“Ah, damn,” he said, wincing. “You’re going to need a few stitches in that.”

I groaned. “Oh no, is this a workman’s comp thing? Will I have to fill out an incident report?” I knew the answer to that. I’d damn well memorized the employee manual to be extra sure I wouldn’t accidentally give Allen a reason to write me up or fire me. Any injury requiring medical attention required a metric fuckton of paperwork.

“Sadly, yes,” he said, pressing the towel back down over my hand. “But since it was completely my fault I’ll write it up for you.” He gave me a smile. “Least I can do.”

“Can you stitch it up as well?” I asked hopefully. “There’s no way I’m gonna go sit in an ER for something this tiny.” Especially when a few slugs of brain smoothie would take care of the whole problem. Craaaaap. This meant I couldn’t eat until this whole thing was dealt with.

To my dismay, Dr. Leblanc shook his head. “Best that I don’t. However, I know someone who can do a fine job on it and save you an ER trip.”

With that he led me back to the main building, though he allowed me to hold the towel on my hand myself. I expected him to lead me out and over to Dr. Duplessis’s practice which was right across the street, but instead he shocked me by bringing me to Allen Prejean’s office.

“Allen. We’ve had a bit of an accident,” Dr. Leblanc said, contrition tingeing his voice. “Completely my fault.”

Allen frowned, eyes going to the bloody towel around my hand. “What happened?”

“Angel was setting out equipment, and I jostled her when she had a scalpel in her hand,” he said, surprising me with the mild lie. Maybe he figured Allen would still find a way to make it my fault if it came out I’d cut myself because Dr. Leblanc had startled me. Damn, but I loved the pathologist.

Allen opened his bottom desk drawer, pulled gloves out of a box and tugged them on, then stood and moved to me. I let him examine the gash, and even I had to admit it was an ugly wound for a non-zombie to have. The cut extended from the outer edge of my thumb and into the meat of my palm. It gaped open about a quarter of an inch, and I could see the white sheen of a tendon within. Didn’t hurt though. That was nice.

“Needs stitches,” Allen muttered. “Probably about five, I’d say.”

Dr. Leblanc nodded. “I agree. But any chance we can take care of that here and avoid her wasting hours in the ER?”

Allen looked up at Dr. Leblanc. “I could do it since it missed the tendon. I mean, I have a suture kit, but I don’t have any lidocaine.”

“I don’t need it numbed up for just a few stitches,” I said quickly. Allen gave me a doubtful look, but I hurried on. “Seriously, if you can stitch it up, that’ll be fine.”

“I’ll get started on the incident report while you take care of Angel,” Dr. Leblanc said as if the matter had been decided. After another couple of seconds of hesitation Allen shrugged.

“Okay, but no screaming or crying,” he grumbled. “Come on.”

I followed him down the hall and into a small, rarely used room that had become more of a catch-all storage space than the consulting room it once was.

“Have a seat there by the desk,” he told me as he looked through the cabinet.

I did so, mentally bracing myself against him being a jerk to me, or rougher than necessary, or any crap like that. Hunger poked at me, reminding me how unnecessary all this was, and I bit back a sigh.

Allen turned back to me with suture kit, wound wash, and towels in his hands, set them all on the desk and flicked on the swing-arm lamp. He folded one of the towels into a pad and set it on the desk by me. “Okay, Angel, rest your forearm there and get comfortable.”

“Thanks for doing this,” I remembered to say as I set my arm on the folded towel. “I really didn’t want to have to go to the emergency room.”

He unrolled another towel and draped it over my forearm. “Emergency room sucks,” he said. “This way you’ll be done in fifteen minutes instead of three hours.”

“You’ve done a lot of stitching?” Not that it really mattered since I wasn’t exactly worried about him botching it up. Even if he did, a slug of brains would take care of it.

Allen didn’t shift his careful focus from the wound. “I’ve gone with Dr. Duplessis four times on Doctors Without Borders rotations,” he said. “Did quite a few sutures.”

I blinked at him in surprise. “Really? Like other countries?” The instant the words left my mouth I realized how stupid they sounded.

But Allen didn’t deliver the condescending sneer I expected. “Yes,” he replied as he opened the suture kit and began removing items. “Africa, Guatemala, and Haiti twice.”

“I never knew that,” I said, frowning slightly. “Why don’t you ever talk about it?”

