Page 84 of With a Vengeance

Reggie shoots her a wary look. “Do I have a choice?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Take this,” Reggie says, handing her the gun still gripped in his hand. Overwhelmed by the sight of the knife and the blood, Anna hadn’t noticed it. Now she’s takes it into her blood-slicked hands and shoves it into the pocket of Reggie’s borrowed jacket.

He exhales, nods, then tries to rise off the floor. Anna swoops in to support him, ducking so that his arm is across her shoulders, transferring much of his weight onto her. Together they move through the galley, every step prompting a pained hiss from Reggie.

“It happened so fast,” he says. “I turned my back for one second and the next he’s sticking a knife in me.”

“Judd?”

“Yeah.”

The knowledge that Judd might still be nearby—ready to strike again—makes Anna quicken their pace. They push into the dining car, where Lapsford and Sal are simultaneously entering from the other end.

“What the hell happened?” Lapsford says upon seeing Anna and Reggie hobbling across the room.

“Judd attacked him. Have you seen anyone?”

“No,” Sal says. “No one has come through here or the lounge.”

“But he came this way,” Anna insists. “Where did he go?”

A tense silence falls over the car as all four of them lift their eyes to the ceiling.

“The roof,” Reggie mutters. “He’s on the goddamn roof.”

“We need to go,” Anna says. “All of us. Right now.”

Moving in a pack, they make their way into the lounge, where Anna veers behind the bar just long enough to grab a bottle of vodka. She’s going to need something to clean the wound. After that, it’s into Car 11, where Anna and Reggie stop at the door to his room.

“Do you have a sewing kit?” she asks Sal. “I need to stitch him up.”

Sal nods. “I’ll be right back.”

Anna drags Reggie into his room. When she lowers him onto the bed, blood instantly starts to seep into the sheets. By then, Sal is back, thrusting a tin sewing kit into her hands. Anna opens it, seeing needles, scissors, and several spools of thread. It’s not ideal—the needles aren’t sterilized, and the thread is a far cry from sutures—but it’ll have to do.

“Go back to your room,” she tells Sal. “Lock the door. Stay away from the windows.”

Anna follows the same protocol in Reggie’s room. In the bathroom, she washes her hands, threads the needle, and pours vodka over its tip. She then grabs a washcloth and returns to Reggie’s side. Anna peels away the blood-soaked gauze, douses the washcloth with vodka, and starts cleaning the wound. The first touch brings an agonized gasp from Reggie.

“Give me that,” he says, reaching for the bottle.

Anna hands it over, and he takes several long, sloppy gulps. Properly fortified, he carefully shifts onto his uninjured side, giving her better access to the wound. Anna stares at it, dumbfounded. Of all the ways she’d pictured the trip going—and the various scenarios she’d come up with were many—this wasn’t one of them.

Reggie takes another swig of vodka. “Have you ever stitched someone up before?”

“Oh, I do it all the time.”

Reggie drinks half a swallow more. “Then you already know that you start by pinching the skin together at one end and looping the thread through it at least twice before tying it off.”

“Of course,” Anna says, keeping up the ruse because it’s easier for both of them to ignore the truth that she has no idea what she’s doing. Despite the vodka, Reggie’s body tenses when she pinches the bottom end of the cut as instructed and prepares to slide the needle through the skin. He nods for Anna to keep going, so she does, piercing both edges of flesh and pulling them together with the thread.

Reggie winces, takes another drink. “Other than stitching up strangers, what else do you do for fun?”

“Fun?” Anna says.

“Yeah, you know. Hobbies. Amusing yourself.”

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