He'd never done this before.
That was the thought that kept surfacing,
unhelpfully, every time he looked at the knife.
You've never done this before.
You have no idea what you're doing.
You are a barista. You make coffee.
You debug other people's code at midnight. You do not—
"Kael."
Seren's voice. Sharp and grounding.
"Are you listening?"
"Yes," he said. "I'm listening."
He was standing at the kitchen counter, phone propped against the wall on speaker. His one good knife sat in a bowl of boiling water alongside the tweezers from his bathroom cabinet.
Three clean dish towels — the only ones that hadn't already been sacrificed. And the bottle of strong liquor a coworker had given him at the café's last staff gathering, never opened, saved for a social occasion that never arrived.
Tonight is apparently that occasion, he thought, somewhat wildly.
"Pour the alcohol over the knife and the tweezers," Seren said. "Both. Generously.
Then let them sit for two minutes."
He did it.
The smell hit him — sharp and medicinal.
"Talk me through the location again," she said.
"Left side, below the ribs. High or low?"
"Low. I think. Two — maybe three inches below."
"That's less likely to be near the liver. That's good."
"That's meant to reassure me?"
"It's meant to be accurate."
He picked up the knife. Looked at it.
"Seren. I'm going to kill him."
"You're going to kill him if you don't do this," she said, without drama. "The bullet is causing internal damage every second it's in there. You're not performing surgery — you're removing a foreign object close to the surface. I wouldn't walk you through it if I thought it was beyond you."
"You have a significant amount of faith in someone whose greatest medical achievement was removing a splinter."
"Kael." Her voice dropped a fraction. "You're the most functional person I know. Your hands are going to shake and you're going to do it anyway. That's what you do."
He stood there for a moment.
Looked at the knife.
"I hate you a little right now," he said.
"I know. Take the knife. Go."
He crossed the room and crouched beside the man.
Up close again — the pale skin, the shallow breathing, the absolute stillness. He'd moved the blanket aside and pulled up the ruined jacket. The wound was visible now in a way it hadn't been before. Kael looked at it for exactly one second before he made himself stop looking and start thinking.
"Talk to me," he said.
"Entry point — can you see the wound clearly?"
"Yes."
"Swelling? Any heat in the surrounding tissue?"
He checked. "Some swelling. Not severe."
"Good. The bullet hasn't shifted deep. It'll be close — a centimeter, maybe two below the surface. You're not digging. You're coaxing. Small, controlled movements. Don't fish. If you don't feel resistance in the first two centimeters, stop and tell me."
"Don't fish," he repeated, his voice remarkably even considering everything. "Fantastic surgical instruction. Absolutely brimming with confidence."
"Kael. Breathe."
He breathed.
He pressed a clean towel against the area, clearing the surface. Then poured a small amount of alcohol directly over the wound — the man's body tensed, a faint involuntary reaction — and Kael froze.
"He reacted."
"Good. That means response. Keep going."
Kael picked up the knife.
His hands were shaking.
Not violently. Just that fine, uncontrollable tremor of adrenaline that had no interest in his plans for stillness. He could feel it in his fingers, in his wrists, in the way his grip kept needing to be recalibrated.
What if I kill him?
The thought arrived, clear and awful.
What if I do everything right and it still doesn't matter? What if I reach wrong, press too hard, miss something she doesn't know to warn me about—
What if he dies here, on my floor, because I wasn't enough?
He knew what it was to not be enough.
Had been told — in quiet and in shouting, in paperwork and in silence — that he was less than what was needed. The wrong thing in the wrong body. Someone else's problem now.
He'd spent nine years being enough anyway.
Out of spite, mostly.
Don't die, he thought, directed at the man with an intensity that surprised him. I don't know you. I don't want to know you. You've made tonight extremely complicated, and I would very much appreciate it if you stayed alive long enough for that to be your problem instead of mine.
He made the cut.
Small. Controlled.
The man's body flinched — a sharp, contained movement, a sound that wasn't quite a sound pressed behind locked teeth even in unconsciousness.
"Steady," Seren said quietly.
"I'm steady," he said, which was only partially true, and switched to the tweezers.
The next ninety seconds were the longest of his life.
He worked in silence, jaw tight, Seren's voice a low steady current beneath the rain and thunder — a little left, stop, feel for resistance, there, gently — and he followed it with the focus of someone who had decided that falling apart was simply not scheduled for tonight.
Thunder cracked. The walls shook.
He didn't flinch.
He felt resistance.
"I've got it," he said. His voice was strange to his own ears — flat, concentrated, barely his.
"Slowly."
Slowly.
It came free.
Small. Dark. Unremarkable for something that had done this much damage.
He set it on the towel and applied pressure immediately — clean gauze, heel of the hand, consistent — and looked at the man's face.
Pale. Slack.
Breathing.
Still breathing.
"Done," he said.
"Good. Pressure — firm and constant. Don't release for at least four minutes, regardless of what it looks like."
He held.
One minute.
Two.
He watched the chest rise. Fall. Rise. Fall—
And then stop.
He stared.
"Seren."
"What?"
"He's not—" He pressed two fingers to the
man's neck. "The pulse. I can't—"
"Where are your fingers?"
"Side of the neck—"
"Move them. Down and slightly forward. Press firmer."
He moved. Pressed.
Nothing.
Nothing.
"Seren, I can't find it—"
"Stay calm. Other side."
He switched. Pressed.
The world contracted to the space beneath his fingertips.
A beat.
Faint. So faint it was almost nothing.
But there.
He exhaled — long and shaking.
"There," he said. "It's there. It's — very weak."
The line went quiet for a moment.
When Seren spoke again, her voice was soft.
Not cold. Not clinical.
Just honest.
"Kael." A pause. "If he dies now — there's nothing else you can do."