Cassie managed to sound like a medical training guide as she dismissed my suggestions. I grimaced with irritation. Just the idea that we would attempt to mend something like a shoulder dislocation on our own was crazy! Surely, Cassie knew she was being ridiculous?
Apparently not – she was still talking.
“I’m pretty certain I know what to look for, so if you check me over and we think it’s OK, will you try?” Her final plea was undeniably hopeful. “And if I promise to go to The Clinic if it doesn’t work?”
I couldn’t believe I was actually considering doing this – despite Cassie’s confident sounding words, I was sure that under any other circumstances she would not be considering letting me loose on her body with just a few weeks of medical training.
I said nothing. Partly because I was still considering whether I might actually do this. The other part of me had gotten mildly distracted with the phrase let loose on her body as it ran through my mind. I shook the thought away – this was neither the time nor the place to be a ridiculously stereotypical boy, was it?
“You’ll do it?”
Cassie pounced on my silence, obviously assuming it meant I conceded. Apart from the medical aspects, her plan made sense: we would get into a world of trouble for endangering ourselves by coming here. Was I really selfish enough to put my secret life above Cassie’s well being? I tried to defend my actions by telling myself it was what she wanted, but that felt like a lame excuse even as I thought it. I was not ready to give up everything I’d worked for… not even for her?
“As if you gave me any choice,” I finally muttered, shaking my head in disgust with my own self-interest.
“Great!” Cassie grinned – happy with her victory – until the movement made her frown in pain.
If we were going to do this, we should get started. It was probably too late for ground rules, but it felt necessary. I nodded to confirm I was going to do as she asked, clarifying: “but I’m doing this only if we’re sure it’s a dislocation.”
Cassie nodded obediently.
“I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing to this…” I shook my head – mainly at myself – once again dismayed with what I had consented to try. It was more for my benefit than hers.
“Ready?”
She nodded.
“Let’s see then, shall we…?”
Cassie’s gaze rested heavily on me as her eyes tracked my movements. I tried to ignore that and focused on her injuries instead. It’s just another patient at The Clinic, I told myself as I leaned over her body and let my hands begin the examination.
Even though I was as gentle as possible and didn’t move her arm, Cassie still flinched away as I touched her shoulder. “Are you OK?” I froze immediately. The anger I felt with myself leaked into my voice as I spoke. “I’m not going to do it if you’re in this much pain.”
Cassie shook her head, cringing once more as the movement affected her shoulder. “No it’s OK, I’m fine.” She was not a good actress.
“You’re a liar,” I told her, adding a silent “just like me,” before starting again. I watched her face for a few seconds, searching for any sign that she realised what a selfish monster I was. I found nothing in her eyes but trust and that pained me more than anything. “I can’t hurt you,” I whispered, not really knowing whether I was talking about her arm or the numerous other things about me that I knew could cause her harm.
“I’ll tell you if it’s too much,” Cassie promised.
I could only nod in acceptance. Deep down I wished that I could promise her the same thing, but I knew I was just not that honest. Looking into her face gave me the terrible feeling that if I continued along the path we had begun together, I would only succeed in bringing Cassie more pain… Steeling myself I refocused on the problem before me. This was not the time or the place to get distracted by my own confusion: it would not be helpful for either of us.
Moving as slowly as before, my hands resumed their examination. After a few seconds Cassie’s eyes closed – perhaps because of the pain – but with some relief I felt her relax a little too. Being wholly professional, I tried not to notice how much I liked the feel of her bare skin beneath my fingers when I touched her. I am a Medic, she is a patient I told myself over and over again as I worked, it distracted me a little.
“It doesn’t feel like a shoulder separation,” I told her, as I ran through the various diagnostic indicators we’d been taught to look for in the Emergency Medicine sessions. I ran my fingers around her shoulder. Her skin and subcutaneous tissue yielded to the light pressure of my fingers in all the wrong places: I could detect no connection at all between the bone and socket. Despite my inexperience, I was confident it felt like a complete dislocation.
“The humerus has definitely lost contact with the scapula,” I told Cassie as I moved on from her shoulder and began checking the bones in her lower arm. “There don’t seem to be any obvious breaks…from the position of your arm, it looks like a dislocation.”
Finished with my examination I leaned back on my heels. When I touched her arm, I had felt her flinch away from me. It was obvious she was trying to hide how much pain she was in, so that I wouldn’t take her to The Clinic. She was a stubborn girl.
“Definitely feels like the humerus is sitting at the front of the shoulder blade.” I gave my final diagnosis, watching her face carefully for any reaction. Something that might make me do the right thing, perhaps?
“An anterior dislocation?” Cassie clarified my words immediately, drawing the correct terminology from our recent training.
I nodded, smiling. “I told you that you were good at this.”
“So are you.” Cassie offered me a small grin, before prompting me to get to work. “Now we know what it is, we need to get it reduced then…”
“It seems straight-forward enough…” although, my uncertainty as to whether I could actually do this, was beginning to return. “But, if I get it wrong it could lead to worse complications.”
