The Bleeding Crowd

by Jessica Dall

She moved over to her closet, pulling the shirt she had been wearing from the day before off and pulling a new one on. “I’m going to get us a big breakfast. You need to keep your strength up. You lost a lot of blood yesterday.”

  “Okay, Doc.”

  She pulled on a pair of pants. “Ben, don’t call me Doc.”

  “Sure thing, Doc.”

  She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. Grabbing her key card, she slipped it into her back pocket before heading outside.

  Summer was finally abating, leaving the air moist but crisp, almost as if a fog were going to move in. Soon it would be time to break out her winter clothes.

  “Top o’ the morning.” Cassandra popped up in her usual bright fashion. She studied Dahlia for a long moment. “You look awful.”

  Dahlia snorted. “Thanks.”

  “You know, that’s not what I meant.” Her friend waved that away. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Not especially.” Dahlia shook her head. “I’m thinking of picking up breakfast and then calling in sick. Are you heading straight to work?”

  “Got an early appointment.” Cassandra nodded.

  “Will you let Kristen know I’m not coming in? You can call me if the ER’s insane, but if not, I’m going back to bed.”

  “Sure.” She put a hand on Dahlia’s forehead and then her neck.

  “My glands aren’t swollen and no fever.” Dahlia batted her hand away. “I’m just run down.”

  “You need to stop working so hard,” Cassandra said.

  “Call me if they really need me, okay?”

  * * * *

  Back at the men’s camp, Jude looked up as the door to the barrack opened. He stared at Ben for a long moment and then released a sigh. “So you’re alive.”

  “She’s a good doctor,” Ben said.

  “Not what I was talking about.” Jude shook his head.

  “If she had turned us in, do you think I’d be here?”

  “So.” Jude continued looking at him. “We’ve got her?”

  “All but.” Ben rolled his shoulders.

  Jude nodded. “You going to let me see?”

  Ben pulled his sleeve up.

  “Deep.” Jude examined it.

  “Needed stitches.” Ben smiled. “Looked a lot worse few days ago. She made me wait until I had better use of that arm.”

  “And you insisted on running all the way out to her before you had someone look at it?”

  “It worked didn’t it?” Ben looked at the now pink skin before letting his sleeve drop.

  “Women tend to love helping people,” Jude agreed. “I think it’s that whole maternal instinct thing they’ve been trying to squash.”

  “Give me two more days and I’ll have her on board with anything we want her to do,” Ben said.

  Jude released another heavy sigh, but didn’t debate it. “I got one of the lotto numbers from the kids, so I’m heading out tomorrow night. We’ll see if it’s anyone important.”

  “Hopefully,” Ben said. “We don’t have three weeks to wait on some janitor.”

  “Maybe I could take your approach and turn them over to our side,” Jude said. “You’re not the only one with charisma.”

  “We could use a janitor’s help, how?”

  “You aren’t exactly with a magistrate.”

  “She’s a doctor,” Ben said. “There’s always use for someone who knows how to stitch people up.”

  “And leave the stitches in, eh.” Jude nodded at his arm.

  “She said she’d call me back in about a week after the skin heals some more to take it out.”

  “Did she now.”

  Ben frowned at Jude’s half-smirk. “What’s that look for?”

  “Nothing. You just got this weird little smile when you started talking about her calling you back. You aren’t falling for her, are you?”

  “I like her,” Ben said. “She’s generally a good person. I’m not going all soft and squishy though. I’m not a woman. I don’t have to fight down my emotions.”

  “Just remember, if things go wrong, she’s most likely the one we’ll have to throw to the wolves.” Jude looked at the old analog clock on the wall. “Come on. The boys have been waiting for you to move on with combat training.”

  Ben shook his head. “You know just as much about that as I do at this point.”

  “Not in execution,” Jude said. “Besides, you’re the one who sent Eli to the hospital.”

  “I didn’t exactly escape unscathed.” He touched his arm and winced.

  “You aren’t the one in the hospital right now. Albeit you were at your own ‘doctor,’ but it should help you with your street cred. No one’s dared mess with us, even with you gone, since then. Brought at least half a dozen of the younger guys over.”

  Ben nodded. “I just don’t feel much like fighting right now, Jude.”

  “Not like it’s real. It’s just instruction. Your arm hurt?”

  “Not really.” He looked at his arm. “Dahlia all but forced me to eat some poppy-based something or another. It makes you not really care about the pain. Makes you a little sleepy though.”

  “Girl who gives you drugs.” Jude smiled. “I get the look now.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m going to take a nap.”

  “Think you’ll be awake in a couple hours?”

  “Why?”

  “Want to know when to rally the troops.”

  Ben sighed, climbing up to his bunk. “I’ll be up before dinner.”

  * * * *

  “You really are a quick healer.” Dahlia studied Ben’s arm.

  “Always have been,” Ben said.

  “I’m going to take out the stitches.” She rose to begin.

  “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  “What did I say about calling me Doc?” Dahlia sent him a look.

  “You know you like it,” he said.

