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CHAPTER TEN:  CORNERED

     "Vanessa…?"

     If he had listened to his own plaintive and feeble voice as he called her name, he would've blushed with embarrassment.

     But for now, Knives was choking with worry.  He was paralyzed, not knowing what to do next, wondering if he should slip his arm out from beneath her.  But this could injure her further, if her injuries were of particular types or severities. And since he had no clue as to those things, he simply lay there, propped upon his elbow, staring down at her in pure terror.

     Her face was turned away from him.  He craned his neck to see her.

     She was breathing funny.  He wasn't sure…but it sounded a little bubbly and irregular.  Suddenly, she coughed.  Some liquid splashed onto the blanket.  It was blood.

     Knives wanted to scream.  Couldn't she just tell him what was wrong?  Why wouldn't she just answer him, and tell him what to do?

      "Vanessa!"  The yell crackled in his throat like boiled glass.  He reached for her broken arm, and squeezed the splint.

     She screamed.

     He wanted to apologize, but the words wouldn't form.  He was just glad she COULD scream.

     As he eased his arm from beneath her, he uncapped a canteen one-handedly.  He knelt leaned against his arm, over her head.  Looking down at her, he poured the contents very slowly over her eyes and around her mouth.

     Vanessa moved her head slowly to face him, eyes shut under the blood.  She sputtered blood and water, but then swallowed a mouthful of them both.  "…uuuuhhhh…" she groaned softly.

      "Are you okay?" he asked ridiculously.  "What…Why the Hell did you…Where are you…Where does it hurt…?"

      "…Not enough…to…kill me…" she whispered without moving her mouth, since such movements would be too painful.  Her left arm lay limp beside her head.  There was a deep gash across her fingertips, where she had held his hand against her face, and one shorter cut across her palm. 

     Just by the amount of blood on these wounds, and the degree of coagulation, Knives guessed that he had been held in that angel arm formation with her for around a half hour.  But only for a split second had the blades been retracted, and, it seemed, not long enough to carve her fatally.  Luckily, he had formed feathers in the blades' place before that occurred.

     Tears began to fall from the edges of her eyes, making little rivers in the blood.  "…Want…to…sit…up…"

     Knives, stunned and breathless, helped her into a sitting position.

     Muffled groans of pain slipped from her throat.  She slid her legs to her side and held the pose stiffly.  "…if you…(cough)…don't stitch me…up…bleeding may not…stop…"  Reluctantly, she began to move her mouth slightly when she spoke, wishing she could grimace from the pain of it.  "Medical kit in bottom my bag," she muttered.  "Alcohol sterilize, then sutures."

     Fear burned to anger.  "What was this all about?  Pulling a stunt like that, what were you thinking!?" he roared.

      "Knives, clean and suture…then bitch."

     His head was spinning.  "You…you wanted to kill yourself…"

     She sat silent.

     The reality hit Knives in the pit of his stomach.  'So she was,' he decided.  'Why else would she have done this?'

      "Were you committing suicide?  Like this?  If you killed yourself, you know I'd kill everyone!  I would!  And…And…I'd hunt down Vash and I'd…torture him before he'd die!  This is worse than irresponsible of you, Vanessa!  Imagine if you had succeeded!"

     Vanessa made no move to reply.  She sat stoic, happy that he was unaware of the memory transfer.  Her only mistake was misjudging Knives' reaction time – she had hoped he'd formed the harmless feathers earlier.

     Using up another canteen, Knives washed the stickiness from his bloody arm and removed his shirt before retrieving her first aid supplies.  Needing more light than the five moons could provide, he set up a fire behind her.

     Vanessa sat still as he eased the dress from her shoulders a bit.  The V-shaped neckline at the back was cut near the middle.  The diagonal also indicated a longer slice on her flesh. 

