She had rescued the boy, but now what? She was not cut out for this sort of responsibility. And what should she do with this new information from Tam? Would anyone take the word of a drunk child over a man with the ear of the Prime Minister? Well, get the boy to safety first. Push the rest of those thoughts aside for later.
Shouts rose and Helen raised her head, looking around for Jane. As if in a dream everything seemed to quiet and slow, the open screaming faces, the shouts, the running. Men, women, dwarvven, running, running, running. The fire and smoke behind them, on the trolley, in a long slow build.
In slow motion Helen saw the trolley slide off the tracks and skid toward her.
Then nothing.
Chapter 11
SHRAPNEL
“Helen. Helen.”
Jane was shaking her and she didn’t want to get out of bed. No, she was dreaming. Jane hadn’t lived with her in almost a year. But this was not that time, it was another time. This was at home, in the little shack of a home they shared after the war, after no Charlie. Mother was ill, had been ill for a while, and now here it was in the wee small hours and Jane was shaking Helen to say she was leaving. That fey blight on Jane’s face writhed and curled as Jane’s words tumbled from her lips and Helen thought like a lost thing inside, don’t leave me here to watch Mother die. Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me.…
“Helen!”
The sound of her name came through a great many layers of cotton. She opened eyes to find Rook bending over her. His lively hazel eyes were dark with concern as he worked over her arm.
“Thank goodness,” he said, and she had to carefully sift through the ringing cotton to pick out the words. Their eyes met, and she had the funny thought that she was home again, as in that dream. Then the wicked light flashed in them, and he said, “On second thought, perhaps you don’t want to know what I did to your dress.”
Helen looked down to see a strip taken from the peacock blue hem. “Aaaand now it’s the right length for me,” she said dryly. A dress for Frye, a drink for Alberta, a jar of slugs for Tam—her debts were mounting.
“Thought you’d rather have the blood in than out,” Rook said as he wrapped the strip of peacock blue around her arm, where it looked like a badge of war. Sound was returning now, and with it the realization that her upper arm was throbbing. Her mouth tasted of dust and hot metal. “Be glad this didn’t hit higher,” he said, and he showed her a bloody bit of sharp thing that might have made her feel faint, except she had the funny feeling that she didn’t want to feel faint in front of him.
“The trolley,” Helen said, remembering. “I was standing here, and then—Tam. Where’s Tam. And Jane?”
“They’re all right. I took them to my quarters,” Rook said. “Up we go. You can manage on your own now, can’t you?”
“I can,” she said, and a horrible dark thing opened up inside her, an echo, a voice. It was Morse’s offhand spiteful comment. Are you going to help him blow up the slums?
It couldn’t be. She refused to believe it. Rook could not possibly be that cold inside.
He was watching her, wavering there, and he did not put out hands to steady her.
“What are you doing then?” she said.
“Going in to help,” Rook said.
“I’m going, too,” Helen said. She did not know what possessed her to say it. And yet she thought she saw his hazel eyes glimmer with respect.
“Let’s go then,” he said, and with a trace of his usual levity added, “You can make a fine number of bandages with that skirt.”
“Not as many as you’re thinking,” she shot back, and the wit and raillery lay like a bright warm thing over the cold gulf that separated them.
They plunged into the destruction. It was dark and snowing and utter chaos. Frightened men and women ran through the rubble calling the names of friends, lovers, children—answered by terrible sounds of pain from those that had been hit. A woman was trying to move a smoking piece of metal off of someone with her bare hands. Several men were working to safely move the downed wires from the tracks. Ahead of her, in the shadow cast by the destruction, lay a tiny woman in a brightly flowered skirt like Helen’s mother used to wear.
Helen made a beeline to her, moving with a purpose and energy she had not felt in a long time. A metal bar lay half on top of the dwarvven woman, pinning her down. She was moaning.
Helen bent down. “Are you all right?”
The woman grunted. “Just my leg,” she managed, trying to sit up.
Helen wrapped her gloved hands in the knit skirt and shoved the twisted beam the few inches off of the woman. She saw the torn flesh and shuddered. The woman must be in too much shock to fully register the pain. “Lean on me,” Helen said, and, hoping she wasn’t making things worse, she helped the woman hobble the short distance to where a makeshift field hospital had arisen. Helen helped the woman sit down, patiently waiting her turn in the line, and thought, This is what I could do to help. She had done it before, so long ago, when she couldn’t raise a shovel herself and head onto the field.…
“Wait,” Helen promised the woman, and went to where several dwarvven were ferrying in supplies from their nearby home.
“Just get them patched so they can get home,” one was saying rapidly as he unloaded buckets of supplies from a makeshift wagon. “Fimn’s running the stretchers back and forth.”
“Broken bones are one thing,” said another. “But some are going to need the city hospital.”
“If they’ll take us,” muttered a third. “If they’re not overjoyed to hear this.”
“I hardly think—,” said the first, but then the third noticed Helen and nudged the others.
“Can I help?” said Helen. All three looked up, eyed her with suspicion. “I can clean wounds and apply dressings. I did it in the war. Debride, probe for shrapnel … if I can’t stop the bleeding or there’s a fracture I’ll call for a surgeon. I know when I’m in over my head.”
The first looked at her carefully. After what seemed like a long time but was in reality probably a very short time due to the speed at which they were working, said, “Over there with Nolle’s crew.”
“Thank you,” said Helen. She could feel them watching her as she walked in the indicated direction, stripping off her gloves.
It was still chaos there, but a controlled chaos. The groans of the wounded mingled with the bangs and thumps of people sifting through the destruction, bringing in supplies. Nolle, a sturdy dark-skinned dwarvven woman with long wavy hair, wasted no time letting Helen start working on the people being brought in. She pushed Helen toward a dwarvven man who had been struck just above his ear, the skin torn back. Helen swallowed, picked up the carbolic disinfectant, and stepped toward him. This was a thing she could do. “This is going to sting,” she said.
Nolle did not slow her own work, but gave a brief nod of approval in Helen’s direction. Despite the trouble that Copperhead was stirring up between the races, it was equal opportunity here, Helen was pleased to see, and they patched up dwarvven and humans with equal care.
It was full night now. The makeshift work lights had dimmed and been replaced three times by the time the line of people slowed. Helen’s fingers were numb as she bent mechanically for a next victim that didn’t come.
Nolle left what she was doing and touched Helen’s arm. “You should know we saved nearly everybody,” she said. “You have done well.” And then, as if it was something formal, she said, “I acknowledge our debt to you and take it on. Now sit down.”