“It hasn’t come up,” he replied with a small shrug. He picked my hand up carefully and sprayed wound wash on it. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to sting, but I figured I’d give a slight wince anyway.

“Wow. Did you like it?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t have gone four times if I didn’t,” Allen replied. He finished cleaning the slice, then replaced the towel beneath my arm with a fresh and dry one. “I’m going again in October, but without Dr. Duplessis this time.” He pulled off the latex gloves he had on, then put on fresh sterile gloves from the suture kit.

“That’s really cool,” I said, meaning it. “Where are you going?”

“Guatemala again to work in a children’s services clinic in the highlands,” he said. He picked up the needle, then adjusted my hand on the folded towel. “Okay, Angel,” he said, speaking calmly and, to my continued surprise, gently. “Take a deep breath and let it out.”

I did so, fascinated and a teensy bit weirded out by this completely alien-to-me side of him, then watched as he did the first stitch with smooth efficiency and tied it off. He’d obviously done this a few thousand times.

Allen glanced up at me, a small frown touching the corners of his mouth. “Damn, Angel, you didn’t even wince.”

Shit. “Oh, um, I was watching you do it, and, uh, kinda forgot it was supposed to hurt.” I let out a weak laugh that sounded false even to me.

He pursed his lips, then returned his attention to my hand and began the second stitch. “Watching usually makes it worse.”

“I guess working in the morgue has gotten me really used to gore.” I shrugged. “Seems less scary to watch and see what’s going on.”

He knotted the thread. “Actually I’m the same way. I’d rather see it coming than be surprised.” He turned my hand slightly. “I think you can get away with only four stitches on this,” he stated. “It’s really shallow here at this end.”

“Okay, cool. Thanks.” I said. “I guess it’s good the scalpel was really sharp. I mean, I barely even felt it.” I winced as he did the next stitch, but when his frown deepened slightly I suspected I’d done so a fraction of a second too late.

“Do you generally have numbness in your hands?” he asked as he tied off the last stitch. “Or lack of sensitivity to touch?”

Double shit. “Nope. Not at all!” I replied brightly. I lifted my right hand and wiggled my fingers. “Totally fine!”

Allen cut the suture thread and set the needle aside. “Even a sharp scalpel hurts like hell. I know.”

How the hell was I supposed to explain it in a believable way? “Um, that arm was broken when I was twelve,” I said. “Maybe there was nerve damage or something.”

He shrugged, cleaned the wound area again, then taped gauze over the stitched cut. “Could be. You definitely don’t have normal pain sensitivity.”

“Or just used to it,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Used to getting sliced?” he asked, frowning more.

“No, um…used to getting hurt.” I hesitated, then gave him a tight and humorless smile. “Mom used to smack me around. That’s how my arm got broke,” I explained, even as I wondered why the hell I was telling him this. “She went to jail for it.” And died there, I thought. Killed herself on my sixteenth birthday. Luckily I had enough self-control to keep from sharing that lovely tidbit of family history.

But he didn’t comment on my little revelation. He wrapped up the suture kit, dropped the needle into a sharps-disposal container, stripped the gloves and placed them in a biohazard trash can. “You’re all done,” he told me curtly, sounding almost harsh after the gentler tone of before. “I’ll check it in a couple of days, but I don’t anticipate any issues with it. Keep it clean.”

“Sure thing,” I said. The old Allen was back. “Thanks for saving me a trip to the ER.”

“Don’t make a habit of it,” he replied, then left the room without a glance back.

I sat silently for another couple of minutes. Why the hell had I told him about my mom and her abuse? Because for a short time he’d been almost nice to me? Great. He treated me like a normal person, so of course I had to make sure he knew I wasn’t normal.

Taking a deep breath, I stood and returned to the morgue. After pulling gloves on over the gauze, I finished getting everything ready for the autopsy.

Dr. Leblanc returned as I was getting the body of Brenda Barnes onto the table. I hid a smile as I noted he was deliberately noisy as he walked.

“Everything go all right?” he asked.

“Went great,” I said brightly. “All put back together.”

He glanced down at my hand. “Does it bother you? We can postpone until the morning, or I can get someone else to assist if it hurts too much.”

“Oh, no, I’m cool,” I assured him. “Allen did it in four stitches. Hardly aches at all.”

Dr. Leblanc gave an approving nod. “He’s good. I know you have your differences, but anything is better than the emergency room for such a minor wound.”