  “Take off your shirt,” she directed, ignoring his crooked smile. “Refraining from any juvenile jokes would be appreciated.”

  The smile dropped. “Ruin all my fun, won’t you?”

  “I try.” She turned and then frowned. “What happened to your side?”

  “The scar?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That bruise.”

  “Oh.” He looked at the bruise that took up most of the area on his right ribcage. “We were playing. Rugby, actually. It can get pretty physical.”

  “With your hurt arm?”

  “It’s been feeling fine.”

  “Are you trying to stay injured?” She shook her head, turning around to pick up another jar before moving towards the bed.

  “It’s just a game. No one I know has ever gotten seriously injured from it.”

  Dahlia didn’t answer as she opened the jar.

  “What’s that?”

  “Arnica,” she said, rubbing it on his side. “It’ll help it heal more quickly.”

  He nodded.

  “How old is it?” she asked.

  “The bruise?”

  “No, your body.” She sent him an unimpressed look.

  “The body, twenty-some years.” He smiled.

  She sighed, not taking the bait. “And the bruise?”

  “I don’t know. A few days?”

  “You don’t remember when you got it?” Dahlia asked.

  “Two, three days ago, maybe.” He shrugged. “Why?”

  She looked at him and then shook her head. “Just wondering if I should be worried about broken ribs. If you’ve made it this far without breathing issues...”

  “None whatsoever,” he said.

  She ran a hand over his side. “Yeah, everything seems to be in place.”

  “And... arnica?” he tried the word.

  “Arnica Montana.” She screwed the jar shut. “Also known as wolf’s bane. Great for bruises, sprains, whatever.”

  “You have everything, don’t you?”

  “I have full run of the herb garden. Plants used to be the only medicine before Ale
xandria Fleming came up with penicillin.”

  “Alexander,” Ben corrected without thinking.

  “What?”

  “Alexander Fleming,” he said. “I don’t know many medical facts, but a man discovered penicillin.”

  “Right.” Dahlia smiled as if to herself. “Arm.”

  “Fine, don’t believe me.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Arm.”

  He offered it to her, letting her use the small bent scissors she had to cut the thread and tweezers to pull it out. He looked at her to avoid looking at his arm. “Thank you again, by the way.”

  “Hmm?” She didn’t look up from cutting out the thread.

  “For taking care of all this.”

  “No problem.” She pulled out the last bit of thread and wrapped his arm. “It gives me a chance to bone up on all the first aid stuff. That won’t need to stay wrapped for long.”

  “So I’m your test subject,” he said

  “You’d better hope not. Most of the test subjects I’ve had were in med school, and they were cadavers.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I’d want to stay away from that job.”

  “Though I can’t make any promises if you keep lying to me.”

  His face blanched slightly. “What?”

  “No way that bruise is two days old.” She nodded at it.

  His forehead creased.

  “See how it looks sort of green?” Dahlia threw away the thread. “That doesn’t happen until the bruise is well on its way to healing. With a bruise that deep, I would guess you got that six, seven days ago.”

  “Maybe.” Ben shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  She looked him over. “You’re a good liar. I’ll have to remember that.”

  “What makes you think I’m lying?”

  “You’d remember the difference between two days and six. Now, the real question is, what would you be doing to get that that would make you feel like you had to lie to me about it?”

  He sighed. “It was another fight, okay?”

  “Another one?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I know you have your little ‘men are so violent’ issues, so I thought I’d just say it was a game. I was playing rugby a couple days ago.”

  “It gave you that bruise?”

  “Doesn’t hurt. I just got flipped.” He shrugged.

  Dahlia pressed her lips together in a narrow line. “I thought I told you not to do anything to that arm.”

  “Why I got flipped,” he said. “I was favoring my right side.”

  “Do you think you can keep from getting into another fight for the next couple of days, or do I have to start keeping you here?”

  “Fights don’t bother me.”

  “So you’d rather keep going until you die, or at least become paraplegic.”

  “I suppose so.” Ben nodded with that engaging grin.

  “You’re infuriating.”

  “Well, if I weren’t, I wouldn’t get into fights, would I?”

  Dahlia frowned. “You sound like getting yourself cut up is something you want.”

  “Well, scars give me character.”

  She hummed, unconvinced. “Well, sorry to tell you, but the stuff I put on your arm should reduce the scaring. If I had known you wanted it, I’d have cut it deeper.”

  “No problem.” Ben smiled. “The guy who gave me that is still in traction, but I’m sure I can get another sometime.”

  “Are you suggesting that you put someone in the hospital?”

  “One of the older men taught me Krav Maga years back. Took me under his wing, so to speak.”

  “Krav Maga?”

  “It’s a hand to hand combat style. One of the original men knew it, and taught a small group. It’s passed down so our group sort of has the corner on the market.”

  “That’s how you got your arm cut up?”

  “It’s how I only got that,” he said. “Other guy had a knife. I had to deal with my bare hands.”

  “So you proceeded to put him in traction.”

  “Nearly broke his neck I think.”

  She shook her head. “You must be so proud.”

  “I know you’re being sarcastic, but yes I am.” He smiled. “It’s not a bad thing to know how to protect yourself.”

