XV
Y/N burst into the hallway and immediately went straight to the closest washroom she could find.
She felt delirious from the lingering pain and the drinks she had.
Cold water. She needed to splash her face with cold water.
Multiple times, she lost her balance and had to grab onto the wall for support.
She noticed that the halls were visibly empty, missing the high security that should've been there. But she didn't care.
Throwing open the doors, she rushed over to the sink and began to dry heave. Her breaths were short and laboured. She looked at her reflection and almost wanted to laugh. Dressed as properly as she was, she looked like a complete mess. What a joke.
The back of her neck throbbed, and it was then that she remembered the blinding pain that radiated from there.
Ever so gently, she lifted her hair up to see what on earth had caused her such misery.
And when she looked at what was reflected back at her, she froze.
She didn't move a muscle, didn't blink, didn't breathe.
The deafening silence in the washroom reverberated in her ears.
And then
she laughed.
"Irene, I've had way too much to drink tonight. I'm actually hallucinating. I didn't expect it to feel so real. I swear after this, I'm never touching a bottle of liquor ever again."
She removed her mask and splashed her face with water.
She instantly felt herself relax and sober up.
The pain was slowly fading away, and she let out a breath of relief.
Realizing she needed to cool down, she decided to wash her arms and neck.
She rolled her sleeves up and began. But when she got to her neck, the mark was still there.
"What the fuck?"
She scrubbed at it vigorously, but no matter what, it remained the same. And now that her focus was better, she began to realize what was happening.
"No, there's genuinely no way. This is a joke. NO NO NO NO NO!!"
Her arms flew away from the mark as if it were poisonous. Her nausea from mere moments ago began to return, and she looked at her reflection in horror.
"OH MY GODDESS, OH MY GODDESS!"
Although she had only seen it once, the mark staring back at her was unmistakably familiar. It was already bad enough that she had a mark at all, but out of everyone in the world, it was LENNOX?
A large explosion sounded throughout the entire palace and made Y/N jump in her skin.
The sound of screaming could be heard, and multiple pairs of footsteps ran past the room she was in.
Y/N's heart was pounding in her chest. She had to get out of there.
Whatever had just happened couldn't have been good, and she knew her help was going to be needed.
Tying the mask back on her face, she ran out of the washroom and saw smoke coming from the direction of the ballroom. She turned and ran in the direction of her room. She wasn't going to be any help dressed like this. And a part of her wasn't ready to deal with the repercussions of tonight.
She quickly changed out of her gown and into her healer's uniform. While she was pulling her arm through the last sleeve, a knock sounded at her door.
"Y/N! Y/N! ARE YOU IN THERE? HEALER ELLIS SAID TO COME GET YOU IMMEDIATELY!"
She opened the door to be met with a panicked Dante. When he saw her, his face was pure relief, and he pulled her into a hug.
"Thank Irene, you're safe. I was so worried you would get trapped in there. Come quickly, they need our help."
Y/N nodded, and the two sped off to the explosion site.
——— ??ˋ ? ?ˊ? ———
What greeted them was a gruesome sight. Guards were helping the nobles escape the ruins, healers were helping the most critical patients on the floor some distance away, and ladies' maids were comforting children who were crying from the explosion. It was terrible.
Dante guided her to the special patients part of the physician's wing, where they met with Healer Ellis and several other senior healers Y/N hadn't had the privilege of working with so closely yet.
"Healer Ellis!" Y/N called out to her.
Turning around to face Y/N, she was able to see the patient she was actively working on. It was Anna. Y/N's eyes widened ever so slightly in recognition. Her arms had several deep cuts on them.
"Y/N! I need you on standby for a patient. Once I've patched up the princess, I'll join you shortly."
"P-Princess?"
Anna.
The crimson masked woman from tonight.
Anastasia Hawthorne.
Lennox's older sister.
The man she had badmouthed right in front of her.
She mentally facepalmed.
"Who am I on standby for?"
"LET ME GO!"
A voice rang out over all of the commotion.
"LET ME GO! SHE'S OUT THERE! SHE COULD BE IN DANGER! LET ME GO TO HER!!"
Two guards came in, pulling a resistant Lennox along with them. His face was flushed with rage, and he seemed to be putting up a pretty good fight against the two guards. Y/N could tell they were struggling to stay balanced with how much Lennox was thrashing against them.
