John Gilstrap - Threat warning

The lock slid clear, and then the horizontal seam of light was joined by a vertical cousin. Someone was entering his space.

“Just stop it,” a voice said. It was Colleen. “I’m going to do this.”

“They said to leave him alone,” another voice said.

“This is the right thing to do,” Colleen said.

“I’m not covering for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” she said, and then she entered his little space. The light behind her in the hallway was dim, but it still made Ryan squint. “Hi, Ryan,” she said. Her arms were filled with items that he couldn’t quite make out.

“What do you want?” Ryan asked.

“My name is Sister Colleen,” she said. “I’m here to splint your arm.”

Ryan drew himself up tighter. “That’s okay, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Colleen countered. “Your arm is broken and it needs to be splinted. It’ll make it feel better.”

“What do you care?”

She moved to his side and set a gym bag on the ground. When she opened it, he saw gauze and scissors and a piece of wood. Suddenly, he was back in Cub Scouts playing with first-aid stuff.

Colleen didn’t look at him as she said, “Brother Michael shouldn’t have treated you like that. That was wrong.”

Ryan couldn’t help but chuckle. “Aren’t you the one who killed a bunch of people in their cars?”

She shook her head. “That was different,” she said. “They were the enemy. You’re our guest.”

Holy shit, did she just say guest? He opted to keep his mouth shut.

“I know you think we’re bad people,” Colleen said, spreading out her gear like a surgeon would spread out his instruments. “But we’re not. This is what happens when you go to war.”

“War?” He’d blurted out the question before he could stop himself. “Who are you at war with?”

“The Users,” she said.

The word rang a bell as one she’d used earlier.

Colleen leaned forward to get a better look at his arm, then shouted over her shoulder, “Turn on the light.”

The voice from the hall said, “Brother Michael said no.”

“Then rat me out later,” Colleen said. “Right now I need light.”

It probably took ten seconds, but ultimately, an overhead lightbulb jumped to life, bathing them in incandescent white light. As he’d suspected, his wrist and hand-the only parts he could see-were purple and swollen, the discoloration extending all the way to his knuckles on his first two fingers. The angulation of the bones wasn’t as disgusting as he’d feared, but that probably had as much to do with the bulk of his clothes as the actual arrangement of his anatomy.

“I know what I’m doing,” Colleen said. “I’ve treated injuries here on the compound for years. You can relax.”

Instinctively, Ryan protected his arm and scooched backward on his butt.

“Really, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“No, you’re just here to kidnap me.”

Colleen paused as she considered those words. “Different things,” she said. As if that was an explanation. She picked up a pair of scissors, the kind you only see in doctors’ offices, on which one of the jaws is blunted so it doesn’t cut flesh. “We need to get your coat and sweater off.”

He tried to move farther away, but he was up against a hard stop of stuff. “I’m really fine the way I am.”

She cocked her head in a look of feigned patience. “Do you know what can happen if a broken bone is not mended?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “It stays broken.”

Colleen rolled her eyes. “Well, that, yes. Of course. But that’s the very best case. The worst case is that you move the wrong way and a bone end pinches a blood vessel or maybe punctures one. They you either bleed to death or you get gangrene and they have to cut off the arm. The alternative would be to die. Which one of those do you like?”

He didn’t know what to say. He offered his arm.

She slid the blunted side of the jaws under the cuff of his sleeve, and with a gentleness that surprised him, she moved an inch at a time, pinching a bit of fabric and then snipping it, going through all the layers simultaneously. “If I hurt you, let me know.”

“Sister Colleen,” Ryan said, tasting the phrase. “Are you a nun or something?”

When she shook her head, he caught a flash of fiery red hair from under the scarf she wore. “No, I am not a nun. I am, however, a child of God.”

“Aren’t we all?”

He’d meant it as a throwaway line, a space-taker, but Colleen didn’t know that. “Not all of us,” she said. “Not the Users.”

Colleen’s thumb found a sensitive spot on his arm and he jumped. “Ow!”

She stopped cutting and pulled the scissors hand away. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked like she meant it.

“That’s okay. Hit a nerve or something, I guess.” As the flesh of his arm was exposed, he discovered a sense of relief. His arm was swollen, and the area from the middle of his forearm to his wrist looked like it had been bruised, but it didn’t look as bad as it hurt. He’d been expecting something L-shaped, but it was nothing like that. As the scissors passed his elbow, Colleen gently placed his forearm back on the pillow, and then used both hands to cut his clothes away to the shoulder.

“You have good muscles,” she said, stroking his biceps.

The words startled him. Her touch inexplicably turned him on. “Um, thanks. A few weeks in a cast should take care of that, though.” As soon as the sarcasm escaped his mouth, he wished that he could bring it back. She was being nice to him, for God’s sake. You know, after she’d kidnapped him and threatened to kill him.

“Who are the Users?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

“They’re most of the world. They’re the people who take all of God’s gifts for their own and give nothing back. They live for money and not for goodness. They forget about Him and refuse to pay Him His due.”

Colleen put the scissors down and returned her attention to his forearm. Reaching into her bag, she produced a padded board splint, much like the ones he’d seen in Coach Jackson’s first-aid kit.

“I’m going to put this under your arm for support,” she explained. “Then we’ll tie your arm to the board with some gauze wrapping, and then we’ll put your arm in a sling. It will mend faster if it’s immobilized.”

“But it’s going to hurt,” Ryan said, cutting to the chase.

“Well… yes. I’ll have to move your arm a little, and I guess that has the potential to hurt.”

Potential turned to reality. The site of the break shot new lightning bolts as she slid the board into place, but in five seconds, it was over.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Colleen asked.

“Says the chick with two good arms.” He said it with a smile. Jesus, he thought. How perverted could he be, getting a woody from the lady who’s hurting him? Well, she did say I have good muscles.

“Am I a User?” Ryan asked.

“Probably.” Colleen opened a white paper container that was marked KLING WRAP and revealed a cylinder of gauze. “Judging from your car and your clothes-and your mouth sometimes-I’d say there was a very good chance that you are a User.”

“What does that mean, though? User, I mean.”

“Can you hold your arm up for me?” Colleen asked. She demonstrated what she needed by raising his wounded forearm, using the splint.

Ryan slid his left hand into the spot where her hands were.

“Good,” she said. “Just like that.” Her fingers seemed to work automatically as she unraveled the Kling Wrap, binding his arm to the board. She carefully avoided the site of the break, leaving that part of his skin unbound.

“You have done this before,” Ryan said. “Thank you.”