“And who the fuck is grandma?”
Nana stared blankly at the hulking man, marked with tattoo, pock, and scar in equal measure holding a bloodied rag to his shoulder from under the jacket draped on. She held open the back door of her van parked outside the 'struggling' shipping company's warehouse that served as the pair's hideout.
“Someone who is gunna sew your dumb ass up and not make a big fucking deal about it, that’s who. Now shut up, for once, and get in the goddamn van!” Her surly contact grumbled. He lit up a cigarette to occupy time while leaning on the side of the van as lookout. She merely held the other man’s gaze as he warily climbed up into the back and she followed after him, closing the door behind with a soft click.
A clamp light attached to some metal shelving she’d had installed cast harsh light down on a wheelchair set up and locked in place. She gestured to it. “Please have a seat. What’s your name dear?” She asked as she went and began prepping her tools. The van creaked gently as the injured man, bent over, made his way to the makeshift chair and sank down.
“Everyone calls me Thud.” Nana wasn’t surprised.
“Well, Thud. Have a bit of this.” She handed him a flask and saw him grimace at the metallic face staring back at him. “Even local anesthesia is expensive, I’m sorry.” She wasn’t. “It’s only whiskey and I’ll be quick, I promise.”
Before she was taken, a man like this would have made her deeply afraid. Now – they were all just children with scraped knees playing Cops and Robbers. The ‘owies’ simply more gruesome. Besides there was a certain power her lost years gave her with men like this. As long as she kept her voice soft and soothing -- she was their mother, their grandmother, their one teacher that was stern only because she believed in them. She was neither object nor enemy to them. Even for the cruelty these men often inflicted on themselves and others – there was still a special taboo for one that would abuse a woman such as her. It didn’t hurt that she was the one holding the needle either.
“Now Thud, I’m going to clean the wound and then I’ll get started. I’ll work as quickly as I can and you’ll be fixed up in no time.” She heard him grunt in reply as he rolled the jacket off his shoulders. His stained wife beater did nothing to hide the seeping gash on his shoulder blade or the patchwork of other scars that dotted the man’s angry muscles. She viewed the other jagged lines, puffed full of scar tissue from far shoddier work, as a challenge.
After he only shifted slightly from the rubbing alcohol wiped onto the wound and then away, she set to work. She threaded the needle through his flesh, set to the strained hiss of his breathing as he dealt with the pain well even for a man accustomed to it. Her spindly fingers able to hold and pinch the flayed skin with surgical precision. The bones breaking from under her nails able to catch and wield the needle unnaturally well, letting her hold the thin metal with pinkie and ring finger as well as any other.
She wasn’t just here for the money though, not that it wasn’t good. There was something else, something much easier to obtain with even the strongest soul put in such a position. Often, she could tease it out so easily when they were like this. A simple word more than enough. “Oops.”
She’d already finished by the time his body tensed and his head twitched in panic. “What the fuck you mean ‘Oops’?!”
She released a long, gentle shush to cover the eye-rolling sensation of drinking in that intoxicating mix of Fear and Wrath. “Shh-shh.” She huffed it in like a dentist giving herself a little kick of the gas, acrid and twitchy, sharp and savory. She didn't indulge in any other substance when there was pure magic to drip feed. “I just doubled a stitch, it’ll heal fine.”
She cleaned off her work and then taped some gauze over what had suddenly become a simple, bulged line. As she took her flask back from him she replaced it with a dollar store lollipop. She watched the man frown at her -- but then pocket the candy all the same and give an almost sheepish grunt.
“You're welcome." She added to the words she'd found were so hard for his sort. "Be careful now.” She said with a genuine grin as she opened the door to release her prey back into the night better than she’d found it.
More harvests to come.
Rather than just blanket with threads, will keep them condensed here.
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