"Your Highness, please! This is for your own good."
"NO! YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. SHE WAS JUST HERE. IF A SINGLE HAIR ON HER HEAD IS HURT, I'LL HAVE YOU ALL HUNG FOR GOING AGAINST ORDERS!"
Anastasia looked at her brother in worry. She had never seen her little brother lose his cool like this. She knew him to be an even-tempered man, even if that was the opposite of him as a child.
Healer Ellis motioned her head towards Lennox, and Y/N felt her blood run cold. Him.
The guards put Lennox down on one of the beds, and he immediately tried to stand up, wincing from the pain radiating from the left side of his abdomen. He quickly tried to make a break for the doors, but the guards overpowered him and had to use all of their strength to hold him in place.
Y/N quickly ran to get the appropriate salves and tools.
She didn't have time to think about what awful predicaments she was put in, one after the other.
Right now, her only worry was making sure the prince healed properly.
Her hands shook as she brought everything to the table next to his bed.
She had only ever practiced on silicone pads or dummies, not an actual living human.
And certainly not on the future King. Her body was more stressed than for any exam she had ever taken before.
Lennox continued to thrash and throw obscenities at the two guards. When he noticed Y/N come into view, he scoffed.
"Don't even think about it. I would sooner die than let you use me as a guinea pig."
When he noticed Y/N didn't react to his comment and continued prepping, he became even more frustrated.
"Did you not hear me!? Don't you dare come close to me, you witch!"
The guards turned to each other in surprise. They had never seen the prince speak so disrespectfully to a woman before.
Finished arranging all of her tools, Y/N walked over to the sink to scrub all the way down to her elbows.
Grabbing a sterile cloth, she dipped it into cool water and approached the bed.
Lennox looked at her with a mix of disgust and disbelief that she seemed unaffected by his words.
He tried to shift his wounds away from her view, and Y/N sighed.
Quite frankly, she was the most exhausted she had ever been in her life. Her world had been tilted on its axis by tonight, and she truly had no idea what to do with herself. The Prince's cruel words went in one ear and out the other.
"Struggling will only make this hurt more."
Lennox's eyes widened in... fear?
Y/N unbuttoned the rest of his dress shirt to give her better access to the wound. She noted a large gash on his right lumbar region, with many minor cuts spread across his right arm and side. The explosion must've happened to his right.
His chest rose and fell in indignation.
"This is going to hurt," she stated.
She began dabbing at his wound with the clean cloth, and she noticed the way he took a sharp inhale of breath.
She continued until she had gotten rid of all of the visible debris.
Then, to be extra safe, she used a saline solution to do a second cleansing of the area.
She stepped back to check her work, and when she was satisfied with the cleaning job, she looked up to face him.
His expression was one of exhaustion and defeat.
"I won't be able to give you an anesthetic, so this will be quite painful. I promise I will try to be as quick as I can."
"What do you mean you can't-"
Y/N inserted a needle at a 90-degree angle into his skin, and Lennox groaned in pain. True to her word, she tried her best to be as quick and accurate as possible. While she could admit seeing the prince in pain didn't bring her guilt, she didn't want to prolong her time with him.
Be good, be fast, and get out of there.
When she was finished suturing him, she trimmed the wire and left a little tail to make it easier to remove later down the road. Pulling her gloves off, she noticed he was just staring up at the ceiling now. He didn't fight, didn't argue, he just lay there.
Ok, maybe she did feel a little bad. But still, screw this guy.
The rest of his wounds were not as severe, so she simply disinfected them all and applied one of her healing salves that had done well through trials. When she spread it across the wounds on his chest, she missed the way his eyes had moved to look at her.
He noted the way her eyes squinted ever so slightly in concentration, the way her hands shook as if she was afraid to make the tiniest mistake, and the way she pursed her lips whenever she would come upon a surprisingly deep cut.
His abdomen hurt like hell, although he supposed he couldn't put all of the blame on her.
Her lack of use of an anesthetic was certainly causing the brunt of it, though.
The prospect of her being the one to take care of him had horrified him.
He had mentally started writing his will, leaving all of his assets to the mysterious woman from tonight.
He didn't want to die without having ever spoken to her.
But when Y/N spoke, her confidence had caught him off guard.
And while he didn't want to admit it, he feared the pain he was going to face.
She had every opportunity to make this needlessly painful for him.