*Sephie*
The next two days were mostly quiet. The guys were coming and going periodically, meeting various people, gathering information. Adrik never once left me. If he needed to go somewhere, I went with him. It might seem excessive, but I was glad for it. I was still struggling with the thought of never seeing him again. Having him around right now was helping me keep those thoughts at bay.
He was still threatening to call a doctor for the wound on my hip. It was somewhat of a dull, constant pain now, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He had plenty to worry about already and I wanted to skip the doctor. I was almost finished with the antibiotics, so I was hoping it would start to feel better soon.
We were all in Armando’s gym in the morning when Ivan asked me about my hip. I was still limping occasionally, despite my best efforts to hide it. He noticed and asked me about it. Before I could even answer, Adrik said “it’s not healing like it should be, but she’s refusing to let me call the doctor. I might do it anyway and deal with the consequences later.”
I squinted my eyes at him. “It’s fine. I don’t need a doctor.”
“It’s not fine, princess. You’re limping still when you should be getting better. Let me see it?” Ivan asked. “I might be able to help. I have extensive experience with healing wounds without doctors,” he added when I looked at him skeptically.
“Ok, you’re going to have to expand on that later,” I said. I looked to Adrik, to make sure he was okay with me basically giving Ivan a view down my pants. He nodded. I pulled Ivan away from everyone, not really wanting to show everyone the somewhat gaping hole in my hip, even though I could feel their curious eyes on us.
I slid my pants low enough that I could peel back the bandage so he could see most of the wound. It was red and there was starting to be some heat to it as well, which usually means infection. I had to admit, I was starting to worry a little bit. Ivan bent down to get a closer look at it. He clicked his tongue. “It hurts you all the time, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, exhaling. “But please don’t tell Adrik. He has enough to worry about right now and he’s already stressed enough as it is without worrying that my hip is gonna fall off soon.”
Ivan chuckled. “Your hip won’t fall off, princess.”
“You don’t know. It might,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him.
“What have you been putting on it?”
“Adrik insists on cleaning it every day. I think he’s starting to enjoy torturing me if I’m being honest. But that’s it. Then we just put a fresh bandage on it. It’s like a dull ache now all the time. I cut back on the superprofen, but I want to start taking more of that again because it’s starting to hurt more.”
Ivan thought for a moment. I glanced toward Adrik to see that he was watching us, a look of concern on his face. I looked back to Ivan, hoping he would figure something out so I wouldn’t have to give in and let Adrik call a doctor. I could see the light bulb moment as he came up with a solution. He glanced down at me, the corners of his mouth turning up in a discreet smile. “Come with me,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door.
“Do you have something that will keep Adrik from calling a doctor? Please tell me you have something,” I asked, following behind him.
“Potentially. It’s an ancient remedy, but it’s worked for me before.”
I followed him in silence as he led me to the kitchen. I looked at him, puzzled that we were in the kitchen. He smirked at me. “Just wait, princess. It’ll make sense in a moment.” He checked the counters, then stepped into the pantry, looking for whatever he was looking for. He walked out, carrying a glass jar.
“Is it snack time?” I asked, somewhat confused.
He was holding a jar of honey. He handed it to me as he walked to me. “No, this is for your wound. Honey is a very good antiseptic and it has healing properties as well. People have been using it to heal wounds for centuries.” He lifted his shirt, showing me a particularly nasty scar across his rib cage. “It healed this,” he said as he dragged his finger over the scar.
“That looks like it was painful.” I looked up him, my curiosity peaked. “How do you know so much about this stuff? And about drugs in general? I remember hearing you quiz the doctor when we were up north.”
He sighed, folding his arms across his sizeable chest. He leaned back against the counter. I could tell he was lost in a memory and by the looks of his face, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant one. I put my hand on his shoulder, which made him look at me. I could see the pain in his eyes, clear as day. “Ivan, you don’t have to tell me. It’s okay. I can see that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.”
He nodded his head. “I don’t feel pain like normal people. My mother took me to the doctor as a young boy because I was always getting hurt but never felt any pain. I never cried when I would break a bone. She thought there was something wrong with me. The doctor referred us to another doctor in a larger city outside the small village I grew up in. That doctor was part of a secret military group that was trying to build the perfect soldier. He convinced my mother to turn me over so they could study me. I’m not the only one that’s ever been born this way, but we’re rare. She was reluctant at first, but they told her they would give me an education and they would even pay for my brothers and sister to go to school. We were poor, so school wasn’t really an option. She eventually agreed, because she thought it would be a better situation for me than what she could provide on her own. My father had been killed in a mining accident shortly after my youngest brother was born, so my mother was left with four kids to raise on her own.” He paused for a moment, lost in his memory. I shifted my weight back and forth, trying to find a comfortable position while I waited for him to continue. He wasn’t even looking at me, but he still reached over and set me on the counter. “At first, the people who were ‘studying’ me were mostly nice. The original doctor saw to it that I went to school, was fed, and was well looked after. That changed when a new doctor took over the research. I don’t know what happened to the first doctor, but I never saw him again. The new doctor was an asshole. He didn’t care about school. He just wanted to run tests on me all day, every day. He really didn’t even care if I was fed. When I started to refuse to do some of the tests, he would withhold food from me until I relented. This went on for years. I was 7 years old when I entered the program. I was 9 when the asshole doctor took over. As I got older and started growing more, they started training me. I knew every kind of martial arts there is by 13. When I was 15, I was transferred to a new facility, where I lived with other boys. None of them were like me, but they all had reasons why they were in the program. It was nice to have other boys my age for a while, but it didn’t last. Around 16, they started making us fight each other. If we refused, we were punished. One of the boys I fought almost died because of me. So, I started refusing because the other boys didn’t have the same kind of training I’d had and they all clearly felt pain, unlike me. They would starve me, lock me up in a room with no windows, sometimes they’d make me stay in complete darkness for weeks on end. Anything they could think of to break me. They were trying to turn me into a killer.”