“Laughing hurts too.”
“It will pass. Now, I need you to lie down, so I can examine you more intimately.”
“Oh.” A frown flitted across her forehead. “Can you make it not hurt?”
“As much as I can, I will. I have to use a speculum.”
I helped her lower herself onto her back on the bunk. The curious etiquette of shielding patients from what you did to them with a cloth was absurd, especially with her. I let her see what I did.
From the bruising, she was lucky the damage wasn’t far worse. They’d strangled her, beaten her, raped her anally and vaginally.
“You have some internal vaginal injuries. Nothing has been perforated, which is encouraging. There are some shallow tears in the rectal tissue but also nothing serious. That’s almost normal for anal sex.”
She shrugged, but some of the tension left her.
They’d probably put something foreign inside her. A knife hilt pushed in past the guard was my best guess—knowing what had happened and having seen what they left.
“I can see you’re cold. I’ll have them bring more blankets. You’ll have antibiotics to take, and a pill to ensure you don’t get pregnant.” From her grimace, she hadn’t thought of that. I rummaged in the case and found syringes, needles, vials, and began to draw up painkiller and antibiotic injections. “This ship is due in port soon. You will be discreetly moved ashore.”
“My name is Charity.”
“I know.” Now it was I who hesitated. Names had power. Witches and demons loved them. I was not giving her mine. “I’ll make sure they let me check on you as needed in the coming days, Charity.”
“Help me get away? Please?” She raised her hands to cover her mouth and peered up at me, from her good right eye. Her voice had dropped from the soft noises it had made before into a strained rasp. My mouth twitched in sympathy. Her throat was purple in places.
I shook my head.
“How can you call yourself a doctor?” Her expression crumpled for a second before she sniffled and reassembled her armor. She stared at me, grimly.
“It’s still no.”
After stapling the wound, drawing a blood sample, and giving her the injections and pills, I packed up the case. “I’ll take off the handcuffs.” She wasn’t going out through the porthole. I removed them using the key in my pocket, then tucked the cuffs into the pocket with the key.
“I’m appealing to your morals. Free me. I won’t talk.”
Gently, I drifted my fingers across her temple, pushing back her hair so I could see those bruised, pretty eyes. I had an urge to touch her more than this but pulled away my hand. “We can’t free you.” I’d spilled a little truth by saying we.
She dared to whisper bitter words I could barely hear, then said, “How can you live with yourself?”
“Practice.”
She was one among many, down the years. Trying to rescue this particular girl was like taking a cup of water from the ocean.
As I walked away down the ship’s passageway, I found myself looking forward to seeing her again. Fifty-fifty she’d throw something at me.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. She seemed smart.
I would have ordered the men who raped her tested for transmissible diseases, but they’d been disposed of—ditched at sea and dismembered, their bodies sunken deep. I’d arrange testing for her at intervals.
Lost girls like Charity were everywhere. Maybe, when I saw her next, I would give her some advice on how to survive from now on. Such as, be less ballsy and confrontational? She was a troublemaker, a defiant brat. What could be done with a lost girl like her?
I ran through a few of the grubbier choices in my head: sex trafficking, the organ trade, cheap labor, and snuff films. The fraternity didn’t normally deal with criminal acts, especially not murder, and most of the board were dithering. Some of the members would be thoroughly, hands-deep in illegal activities but they didn’t reveal it.
Making her disappear was the general aim they had agreed on.
“I don’t need another lost girl,” I muttered to myself. I’d sworn off them. I’d sworn off being a savior, a peacemaker, a man who tried to influence the way the world spun in the void.
* * *