Iven Rusk closed the eleventh safety catch with his teeth because his right arm had started pulling toward the clinic stairs.
The arm lay across the brewery grain scale. A brass hoop pinned his upper shoulder to the platform, and two black clamps held the gray cords that had replaced part of his rifle tendons. Neither cord had moved during Nessa's surgery. Now the scale needle climbed past eighty pounds while the rest of him stayed seated.
Iven spat the catch into his left palm. "The road has found the tissue the surgeon left attached to me."
The surgeon pressed both thumbs against the hoop. "That tissue kept blood moving through your arm, so losing it will cost more than armor."
"Keeping it appears ready to cost me the entire clinic."
