No response.
Sadie knelt on the wet pavement. The cold seeped immediately through the knees of her uniform pants, soaking into her skin. Up close, the woman smelled like damp wool, mint lozenges, and a faint metallic, copper tang: blood. It was pooling beneath the woman's cheek, mixing with the dirty rainwater.
"Okay, okay, don't move," Sadie said, her heart hammering an uneven rhythm against her ribs. She hovered her hands over the woman, unsure where to touch without breaking something else. "Can you hear me?"
A low groan vibrated from the woman's chest. It sounded like dry leaves being crushed. Slowly, the woman rolled her head. Her eyes fluttered open. They were a striking pale blue—sharp and startlingly lucid despite the trauma. Blood was weeping from a gash above her left eyebrow, trailing down the deep wrinkles of her cheek.
"Don't call an ambulance," the woman rasped. Her voice was thin, but it held a steel rod of authority.
"You're bleeding from the head," Sadie said, wiping rain from her own eyes. "I have to."
"No."
The woman reached out; her hand, though trembling and spotted with age, clamped onto Sadie's wrist with surprising force. Her nails were perfectly manicured—an odd detail that registered briefly in Sadie's panicked mind.
"If you call them, they will take me to a hospital. They will call my son. I refuse to endure that circus."
Sadie stared at her. The cynical part of her brain screamed to pull away, walk back inside, and dial 911 anonymously. Let the state handle it. But the woman's grip tightened. Her pale blue eyes were terrified—not of the injury, but of the loss of control. Sadie knew that look; she saw it in her own mirror every time the rent was due and her tip jar was empty.
"Fine," Sadie snapped, the word tasting bitter. "But you can't stay on the ground. You're going to freeze."
"Help me up."
"You probably broke something."
"I said, help me up."