She didn’t put her hand out. “Aspirin?”
“Tylenol and Vitamin C.”
“I only take real aspirin,” she said.
“Not with a bleeding wound, you don’t.”
She still didn’t put her hand out to take the pills.
“Okay, get up, then. I’m taking you to the hospital. They can deal with your stupid ass if you won’t follow simple instructions.”
She scowled, but accepted the pills and swallowed them without another complaint. She was seriously afraid of the hospital and the police, which in and of itself didn’t bother me, but not understanding why did.
I put a hand on her good knee. “You’ll be safe here with me, but I’m serious, you have to do what I say. Can you handle that?”
She nodded.
Fear wasn’t the perfect motivator, but if it worked with her, so be it. I’d found her weak spot.
Now came the touchy part. “Where do you want to start? Top or bottom?”
“Huh?”
“You didn’t want to go to the ER, so you’re stuck with me cleaning up your wounds. Where do you want to start?”
She patted her knee, where the blood had soaked through the tear in her jeans.
I didn’t have any way to sugar coat it. “You have to take off your pants.”
Her eyes went wide, and she pulled back into the couch.
“Look, if you don’t want to go to the hospital, then I’m your doctor. I have to clean the wound, and I can’t do that with your pants on.”
She sighed and worked to undo her belt.
“Are you allergic to any medications?”
“No.”
That was a good start. Obvious winces told me how much she hurt as I helped her out of the jeans, careful to keep the denim from rubbing over the injury. She wore pink cotton panties I couldn’t ignore.
Concentrate. This was simple first aid, just like I’d told her. I could be professional about it. She was just another victim in need of patching up.
From her limp and the look of her hip, the bruise was going to be bad. There was nothing urgent to do about that. The knee, however, had grit in the wound that would have to come out.
For the first order of business, I pulled out a cold pack and activated it before placing it over the bruise on her hip. “Hold this here while I clean up your knee.” I took her hand with my free one.
She pulled back with fear in her eyes.
This girl was one skittish critter for some reason, but that wasn’t a subject for right now.
“Princess, give me your hand,” I said slowly, in a low voice. “Trust me to help you.”
She let me place her hand over the cold pack, and I held it there with mine until I felt her relax under my touch. “That’s pretty cold,” she said.
“It’ll help.”
She nodded and raised her gaze. Fear had been replaced by something I couldn’t place.
“This is going to hurt,” I warned her.
She sighed and nodded.
It took a lot of scrubbing to get her knee almost clean. “You live near here?” I asked.
A shrug was all I got—another topic out of bounds for now.
After as much as I could do with scrubbing, there were still two deeper pieces that wouldn’t come out easily.
“What’s that for?” she asked when I came at her knee with my tweezers.
“You risk infection if I don’t get everything out.”
She sucked in a breath. “Okay.”
I wasn’t asking permission. “I know this will hurt, but we don’t have a choice.” If I was going to be her medic, I was doing it right.
She gritted her teeth, but didn’t cry when I dug out the first offending piece and applied the antiseptic that I knew stung like the devil.
I tried the question a different way. “How far away do you live?”
“That hurts,” she said, ignoring me.
The second piece came out more easily than the first. Another cleaning with Betadine, plenty of Neosporin, a non-stick bandage, and tape finished that spot for now. When I looked up at her, my eyes lingered longer than they should have at the pink panties.
Her cute blush said she’d caught me.
“Now lose the shirt,” I told her.
“I’m not getting naked for you,” she responded.
I stood. “Fine. I’ll take you home and your sister or mother or whoever can take care of you.”
“No. That won’t work.”
Her answer didn’t make sense, but it was what it was. I stood, folded my arms, and scolded her, “Do you know what sepsis is?”
She shook her head. “No.”
It was exactly the response I’d hoped for.
“If I don’t clean the wounds, and the infection gets bad, you could die from it. And trust me, it’ll be a painful death.”
I’d added the last part for effect. Her superficial wounds weren’t likely to lead to anything like that, but she needed to be more scared of not cooperating, than she was of me. I couldn’t put her out on the street, so I had to fix her up right whether she was embarrassed in the process or not.
Her defiant stare wavered.
The strong protected the weak, and that included patching them up, so that’s what I was going to do. “Stay there,” I told her as I left for my bedroom.
I returned with a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. My size would be baggy enough on her to not interfere with the bandages, while allowing her to cover up and stay warm.
“Lift your foot.”
She did, and one at a time, I started the sweatpants up her legs. She needed help to stand and get them the rest of the way up.
I brought a chair over. The couch wouldn’t do for this next part. “Now, you’re not naked. Lose the shirt and sit down.” The bleeding had soaked through the side of her shirt.
She gritted her teeth and grunted, but she couldn’t raise her arm enough to get the shirt off.
I was afraid of that and had the shears ready. “I’ll have to cut it off.”
She sobbed.
I cut it loose and let it drop. The bruise on her ribs was also going to be brutal. The cut was partially under her bra strap and had soaked through the undergarment as well as her shirt. Her shoulder also sported a nasty bruise.
“The bra too. I have to get under the strap.”
She winced as she tried, but couldn’t move her left arm enough to undo the hooks. “I can’t. My shoulder…”
“Let me.” I freed the hooks for her.
She pulled the shoulder straps off and held the cups in place with her good arm.
I cleaned the blood away. The wound wasn’t bleeding much, but the gash was long enough that it would have to be closed, and still might leave a scar. “This is going to need glue.”
She pulled away. “Glue?”
I retrieved the Dermabond tube from my kit and held it up. “Doctors use this stuff all the time. Medical-grade Super Glue, basically.” I alternately held pressure on the cut and cleaned it.
She sucked in air through her teeth. “That really hurts.”
“Sorry. I have to stop the bleeding. You’re going to have a bruise here, so no bikini at the beach for a while.”
My attempt at humor didn’t get a reaction—not a giggle, not even a smirk.