Confused, I asked, “What’s wrong, Tessa?”
She sneered at me for a while and pulled her clothes up, revealing her bandaged torso, much to my shock. “When did this happen? Who hurt you?” Who was I kidding? Of course I knew who hurt them. Her wound was on the belly, after all, but still, the fact made me shudder.
I saw the rows of operating theatres in Abe’s villa, and I saw how they stuffed women’s stomachs with kyanine. The scar on Tessa’s torso told me that Abe’s men had stuffed kyanine in them.
And then I was reminded of how deathly pale they were over the past few days. And they’d clutch their stomach, holding in their pain. This isn’t the glass room’s side effect. Their body’s rejecting the kyanine. It’s an alien object. No wonder they’re looking like this.
I asked, “Are the other girls like this too?” I felt a lump in my throat.
Tessa looked at me, her lips pursed, her eyes filled with hatred. She didn’t answer my question, and I thought she hated me. I couldn’t say anything else, so I stared back into her eyes. Anything I had to say would sound like hindsight, and that would make her hate me more.
All I could do was meet up with Armond as soon as possible so I could ask him to get someone to extract the kyanine from their bodies.
I said hoarsely, “Listen to me, Tessa. I’ll meet up with Armond. I know he can get someone to take that thing out of you guys.” Then I went out. The lobby was guarded by the man who brought us in the day before.
He noticed me and said, “Please go back to your room, Ms. Stovall.”
“I want to see Armond.”
“Mr. Murphy will be here shortly. Please go back to your room.”
“Can I call him then?” I knew he’d come sooner or later, but I needed someone to take the kyanine out of the girls immediately.
The man looked at me coolly and frowned. “It can wait until Mr. Murphy is here. Please do not get in the way of my work, Ms. Stovall.”
Dammit. Now I have to wait for him. Armond only arrived that afternoon, and I quickly stopped him. “Mr. Murphy, my friends got kyanine stuffed in them. They need a doctor to take it out. That, or they have to go to the hospital.”
Getting a hospital overseas was hard, and anyone would get suspicious if they found kyanine in the girls’ bodies. It’d be bad if they looked into it.
Armond nodded and called a doctor, then he looked at me. “We don’t have an operating theatre here, and I can’t take them to a proper hospital, so I’m getting a private doctor for this.
I knew that much, and I nodded. “I know.”
Nora and the girls went into the cars with Armond’s men’s help, and I followed them, but Armond stopped me. “Stay here. It won’t be easy to get away from Abe and his men. Better safe than sorry.”
I nodded, then I realized he smelled of blood. Armond went to talk to his men who were going to send the girls to the hospital, then he came back to me. “Rest up. We’ll go back once I settle things here.”
I nodded and saw him off, then I realized his suit was darker around his waist. That’s probably blood. “Armond,” I called him.
He stopped in his tracks and looked at me, his face pale. “Anything else?”
“Did you call a doctor? For yourself, I mean.” He didn’t show his wound after he came back, but I knew he was hurt.
He froze up. “This is nothing.” He smiled at me and went to his bedroom upstairs, leaving me alone.
I stood there for a few moments, then I went up to his bedroom and knocked on his door. He opened the door a few minutes later, though he had changed into a white shirt.
I would have thought he was perfectly fine, but he was too pale to be okay. “What is it?” he asked coolly.
I hesitated for a moment before going into his bedroom and noticed the bandage and the haemostatic drug on his table. I turned back, and he coughed. “Just a small injury. Just need to be cleaned up.”
I pursed my lips. “I’ll help you.” I dragged him to the sofa before he could refuse, and then I tried to take his shirt off, but he held my hand down.
I frowned at him. “I need to tend to your wound.”
He froze for a moment, then he smiled and let my hand go. I took his clothes off, revealing the ugly gash on his waist, and blood was still oozing out. My frown turned deeper. This guy has a high level of tolerance toward pain. Looks like something slashed him. Wait, no.