“If that happens you can take me to The Clinic,” Cassie promised. I felt her working to find my eyes with her own; as if she somehow knew what kind of power they held over me. Her gaze locked onto mine and I found her confidence surging into me as she told me: “I won’t need that, you’ll get it right.”
I nodded. Maybe I would get it right.
“We need to get you stood up to try this.” I worked hard to sound professional and capable. “Do you feel OK to do that?”
“Can you give me a hand?” She asked, by way of an answer to my question. Taking her left arm as she offered it to me, I lifted her from the ground. Her body swayed slightly once she was upright and I held on until she stopped moving.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” I muttered to myself – talking to the selfish beast inside me. I felt Cassie twitch and realised she must have thought I was talking to her. Clearing my throat I addressed her now, trying to cover for my misdirected accusation. “I’d at least feel a little better if we had some pain relief for you.”
“Well, look at it this way: if it hurts that much I’ll probably black out again anyway!”
Cassie was trying to joke with me. Trying to make me feel better about what we were about to do. I couldn’t have felt worse about how I was behaving. Even though I thought I was falling in love with this girl, I was still putting everything I wanted first. I was an idiot. I was selfish. I wanted to keep my secrets.
“Let’s just do it,” Cassie prompted, stirring me from my trance.
She was right. “Turn around,” I said, helping her to spin into position in front of me. Our bodies pressed close together, slightly out of line so that I stood behind Cassie’s right shoulder – my chest and right arm able to move comfortably around her injury. I tried to sound less brusque when I spoke again, it wasn’t fair for me to sound angry with Cassie when I was only disappointed with myself. “I’m not going to give you a countdown I’m just going to do it, OK?” She merely nodded in response.
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In preparation, I gently circled her right arm in front of her body, so that it sat across her stomach to form a L-shape. Cassie didn’t resist my direction, although I felt her tense as she registered the movement. Once in position, I secured her arm in place, grasping her wrist in my left hand.
At first as we stood there, I could feel Cassie’s heart racing inside her chest. The light, thrumming beat pumped through her back and into my body where I held her close against me. I didn’t want her to be scared when I tried to do this. For a while – long or short I don’t really know – I just held her and waited. Finally, her heart rate slowed and her breathing calmed. In a couple of breaths I synchronised my own breathing with hers and on the fourth breath rotated her arm away from her body, coaxing her shoulder back into the socket.
To Cassie it probably felt like a single movement. Her body sagged forwards as the pain obviously increased and I struggled to hold her fully upright with just my left arm around her waist. But I was able to continue the circular movements we had been shown and on the third rotation, I felt her shoulder slide back into the joint.
On the verge of blacking out, Cassie staggered into me. I pulled her arm back in front of her body to rest, now it was reset, and tightened my grip around her waist. Her knees buckled and we both sank to the ground. I did my best to break her fall with my legs, whilst protecting her right arm as we moved. It wasn’t a bad effort: we ended up in a neat sitting position, with Cassie’s body wound inwards, wrapped inside my arms.
“Shhhhhhhh,” I whispered into her hair. “It’s done now. It’s over.” There was no answer, but I wasn’t expecting one. Cassie’s eyes fluttered closed and I held onto her as her breathing became less ragged, more peaceful. I don’t think she felt it when I kissed her head.
Chapter 9
While Cassie dozed, I let my mind wander, freely enjoying how it felt to sit here with this beautiful, albeit rather worse-for-wear, girl wrapped inside my arms. There was something exhilarating in knowing that she felt safe with me – ironic though that may be. I knew that in reality my questions and mistrust of the SS Hope would endanger her if she got drawn further into my life. But, earlier today and just now, she had trusted me to help and protect her. Cassie had faith in me.
For me, a new bond had formed between us: blossoming out of the nightmare we’d been through in that short space of time. I was bound to Cassie now in a different way than I had been. Something inside me wanted to stay this way always: shielding Cassie from anything that could hurt her.
Was this love?
My feelings for Cassie were beginning to overshadow everything else, including my desire to escape the Family Quarter. When I thought about it now, I couldn’t imagine going through with my plans – not if it meant leaving without her.
I leaned my cheek against Cassie’s forehead, blowing away a tiny blade of grass that had attached itself to her eyelash. She barely moved, just lay in my arms, peaceful it seemed. I sighed. How could I feel so attached to someone I barely knew? I had existed on my own for so long – wrapped up in my plans and theories – I had no idea that I could feel the way I did right now. This wasn’t about research, or knowledge, or even the lies anymore. It was about us. Well, it was for me… But, if I laid bare all of my secrets, how would Cassie react? Even though she trusted me, could I say the same thing about her?
I didn’t shake my head. I didn’t do anything, because I still had no answers. These questions were too similar to the ones that had been chasing themselves around my head, ever since I’d decided to follow my final path of investigation, and spoken to Cassie after our exams. I searched for something else to think about, an easy distraction from these complicated questions that I had no idea how to solve.
Without intending to, I began dissecting what had happened in the last twenty minutes. When I thought back to Cassie falling, I found myself incredulous that I’d had the strength to hold on to her, despite the genetic enhancements I’d made. Holding her weight had pushed me way beyond any of the tests I had put myself through. How far I might actually be able to go…?
