“You’re really that scared of blood?” Lay asked with interest as he waited for Ryeowook to finish photographing Wendy’s injured hands.  “Seriously?”

Xiumin grimaced, looking pointedly away.  Lay was behaving like a schoolchild who’d just discovered it was a snow day.

“I mean, it’s on your file and everything, but this is freaking hilarious,” the cop continued with a chuckle.  “You’re coming with me to the hospital.”

Xiumin didn’t dignify him with a reply.

“How did you manage to drink a cup full of blood with a phobia like that, though?” Lay demanded as Ryeowook packed up.

At that, Xiumin glanced across at him.  “You try drinking a cup of blood without puking,” he snapped.  “I never had a problem with the stuff until that point.”

“Karma,” drawled Lay.  “Let’s get the kid to the hospital.”

“Why do I have to come?”

Lay just smiled and shrugged.  “I feel like it.”

It did pretty much appear to be just on Lay’s whim that Xiumin had to come.  He got Xiumin to drive the police car so that he could sit in the back with Wendy, who was still pretty much hysterical and not making much sense beyond anything she’d already said, and by the time they reached the hospital, her adrenaline levels had dropped through the floor and she’d fallen asleep.  Lay left Xiumin parking the vehicle while he carried the girl inside.

Resigned, Xiumin found a parking space and then followed them in.  Lay appeared to have pulled a few strings even in the brief couple of minutes it had taken Xiumin to leave the car, and there were already nurses bustling around Wendy, who was now awake and seemed a little dazed.

“I think she’s probably going to need trauma therapy,” Lay commented as Xiumin joined him, standing there stiffly and awkwardly with his hands in his pockets as Wendy was whisked away.  “She still looks terrified, the poor thing.”

Xiumin grunted, unsure of how best to respond.

“They’re going to take her to see one of the surgeons,” Lay went on as though the atmosphere wasn’t frosty at all.  “The cuts on her palms are deep and need stitching up.  There’s some worry her tendons may have been cut and she won’t have full movement of her fingers.”

For a moment, there was silence.

“That’s a much trickier operation than on the back of the hand,” Xiumin noted eventually.  “She’d need a splint.”

“She would anyway.”

It was the last thing either of them said until a nurse came out a couple of hours later to inform them that Wendy had been moved to a private ward and would be up for receiving visitors.  Lay beckoned silently to Xiumin and they both followed the woman up to the first floor, Lay pulling out his phone to send a quick text message to somebody.

“I forgot to bring my recording equipment,” he said abruptly, stopping by the door and thanking the nurse before she left them.  “No matter.  I was going to ask you to go in and interview her anyway.”

“What?”  Xiumin came up short in alarm.  “I’m not a policeman!”

“No, but you know the people she’s going to be talking about better than I do, which means you’re going to be better at getting the right information.  They’re Suho’s people, so unless he’s Luhan’s other blood brother, I don’t see there being any barriers to you interviewing her.”

Xiumin stared.  “Do you not know who she is?” he demanded.  “She’s the one who thinks I’m abusing Semi!”

Lay shrugged, unconcerned.  “And?”

“She hates me!” he hissed, jabbing his thumb at the door.

“I don’t care.  Get in there.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Five years.”

Xiumin’s jaw dropped open before he could retort.  “Five years?” he repeated weakly.  “On or off my sentence?”

“Off if you get in there, on if you don’t.  You’re good at charming women and dealing with traumatised people.  My forte lies in arresting people, and Suho’s a big fish for me.”

Xiumin considered it for a moment before backing away.

“I can’t.  She’s not going to tell me anything.  And you’re only going to use the opportunity to bait a trap for Luhan.”

Lay rolled his eyes and took couple of steps forward.  “Information on Suho won’t affect a thing.  If he touches Semi I’ll shoot you myself, so focus on that for the time being.”

“I—”

Lay whipped off his police sergeant’s jacket and threw it around Xiumin’s shoulders, pushing him towards the door before he could protest.

“Have fun!” he cooed, taking his peaked hat off as an afterthought and putting it on Xiumin’s head before shoving him through the door.

Completely at a loss, Xiumin stood with his back against it for several moments, nervously eyeing the girl who was sitting up in bed, both arms bandaged and one in a sling.

“Ugh.  You,” Wendy complained, wrinkling her nose.

Xiumin swallowed.  “How did surgery go?”

Wendy raised both bandaged hands as best she could.  “I still have my hands.  What do you want?”

Swallowing again, Xiumin resisted the urge to shoot a glance behind him at the door and therefore in Lay’s direction.  He honestly couldn’t think of a way the situation could get any more nerve-wracking unless Byun Baekhyun decided to show up out of nowhere.

“I’m here to….”  He scratched behind his ear, the peaked cap suddenly feeling very uncomfortable on his head.  What was the correct terminology to use?

“I don’t want to tell you anything,” she snapped.  “Get them to send in somebody else.”

Xiumin was in absolutely no doubt that Lay would be totally unsympathetic if he tried to back out.  He held up his hands in a placating gesture.

“Please.  It’s my wife who was abducted.  I want to get to the bottom of this.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he cou