?" I grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

He gripped my wrist and tugged me into the hallway. "Mircalla needs your help."

That sobered me up. "What's wrong?" We rushed down the hallway in the opposite direction of the study. The torch cast long, eerie shadows across the dusty decorations.

"Mircalla found a villager in the woods. She's badly injured."

My heart sunk; how could Mircalla have been hurt? She was supposed to be resistant to this. And what was I supposed to do about it? Why did Andrei come get me?

We turned a final corner and, at the end of the corridor, I saw an open door with light spilling out of it. I picked up my pace as I got closer, quickly passing up Andrei.

I paused in the doorway when I saw Mircalla, perfectly fine, standing at the edge of the bed. With a sigh of relief, I realized that I misunderstood Andrei: it wasn't Mircalla who was hurt, but the female villager laying the bed. I immediately felt guilty for my happiness.

I recognized the woman instantly. Even laying there, in terrible shape, she still had the same scared, beaten-down look that I saw back in the village. Her delicate face was drained of color and littered with deep purple bruises and dried blood. The same dress she'd been wearing when her husband beat the shit out of her was now tattered and slashed. Worst of all was the six-inch gash running down her shin. Fresh blood oozed from it, dripping down onto the bed sheets.

Mircalla, a grim expression on her face, looked at me as I entered the room. A fresh cut adorned her cheek, though the blood that leaked from it looked more like puss. "I need your help keeping her from bleeding out!"

I snapped out of my shock and ran to the bed side. Dirty bandages and a stick were shoved into my hands by Mircalla. "What do I do with these?"

"Can you make a tourniquet?" She stuffed pillows under the bloody leg to prop it up.

"I don't have much of a choice."

As I got down to business, I sent a silent thank-you to Mom. I hated those survival classes she made me take before the trip, but now I couldn't be more thankful. Even though I knew what to do, it was still difficult to wrap the bandage around the leg. My hands were quickly covered in so much blood I couldn't get my shaking hands to tie the bandage to the stick. It took all my willpower to not vomit as I began tightening the bandage and cutting off circulation. Each twist was harder than the last, but the adrenaline coursing through me gave me the strength to make it as tight as possible.

I panicked when I finished and realized I had nothing to secure the stick in place with. Thinking quick, I pulled the string out of my hoodie and yanked my ponytail in my hair. I slid the hair piece onto the stick before looping the string through and tying it around her knee. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.

I looked up and saw Mircalla shaking the woman. "I need you to tell me why you left the border!" she demanded.

The woman was still conscious, but just barely. Her eyes flickered and her head lolled to the side. Only a faint whisper made it past her bloody lips.

I leaned over the bed and shoved Mircalla back. "Shaking her is not going to help!"

"I need to know why she was trying to leave!" Mircalla's steely gaze bored into me.