Wriggling my shoulders lightly – so as not to disturb Cassie in my arms – I felt the unmistakable ache of pulled muscles. As I adjusted, I felt the burning throb further down my body: my neck, back and arms had all been pushed hard, but was it to the limit of my capabilities…?
I could lift reasonably heavy weights: I exercised in the fitness centre during my allotted physical care sessions, just like everyone else, but the weights there were limited for safety, of course. In Park 42, I’d been able to fashion my own weights from the discarded stone resin that decorated the landscape, and so I’d practised with much heavier weights, both before and after my experiment with the gene therapy. Cassie might be slim, but she was still a lot heavier than anything I’d ever lifted before.
Could there be another key factor at play, besides my training and experimentation? The only answer I could come up with was adrenaline. I’d read about it, but had never believed it was possible for a surge of chemicals in the body to make such a difference. Fight or flight…life or death… It had been one of those moments, hadn’t it?
Gently brushing a hand across the badly bandaged cuts on Cassie’s arm, I shuddered at how awful they looked. The lump on her head was still visible from where I sat half-behind her, and I thought about her blacking out. I would have to disturb her soon, just to be sure there was no danger from a concussion.
My mind moved on. Cassie had been out of it for how long…? I still couldn’t properly calculate the time that had passed when she was unconscious. I replayed the moments inside my head, trying to work out how long it had been: my words and her whispered answers echoed over one another. That was when it hit me: I saw exactly what had been wrong with Cassie’s answers.
Leaning into Cassie’s neck, I whispered close to her ear. “Are you awake?”
“Mmmm,” Cassie sighed in response.
The noise made my stomach twist in a funny way, she sounded so content. “How do you feel?”
“Better, but not great,” she replied, her voice still subdued.
I laughed uncomfortably. Better, but not great, I could appreciate that sentiment. “I think I’m in shock. I can’t believe what happened…”
“You mean you don’t drop people off cliffs and perform Field Medicine on a daily basis?”
I ignored the light teasing in her question. “No. Today has been a first for me in several areas.”
She might have said “Oh?” but I didn’t really hear properly and anyway, I needed to talk to her about what had happened – or what I thought had happened. “When you were unconscious earlier, do you remember anything?”
“Before you realigned my shoulder?”
I nodded.
“I remember everything,” Cassie confirmed.
At least she didn’t think her memory was impaired, that was a good thing. But I needed more. “What exactly do you remember?”
For several seconds Cassie was silent and I wondered whether she was going to answer me. Perhaps I hadn’t been clear in my question. Then she spoke.
“I was standing on the ledge and you were behind me about to say something…Then the edge of the rock broke away and I fell; you caught me and dragged me back over, yanking my arm out of the socket in the process.”
Well, Cassie’s recollection of that part – at least – was clear. I cringed as the last few words made my eyes close and my own memories bubble to the surface: I saw the fear in her face, her broken body and blood on my hands... My arms stiffened around Cassie’s shoulders before I could force the images away and make myself relax. Obviously, she blamed me for what had happened, and why shouldn’t she? I’d nearly gotten Cassie killed, by bringing her to this isolated place just so that I could quiz her and find out if I could trust her with my secrets. I was such an idiot. A selfish idiot, I corrected.
“I think that’s when I blacked out.”
Cassie spoke so quietly that I almos
t missed her words, too preoccupied with berating myself. Forcing my attention back to the conversation, I pressed on with my questioning. Aside from my selfish stupidity – which was a given – there was another issue to be answered. “When you were unconscious, do you remember anything before you came round?”
“You were talking to me.”
Cassie adjusted herself, as though she was trying to turn around and face me. When she winced in pain I stopped her movements, gently pulling her back towards my chest. She shouldn’t be moving yet – for medical reasons, obviously – and I allowed myself a small smile as I resettled my arms around her chest.
Our positions had shifted slightly from a moment before and Cassie’s head leaned back easily on the front of my shoulder now. I turned that way, able to see her face better, instead of just the top of her head.
“What was I saying?” I asked, once Cassie appeared comfortable.
She closed her eyes in concentration, her mouth scrunching up thoughtfully before she spoke. Then the words came out slowly, stopping and starting, with lots of pauses. “You were apologising…you were saying it was your fault…that you shouldn’t have brought me here…” Her voice changed, abruptly insistent. “It wasn’t your fault. It was just an accident – you don’t have to be sorry.”
It was nice of Cassie to try and make me feel better, even though it did nothing to ease my guilt. Her eyes fixed on mine, trying to convey the truth of her words, when she insisted, “I’m fine” again.
“You said that, before, when you were unconscious.”
“And I meant it!” Her lips pressed into a line, emphasising her words.
“You sounded like you did,” I agreed. “The problem is I didn’t say I was sorry, or that it was my fault. I only said your name.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.” Cassie’s eyes shifted left, staring past me before her face turned that way a moment later. When her head shook slightly I knew she was dismissing whatever thoughts had been there a second ago. “You said my name,” she insisted. “And that you were sorry. I heard you say it – clearly in my head – I heard you…”
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