Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Fifty-Five

I poured peroxide over my hands, scrubbing blood from them before I rubbed tiredly at my eyes. I heard someone else take a seat and, not looking up, said, "Just give me a second."

"Not like I have anywhere else to be."

I stiffened before slowly looking up to find Justin sitting across from me, his arms crossed, the entire left side of his face covered in a messy swath of bloody bandages. Quietly, I snarled, "What are you doing?"

"You're the doctor." He gestured to his face. "I ran into a clawed bitch."

"Maybe you should have just given her a wide berth," I snapped back, the muscle in my jaw fluttering, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. I had no intention of helping him.

Justin glared at me, an expression I'm sure would have been more impressive if he'd still had both eyes.

Yes, once again, I do in fact understand that's bitchy. Why can't you grasp that it doesn't matter?

Then, he slumped a little, giving me a sullen look. Practically through his teeth, he said, "Look, I'm sorry about what happened, okay? But I don't really want this getting all infected."

"You're not sorry," I hissed. "You just need something. Don't mistake the two things and don't try to play me. I already know your game."

Justin huffed, meeting my gaze without an ounce of shame. "Fine. You're the doctor and I need you to fix my face. Let's just both ignore the fact that you're the one who fucked it up."

"Should we ignore why I did it too?" I asked caustically.

Justin just gave me a smirk, leaning forward in his chair until there was less than half a foot of space between us. "Why not?"

I closed my eyes before roughly unwinding the sloppy dressing around his face, making him wince and swear. I smirked until I finally saw what the bandages had hidden.

By now, gore really doesn't phase me. I mean, it's constantly in my face. But it still makes me gag thinking about what I saw.

The claw marks around the eye itself weren't terrible. The skin was torn, but not too deeply.

The organ itself was another matter, and I subconsciously rubbed my fingernails along the seam of my jeans. Without getting too nasty about it, the left-most side of the sphere looked like stirred up jelly. Part of the eyelid was gone completely and the sclera that wasn't torn up was bright red with broken blood vessels. It contrasted like some sort of ghoulish Christmas theme against his green iris.

The smallest flicker of guilt flared up in my chest, but then I remembered who it was that was actually sitting in front of me. The guilt died and I latched onto that brief moment of nothingness you feel after you let go of a strong emotion.

Making my voice clinical, I said, "Can you see anything if you cover your right eye?"

Justin shot me a dirty look. "The fuck do you think?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes, and ground out, "You came to me for treatment. Now answer my damn questions without the embellishment, and maybe you'll actually be able to walk away from here."

Justin opened his mouth, most likely to spit out a nasty retort before he seemingly changed his mind. He gave me a sharp nod, and I repeated my question. Almost tentatively, he cupped his hand over his right eye, blocking out light.

With a small shuddering gasp, he said, "No."

I sighed. "From a scale of one to ten, how bad is your pain?"