     There were six total cuts at her back, all seeming to radiate in a general diagonal from her square, 'amputation' scar.  Knives carefully touched her skin as he worked, noticing one especially deep incision across her upper left back.  Here, a knife had sliced easily into bone.  Her left shoulder blade was sliced half-through in the middle.  In the same path, two ribs were cut through completely and three more had been partially incised.  Everywhere she was hurt, the incisions were more than medically precise.

     Knives winced as he felt the damage, fingers within incisions.  The slits of skin revealed layers of muscle, fat, and bone, which rang surreal in his mind as sights one only sees in slaughtered livestock.

     He felt nauseous.  These wounds were of the same brand of his past victims, but had been human and didn't matter.  He had to blink hard and clear his mind for a moment in order to continue.

     With still more water, he used rags torn from the shirt to blot the blood from her body.  He worked upwards in the general diagonal, toward her shoulder, snaking around her neck.

      "No," she snapped in a muffled voice.  "Face is less important.  The rest first."

     He obeyed, trusting her medical expertise.  Pulling out the alcohol, he began to sterilize in preparation for stitches.  Once he stitched her up, she would heal quickly.  'Good as new,' Knives thought reassuringly to himself.

     Concentrating like a surgeon, Knives swiftly and precisely sewed together the valleys of flesh.  The skin yielded to the needle and formed tiny ridges along the wire.  Time passed indifferently as he completed his tasks, closing the wounds.

     Sighing, he leaned back.  The firelight flickered off the naked flesh of her back, dancing along the new, thin lines now defined by wire.  'These won't scar badly,' he thought optimistically.

      "I'm going to help you turn and face the fire.  I need the light to see your face," he indicated, hands on her shoulders.

     She allowed him to pivot her, but again gave a murmured order.  "Just one beside mouth.  No more water.  Low as is."

     Knives nodded, but didn't see the whites of her eyes.  "Okay," he replied, now knowing that she couldn't view his gestures.  He began to blot alcohol on the gash at her cheek.  It was a 4-inch long diagonal wound, from the left bottom of her chin to the corner of her eye. 

The stitches were tiniest here, and so it took Knives a full two hours to finish.  "It's not the only one on your face, is it," he asked soberly once completed.  "Let me wash the blood from your eyes so you can see, at least…"

     Vanessa subtly moved her head side to side.  "We need the water for travel."

     Knives huffed, frustrated, and sat back on his heels.  "Damn it, your face is a mess.  If someone in a town saw you like this…I'd almost have to clear out the humans."  He reached for another canteen, one of only four left full.

      "No."

     He looked up questioningly.

      "I need real doctor.  Now."

     Before he could call the idea absurd, she shot down his confidence with her muffled words.

      "Eyes sliced.  Delicate surgery or I'm blind."  She lifted her face, letting the light play off the dried blood and tears. 

     Once he brushed the matted hair away, he saw the damage.  She had kept her eyelids still all this time, and dried blood and mucus now sealed her eyelashes tightly together.  And indeed, there were cuts on her eyelids, two at her right and one on the left.  Each was marked by a tiny split in the eyelid, caused by the tension over the eye.  Knives didn't doubt that his blades had gone further, slicing with a fine precision unmatched by any scalpel.  "You can walk?  Good.  Let's go."

      "Can't this thing go any faster?" Vash yelled over the roar of the engine, standing on his seat and leaning dangerously over the windshield.  He held himself steady with one hand and pointed stiffly into the dark distance with the other.

      "This is ridiculously dangerous!"  Relenting, Meryl gritted her teeth angrily and stepped harder on the gas pedal.  "You'd better be right about this, waking me up in the middle of the night…With no coffee…" she grumbled.

      "Mr. Vash, if you knew where they were all along, why didn't you tell us before?" Millie asked, terribly confused.

      "I didn't!" he replied, gazing intently into the void.  "But this feeling…It means he's used his…Come on!  This direction!  Hurry, hurry!" 

     Vash kept the real mystery to himself:  that never before had the feeling lasted so long.  He knew his brother had just used his angel arm, and the only thing stronger than his fear of the possible massacre was his determination to end any and all suffering.  And to save Vanessa.

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