  “It’s a bad thing that you have to know how to defend yourself,” Dahlia said. “Couldn’t you have just hit his chip?”

  “Unwritten rule of the camps, you don’t go for the groin or chips.”

  “But breaking a guy’s neck is okay?”

  “I nearly broke his neck,” Ben said. “Honestly, I think the crack was his... clavicle? That’s the collarbone, right?”

  Dahlia nodded, and then touched her neck. “Could you break my neck?”

  Ben frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m not sure I’m comfortable turning my back on you if the answer is yes.”

  “That’s what the chips are for.” He shrugged. “You’d just hit it. Anyway, if I were going to try to hurt you, I’d have done it by now.”

  “That’s comforting.” Dahlia frowned, not reassured.

  He smiled. “I’m not going to hurt you, Lia.”

  “So you say.” She sat down, leaning against the headrest. “Since when have you called me Lia?”

  “Well, you don’t seem like a Dolly, and you don’t like ‘Doc’.” He paused a moment. “Look, if I were harboring some sort of homicidal urge towards you, which I’m not, killing you would be a monumentally stupid move for me. Someone comes in and sees you dead while I’m here? I’m pretty sure I’d be completely screwed even if your death hadn’t been my fault.

  Dahlia nodded and then laughed.

  “What?” He frowned, sliding up to sit next to her.

  “You could always suggest that it was some sexual exploit gone wrong.”

  “I don’t know.” Ben looked her over. “You don’t seem like the kinky type.”

  “Well, you never know with the quiet ones,” Dahlia said.

  “You talk too much to be called a quiet one.”

  “You’re a bit of an ass sometimes, you know that?”

  “You’re sort of a bitch sometimes, so we work well together.”

  Her eyes dropped to his chest. “You know, I’ve been putting together a list of herbs I’m sure you could grow at the camp. I know you can’t read it, but if you had someone plant them—”

  “Lia?”

  “Yeah?” she cut off her rambling.

  He looked at her for a long moment.

  “What?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to have sex with me?”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I told you—”

  “Dahlia.” He stood. “You’re an attractive woman. I like you. You chose me, so obviously you don’t find me repulsive. I don’t understand why you have such an aversion to the idea of us having sex.”

  “Then?” She crossed her arms. “I didn’t see a reason to want a man to have sex with.”

  “And now?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Now...” She released a breath. “Because you’re nice. Because I like being with you.”

  “I don’t see that as a detriment to the act of having sex.”

  “I like you as a person, Ben. It might, might, even be bordering on a friendship. Sex releases hormones that make you feel attached to a person. Combine those hormones with this misguided affection I have for you? I’d become much too attached. I mean, at this point I’m too attached, I should have switched you out already, but I like talking to you and hate the whole choosing ceremony thing. If I became even more attached I’d have no choice but to send you away.”

  He stood, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I can make sure that I’m especially ass-like afterwards if it makes you feel better. Circumvent that whole attachment thing.”

  “Is sex really that important to you?”

  “Well, I’m a man, so, yeah.”

  She smiled. “You know, I’m going to say it again, if you’re going to tr
y not to be a stereotype, you’re going to have to stop picking and choosing what stereotypes you like because you can use them as excuses.”

  “Well, not all stereotypes are wrong,” he said. “Just a lot of them.”

  “Convenient.”

  He slid his hand under the hem of her shirt, resting it on the small of her back. “If you truthfully aren’t attracted to me, or aren’t... whatever, just tell me that. However, if you’re just afraid of, I don’t know, actually caring about a man, caring about me, I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this, Ben.” She leaned away from him, her back arching over his hand that was keeping her in place.

  “What if I do?”

  “I’m the one who has the ability to leave the building.”

  “You’ve run every other time I’ve tried to talk to you. You think you’re going to be able to avoid the topic forever?”

  “You aren’t going to be here forever,” she said. “You’ve got another four weeks and then the three months is up.”

  “Then what are you going to tell the next guy?”

  “I don’t think I have to tell any of you anything.”

  “Any of us,” he repeated. “Men you mean?”

  “Well, you especially, since you have no way to stick around long enough to wear me down, but I’m very good at avoiding things I don’t want to talk about in general.”

  “You’re better than us anyway, so who cares what we want to say.”

  Dahlia frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you think it.” He released her.

  “When have I ever said I was better than you?”

  “Let’s see.” He crossed his arms. “The first time you met me?”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “But since I got to know you?”

  He stepped away from her.

  “Ben... Benjamin, you’re obviously very smart, and caring, and a hundred other things I didn’t know men could be. I didn’t mean anything by what I said, and I’ve never thought what you’re accusing me of. If I say something that sounds insulting... it’s a slip.”

  “Slip.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I grew up with twenty years of how good women were and how great life had been since we got rid of you. Our entire language is femicentric. It’s easy enough to slip. I’m sorry. I’m doing my best, really.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Have I ever tried to degrade you, Ben? You’re human. I’ve admitted that more than once.” She smiled slightly. “Even if you’re a mutated one.”