14. Chapter 14 The Clinic #3
Two ribs on the left side were cracked, not broken through but fractured along lines that shifted with every breath.
The magic found them and held, the bone sealing under my hand with a tiny snap.
The split lip closed. The black in her orbital area cleared up.
The bruise on her cheekbone faded, the dark blood under the skin dispersing and clearing.
The scraped knuckles healed over with new skin.
“Breathe in for me,” I said. “Full breath.”
She took a full breath. The first one she’d taken since it happened, probably. Her shoulders dropped an inch and her eyes closed for a second.
“What happened? These are not normal injuries,” I said.
She opened her eyes and looked at me, calm and level. Not dramatic, not performing distress. She trusted me, and she told me what happened.
“I was walking through the market on the human side of town. I had groceries. A man came up behind me, grabbed the bag, and when I tried to hold on to it, he hit me. He hit me repeatedly and then he kicked me and took what he wanted and left the rest on the ground.”
“In the market? In daylight?”
“There were people around. Nobody did anything. A woman across the street looked at me and then looked away.” Elin said it without bitterness. She said it like it was the weather. “He took the meat and the cheese. He left the bread and the fruit. I picked up what was left and came here.”
The anger sat in my chest like a fist. Not hot, not wild, but specific. A beastkin woman walked through a market with groceries and a man beat her and took her food—and nobody moved.
“Did you go to the guard?” I said.
“No.”
“How come?”
“I know what you’re going to say.” Her expression carried the patience of someone who’d had this conversation before, at least in her own head.
“A beastkin woman reporting a mugging in the human section of town. They’d ask me what I was doing there.
They’d ask what I was wearing. They’d ask if I provoked him.
And then they’d write it down and nothing would happen. ”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.” No anger. Just knowledge. “I know how it works for us. You heal people in this clinic every week, Daniel. You’ve seen what walks through that door. How many of them would have gone to the guard?”
Liv stood at the door. She hadn’t moved. Her arms were at her sides, ears flat against her skull, face still.
“Do you know who did it?” I asked.
Elin held my gaze for a long count, reading something in my face. Then she nodded.
“His name is Vaughn. He works at the river docks. I’ve seen him before. He unloads barges on the south quay. I have a friend that works there and I asked him what his name was.”
“What’s his last name?”
“Strom.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I know his face. I’ve walked past him on my way to market for months.
” She smoothed the torn strap of her bag, her fingers working the frayed edge, keeping her hands busy while the rest of her stayed still.
“I’m telling you because you asked, but I’m not going to the guard.
It is a waste of time and I don’t want to put a target on my back.
He may hurt me again if he finds out I went to the guard. ”
“Are you married?”
“No, I live by myself in the quarter.”
I nodded. The anger was building.
“Thank you for telling me. I’m glad you came in. If you need anything else, you know where to find me.”
Elin stood. She picked up the torn bag with its crushed bread and bruised apples and she held it against her side with the same arm that had been protecting her cracked ribs five minutes ago. She dropped two coppers into the jar.
“I know,” she said. “Thank you, Daniel.”
She left. Her footsteps went down the hallway, quiet and even, and the street door closed behind her.
One more patient came after Elin. A badger-kin man with a stiff neck who’d slept wrong for a week.
I put my hands on his neck and the gold did its job in seconds.
He thanked me and dropped copper in the jar and I barely noticed it.
The rest of me was somewhere else. I couldn’t get Elin out of my mind.
The clinic closed when the light through the window went amber. Liv had been quiet since Elin had come in and told her story. She seemed to need space to process.
“I’m going to the guard,” I said.
Liv looked at me. “I’m not surprised. I knew you wouldn’t just let it stand.”
“The bastard's name was Vaughn Strom. River docks, south quay. She won’t report it. I understand why she won’t report it. But someone has to.”
“I know,” Liv said again. She crossed the room to me. The top of her head came to my chin, and her ears were up now, forward and steady.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We left the clinic and walked out through the front door of the brothel and into the avenue. The sun was dropping behind the mountains and the light was gold and long and the shadows of the buildings ran out across the packed dirt in dark lines.
I turned toward the guard station and Liv fell into step beside me.