"Jesus, Sadie, what did you do?"
"She fell outside. Give me the box."
Sadie snatched the kit from him and popped the rusty latches. Inside were iodine swabs, expired gauze, and tape that had lost its stickiness a decade ago.
"You can't have bleeding people in here," Dale hissed, looking nervously at the sleeping trucker, who hadn't moved. "Health code. Boss will fire you."
"Boss isn't here, Dale. Go back to your deep fryer before I throw this iodine in your eyes."
Dale backed away, muttering about lawsuits.
Sadie tore open an antiseptic wipe. The smell of alcohol sharply cut through the grease in the air. "This is going to burn," she warned.
Without waiting for a response, she pulled the blood-soaked napkins away and pressed the wipe into the cut. The woman jerked. Her pale eyes flew open, glaring at Sadie.
"Insolent..." she hissed, though there was no real heat behind it—just pain.
"Yeah, well, you're the one bleeding on my clean table," Sadie fired back, her hands steady as she worked.
She wiped away the grime from the street. The cut wasn't deep, but head wounds always bled like a butchered pig. As she worked, Sadie noticed the details: the woman's coat, though covered in street mud, was lined with heavy, immaculate silk. The small earrings at her lobes weren't glass; they caught the harsh diner light with a cold, hard fire. Real diamonds.
Great, Sadie thought bitterly. A rich, crazy lady wandering the bad side of town.
"What were you even doing over here?" Sadie asked, tearing a strip of gauze with her teeth because the cheap scissors in the kit were rusted shut. "There's nothing on this street but pawn shops and this dump."
The woman watched Sadie's hands.