She doctored the cuts, pressed around the kneecap to test for the degree of swelling and then deftly rebound it after using some of the sunburn aid, which contained the numbing agent lidocaine.
Although she needed her hands to appear beaten and weathered to keep up her appearance, she still applied topical antibiotic cream to the deepest lacerations because she couldn’t afford for them to become so infected that she became ill and was unable to keep traveling. Knowing she would—hopefully—replenish her waning water supply in the morning, she used almost all of the remaining liquid to cleanse the dirt and pieces of debris still embedded in the skin. She hadn’t dared pay attention to them, and until now, she’d been able to block out the discomfort of the embedded shards.
Now when she carefully pulled them free and poured the last of the antiseptic she carried with her over the wounds, she let out a hiss of pain and held her breath, simply breathing through it and compartmentalizing it just as she had everything else. After patting the areas clean, she rubbed the antibiotic ointment on each of the cuts and then wrapped them in gauze. Just for this little time of rest. Before she went into the village in the early morning, she would unwrap them and pack dirt over the wounds again, and she’d keep her fingers curled so her hands weren’t readily visible by anyone. They spent much of the time beneath the enveloping folds of her garment, but when replenishing her supplies, she would need her hands and they would be exposed for a short time.
Up close, it would be more obvious that her hands were injured and not those of an older woman. But at a distance, with the rest of her costume giving the assumption of what she claimed to be, no one would look too hard at her hands. No one overly scrutinized any women here. It was forbidden. And while the Western culture ingrained in her chafed at the idea that women were commanded to only appear in public completely concealed, all but their eyes, and in some regions not even their eyes could be visible, she was grateful for the extreme laws women lived under at the moment because were it not for those laws, she would have never gotten as far as she’d come.
And since younger women weren’t allowed outside their home without the escort of a male family member or an older woman, like a mother-in-law, posing as someone younger would also gain her unwanted notice. She didn’t pat herself on the back for coming up with such a good disguise in the few minutes after she’d escaped the wreckage trapping her in the relief center. She’d been operating on raw instinct. Survival instinct. And she’d gathered every bit of her extensive knowledge of the languages and customs of the regions she worked in to help her not only escape her immediate prison but stay hidden in plain sight and pray that she was able to make it to a place beyond the seemingly all-encompassing reach of the militant group that terrorized such a widespread area.
After carefully replacing all items into her sack and ensuring that there would be no sign of her left behind, she once more leaned against the rough support the rock offered and closed her eyes, trying to push back the paralyzing fear of having to go into the village and show herself, even though only her eyes would be visible.
But eyes were the window to the soul, or so the saying went. Would her terror be there for the world to see? Would the villagers know of her pain, sorrow and abject fear just by looking into her eyes? Would she have the look of someone who was being hunted, who’d been handed a death sentence? For a second time? She’d been condemned to die in the attack, but somehow she survived. Could she survive being sentenced to death again?
It’s a game, Honor. One you’re winning. You can’t let yourself think anything else.