Chapter 303
After the fight they had just endured, the place was an absolute wreck. The front door was completely destroyed, and debris was scattered all over the floor. One glance was enough to tell anyone that a massive battle had just taken place here.
In a way, Liam had essentially lost his home.
Aaron followed Suzy’s gaze, scanning the room, and fell into a silent contemplation of his own. Several pieces of furniture were riddled with bullet holes, and Janine’s uncleaned corpse still lay by the doorway, blood pooling around her body. The entire apartment looked exactly like a grisly crime scene.
Remembering something, Suzy waved Aaron over.
Due to the severe blood loss, her voice sounded incredibly frail and quiet. To hear her properly, Aaron proactively leaned closer. "What is it?"
Suzy pointed in Janine’s direction and gestured to him. "Could I trouble you to take care of her body? I’m worried Noah will see it when he comes out, which wouldn’t be good."
As she spoke, Suzy glanced toward the bedrooms.
Noah had been very well-behaved, staying inside his room without coming out, the door shut tight. However, he surely knew what had happened out here; the commotion had simply been too loud. The little guy was sharp as a tack—if the silence dragged on for too long, he would eventually come out to check on things.
Janine’s corpse was a gruesome sight, and Suzy was terrified that if Noah saw it, it would give him nightmares for weeks.
Children just didn’t have that kind of resilience, and since Noah was still so young, Suzy hoped to shield him from these things as much as possible. If her physical condition hadn’t been so poor, she would have cleaned it up herself instead of asking Aaron for help.
Realizing what she was getting at, Aaron gave her a complex look, then nodded. "Alright. I’ll take care of it now."
He walked quickly over to Janine’s body to handle it, dragging the corpse out of the apartment and into the stairwell. The blood smeared across the floor, leaving a long, gruesome trail behind that looked even more menacing than before.
Suzy had been keeping an eye on his progress, and her mouth twitched at the sight. How did his clean-up make it look even more terrifying?
Still, Aaron seemed to know what he was doing, so Suzy stopped watching. She scanned the apartment once more and let out a heavy sigh.
It was going to be hard for Liam to keep living here. The front door was smashed to pieces, and much of the furniture was shot to hell. Fortunately, the bedrooms hadn’t been affected. But living in a bedroom without a front door was highly dangerous; bedroom doors were far flimsier than main entrance doors.
Oh well, she would just have to wait until Liam got back and see what he wanted to do.
Suzy pushed the thoughts from her mind and looked down at her injured shoulder. She could feel that the bleeding had slowed down significantly.
Without drawing attention to herself, Suzy quietly pulled a bottle of spiritual spring water from her space and chugged it down. Only after swallowing the water did she finally begin to feel a bit better. The vitality she had completely lost to the bleeding was finally being replenished, restoring some strength to her body so she didn’t feel as hollow as before.
The spiritual spring really was a lifesaver!
Suzy adjusted her posture, preparing to tend to her injury. The medical kit they had used earlier today was still sitting on the table. She couldn’t help but feel incredibly unlucky—getting injured twice in a single day.
Fortunately, the medical kit hadn’t been damaged; it sat completely intact amidst the chaos on the coffee table. Suzy opened it up and rummaged through to find the supplies she needed.
Moving over to the side, Suzy tilted her head to look at the wound on her shoulder and began trying to unwrap the gauze. However, treating her own wound proved to be extremely awkward. She fumbled around for quite a while but couldn’t manage to undo the bandages on her shoulder. Instead, her attempts kept tugging at the wound, making her grimace and hiss in pain.
At that moment, the wound—which had finally stopped bleeding—showed signs of oozing blood once again.
Suzy found herself at a total loss.
Right then, Aaron’s voice rang out. "Let me help you."
While Suzy was lost in her own dilemma, Aaron had already finished dealing with Janine’s body.
He moved incredibly fast, having even wiped away the bloodstains on the floor. However, Suzy’s attention was entirely focused on her own injury, so she hadn’t noticed any of it.
By the time she heard a sound, Aaron was already by her side.
Suzy looked at Aaron, and Aaron looked back, waiting for her answer.
"Alright, thank you."
Suzy resigned herself to her fate. There was absolutely no way she could treat the wound on her own, and dragging it out any longer wasn’t an option. There was no telling when Leonard and the others would return; rather than just wasting time like this, she might as well let Aaron help.
Aaron glanced at her and said softly, "I’ll be very careful. If it hurts, remember to tell me."
"Okay."
Aaron quickly cleared off a section of the table and laid out the necessary supplies one by one. Iodophor, gauze, cotton swabs, hemostatic powder, and scissors were all neatly arranged on the tabletop. His movements weren’t particularly practiced, but he was incredibly thorough.
Next, he picked up the medical scissors to sanitize them and inspected Suzy’s wound.
"The gauze is stuck to the wound. It might hurt a bit in a moment." Aaron’s voice was much softer than usual, carrying a hint of reassurance.
"I know," Suzy nodded. She tilted her injured shoulder slightly toward him. By now, the clothes around her shoulder were completely soaked in blood.
"I’m going to start now."
"Okay."
Aaron used the scissors to gently snip open the fabric. Even the slightest tug brought a sharp, stinging pain, causing Suzy to catch her breath.
Noticing her reaction, Aaron paused his movements. "Are you alright?"
"I’m... fine," Suzy managed through gritted teeth. Even if she wasn’t, she had to be.
"I’ll keep going then."
"Okay."
As the fabric was peeled away from the wound, Suzy’s brow furrowed sharply and her knuckles turned white from clenching her fists, but she didn’t make a sound. It wasn’t just "a bit" painful—it hurt terribly.
The sensation of peeling gauze away from torn, sticky flesh was something Suzy never wanted to experience again. Though she could tell Aaron was being as gentle as possible, it did nothing to ease the agonizing pain.
"Done," Aaron said, letting out a sigh of relief.
Suzy also exhaled heavily.