[b]Ranch House, Location Unknown[/b]

Looking at Larke had become not unlike stepping over dead bodies: The more you did it, the less you gagged. After a few weeks of handling the husk of a man, Mina just felt dull and cold. There was guilt, too, though more guilt over her lack of emotion than her allowance of the act. 

Never looking at his face helped. 

Drake's reaction to the scene cracked her fragile apathy, and her hands trembled as she replaced the cap on a tube of anti-bacterial ointment. It was only easy to turn away when nobody was pointing. [color=#C4B14D]"They've been-"[/color] Her voice cracked, and she shoved the remaining supplies back into her pack. Dawn's summon came as a welcome relief, offering an escape from the squirming scrutiny of a third-party. 

[color=#C4B14D]"I've gotta go- Dawn needs a hand patching some things downstairs."[/color] She grabbed her bag and hurried out past Drake, not so much as glancing back as she climbed down the ladder and shut the door to the roof. Her mind switched tracks as soon as the opportunity arose, and her thoughts turned to Kovalenko as she headed out the back door and down to the basement cellar. The young Doctor had expected Montana to have ended the intruder's life, by now: It did not take a surgeon to figure out why she had not been asked to treat a captive for over a week. 

Either she was no longer hurt, or there was no use wasting supplies. 

Which was why, once her eyes adjusted to the dim light below, she was shocked to find the prisoner still breathing, let alone conscious. Her forehead creased as her brows furrowed, and she glanced from Montana to Dawn, and settled on the plate of food in front of the prisoner. 

The room reeked, and the sight of food turned her stomach more than the gore. 

Mina hurried forward after her brief pause, passing the others in the room without a word. What went on down here was beyond her jurisdiction, and nothing in her oath demanded that she speak against injustice or intervene against the actions of others; only that she aid the ailing and do no harm. 

She could at least uphold the former. 

The food was placed on the ground, replaced by a pile of supplies that Mina pulled from her bag. It took but a second to note the lines across Oren's skin; telltale signs of advanced blood poisoning. It had to be sheer willpower keeping her from succumbing to the sepsis already. [color=#C4B14D]"Stay with me, now,"[/color] she instructed, as if the weakened woman had a choice. 

The doctor withdrew what looked like a flashlight from her bag first, and clicked it on to run a blue sterilizing light over the table. A cloth was laid over that and sterilized, and the same procedure was repeated with a number of smaller tools. She shone it briefly over the surface of both of her hands before pulling on a pair of gloves. [color=#C4B14D]"Someone get me a fresh pail of water. Are there any foreign objects still embedded?"[/color]  A pair of surgical scissors ran up what was left of the patient's diseased clothing, and Mina tossed it aside. 

She took Oren's arm in her hands and turned it over so that she could swab the crook of her arm with iodine, and then drew up two syringes of liquid, one clear and the other a foggy blue: A powerful antibiotic, and an opiod to combat the upcoming debridement. She pricked Oren's skin with one and then the other, managing to find the veins despite their near-collapse from dehydration.
 [color=#C4B14D]"And bring a tall rack- coat rack or something. She needs a drip."[/color] 

She paused for a few moments to change her gloves and re-cleanse her hands, waiting for the pain reliever to kick in before grasping a pair of forceps and a scalpel. 

[color=#C4B14D]"Stop me if it's too much,"[/color] Her forceps took hold of a bit of rotten flesh around one of Oren's torso wounds, and Mina began cutting. 

[hr]

Larke was quite sure his head was going to burst. The pulsating pain drummed against the walls of his skull, the rhythmic drive under the continuous ringing in his ears. He could tell from the sheet of sweat pouring off of his body that he had a fever, but the chills that swept over him spoke otherwise. 

He was suffering from an infection, that much he knew. And his body was tired. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that his gift would not let him die from this; but in his fevered haze, it seemed preferable. The sound of people walking across the floor made his head swim. Mina was there, maybe. But he could not be sure that he had not dreamed that. He was delirious and cornered, and from what he knew from his psych rotation, those two conditions could fabricate a lot. These people who held him could have been planting thoughts, manipulating him into seeing things, even. 

It made the most sense. It made it easier to bare. 

Another familiar voice sounded, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. A friendly touch, it seemed. 

Larke's eyes opened, bloodshot and glossy. The light in the attic hurt, and he squinted at the face in front of him. Shaggy dark hair, grey eyes... [color=#cceeff]"...Kid?"[/color] His voice was horse. 

Drake was here- he recognized the boy from his time in prison. He had helped him escape, when his friends came, and then... He said he was there to help. Larke's gaze wandered to the space past Drake's body, looking for someone else. Or perhaps a logical explanation written on the wall behind him. It only added up one way.

His grimace bordered on a disbelieving smile. [color=#cceeff]"You're all... You're fucked up."[/color] He coughed, and his eyes clamped shut from the pain in his abdomen. [color=#cceeff]"Who else've you got? My ex, my cellmate- You gonna pull my father next? How about my brother? I'm sure you could find a picture of him to copy, if you-"[/color] He hacked again, and spat to the side. [color=#cceeff]"Get out of my head."[/color]