London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(53)

Ruben pushed his fingers into Jenna's stomach.

Jack gasped and stepped forward, but Rosemary reached out and grabbed his arm, shaking her head. She mouthed the word No, and held on until Jack nodded and stepped away again.

Initially it looked as though Ruben's fingers were pressed into the wound, following the route of the bullet through Jenna's guts and towards her spine. But then Jack realised that the big man's fingers had punctured the skin around the wound, though no fresh blood flowed, and Jenna seemed to be in no more discomfort than before. The bullet hole pouted and seeped a fresh flow of blood and clear fluid, and the purplish curve of her intestine once again showed at the rip.

Ruben was concentrating so hard that sweat speckled his balding head, soaked the back of his shirt and dripped from his nose and chin. When it mixed with Jenna's blood he seemed unconcerned, and Jack started to worry about infection, the germs on his hands, and—

He's stuck his bloody hands into her gut!

He glanced across at Sparky and saw that the boy was astounded.

Ruben lifted himself up slightly, hunching over Jenna before pushing deeper. Both of his hands were in her stomach now, her light skin stretched tight against Ruben's darker skin, and Jack could barely see the join. The man's hands worked inside her, tendons flexed on his wrists, and the muscles in his forearms performed their own complex, delicate dance as he probed deeper, and wider.

Jenna groaned, still unconscious, and tried to press her hands back against her wound.

“Hold her hands, please,” Ruben said. Sparky and Emily went to the sofa and did as he asked, stroking Jenna's skin and unable to look away. Emily still bore the camera in her other hand, training it on Ruben, the wound, Jenna's face, and then turning slightly to record Jack's reaction as well.

“There it is,” the man said, his voice barely a whisper. “Now then…” He leaned closer, more sweat dripping from his face, and Jack saw that his eyes were closed. He was operating by touch alone.

Jenna groaned and said something, too distorted by pain for Jack to make sense of.

“It's okay, girl,” Ruben said softly. “Almost done, almost out, and then the lady Rosemary will do her work.”

“Have you got it yet?” Sparky said, and Rosemary threw a stern look his way.

Ruben surprised them all with sudden movement, tugging his hands from Jenna's stomach, flinging them up above his head and speckling the ceiling with rosettes of blood. Something bounced from the wall and fell behind the sofa. The fat man tried to stand but he seemed weak, and instead he slipped from the sofa and sat on the floor, breathing heavily. “It's out,” he said.

Jack rushed to Jenna, kneeling beside Sparky and Emily and looking at her wounded stomach. The tear from the bullet was still obvious and horrific, but there were no other wounds to show where Ruben's hands had entered.

Ruben was looking at his hands, gently dabbing the smears of blood that speckled them like liver spots. There was nowhere near as much as there should have been.

“Where's the bullet?” Sparky asked. He crawled around the end of the sofa and looked behind it, stretching his arm into the gap between sofa and wall. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, standing with the prize in his hand. The bullet was half the size of his thumb, squashed and distorted by the impact on Jenna's flesh.

“Move aside, please,” Rosemary said. She nudged past Jack, waited while Ruben crawled across the floor, and knelt beside Jenna.

The girl screamed, hands pressing down onto her wound once more.

Rosemary put her hands on Jenna's stomach, grew very still, and her face went blank.

“That was incredible!” Sparky said. He'd hardly left Jenna's side since Rosemary had healed the wound, and now he sat at one end of the sofa with the girl's head in his lap. She seemed to be asleep now rather than unconscious, and she had already stopped moaning from the pain. “She was dying in front of us, and now…” He shook his head.

“It's just what we can do,” Rosemary said, but she was smiling.

“It's a miracle! No bloody wonder the Choppers are hunting you all.”

“Yes, well, I'd rather not be hunted,” Ruben said.

“They told us you were all monsters,” Emily whispered. “They showed pictures on the telly and the Internet. Pictures of…monsters.”

Ruben smiled and motioned for Emily to go to him. She sat beside him on the other, smaller sofa in the room.