“And I can’t watch you jerk, can I give you a cigarette? Give him a cigarette.”

“Thanks.”

“Smoke already…”

Chapter four

Vitor Kors and Nikto (continued)

Balthazar Nate, an old prison doctor, was skeptical about Nikto sitting in front of him in a chair.

“Nah,” he said thoughtfully, “young man, don’t stoop so, sit upright, straighten your shoulders.”

“I think he's having withdrawal already,” Kors said a little nervously.

“Yeah… Where do you find them,” the doctor shook his head, “after all, how many times I have seen them, and every time I never cease to be surprised!”

Once again, Nikto raised his handcuffed wrists and scratched his nose.

“Extend your hands to the doctor, he will give you an injection now,” ordered Vitor Kors, and Nikto dutifully extended his arms forward.

Balthazar rolled up his jacket sleeve and, bumping into a shell of steel bracelets, rolled his eyes:

“Here it starts! Hey!” He called one of the guards. “Open these bracelets to me here and here.”

“Painted face. One of the people of the prince?” He turned to Vitor Kors, “What makes them all make their faces gray?”

“Apparently he is,” Kors nodded, “and it’s a sign of belonging.”

“Done,” the soldier reported, demonstrating Nikto’s arm, freed from the bracelets and strips of black cloth from the wrist to the elbow.

The three of them involuntarily stared at the picturesque picture of all kinds of patterns and drawings, interspersed with disgusting looking in some places, barely protracted, and in some places continued to fester ulcers. The old doctor grunted and inserted a needle into one of the barely healed veins. Nikto gritted his teeth.

“You see,” said Balthazar Nate, as if giving a lecture to students, “the main veins died and secondary ones took on their functions, this compensation is very interesting, and speaks of the limitless possibilities of the human body.”

“You are not stabbing yourself in the arm yet, if I understand correctly?” He turned to Nikto with old-fashioned politeness.

“No, I stab,” Nobody said, often blinking, “but more often in the neck.”

“That's right,” the doctor agreed, “we will stab you in the neck,” he smiled, “shall I look?”

Leaning towards Nikto, he moved the slave collar to the side, now it became clear that where the dye ended under the chin, tattoos started again.

 Vitor Kors laid the portrait of Iness on the table, face down, as if to prevent her from seeing this.

“Why all these drawings?” as if he asked himself, somehow sad.

Nikto rubbed his eyes with his hands.

“These are tattoos,” he said grimly.

“I know!”

“Surely his whole body is covered with them,” the doctor made an assumption, “and his face, too. This is was the “Lower” with all its identification marks: earrings in his nose, tattoos, overwhelming fascination with drugs… which would cost a lot to our prison infirmary…”

“And the face?” Asked Vitor Kors.

“What difference does it make? This is my face!” Nikto tried to snap back. But it was evident that he didn’t like these questions and the words of the doctor, and he was upset.

Kors exhaled noisily and ran his palm from his forehead to his chin, as if trying to erase fatigue. He closed his eyes.

“Well, the young tattooed man, do you feel better?” The doctor smiled.

“Yes, a little.”

“Well, so sit still, after all!”

“The insides, the stomach, I can’t…”

“Everything hurts? Is the liver infected?”

“Yes.”

“For a long time?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you wrote me this drug here?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The doctor again took up the syringe, Nikto clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.

“Nips a bit, right?”

“I usually dilute it with more than just purified water,” said Nikto.

“I know,” the doctor smiled, “but it's more interesting, isn't it?”

 Nikto bent, holding his hands to his forehead, then folded his hands in a boat, covering his eyes.

“Yes, and look at what is with his eyes,” Kors recalled, his face was somehow distorted, “he told me that he didn’t see us.”

The doctor pressed on Nikto’s forehead, throwing his head back, removed his palms from his eyes:

“Look at me, a young man from the very, most “Lower”, below than nowhere.”

“Just don’t shine in my eyes!” Nikto literally shied away from the old man.

“What?! Stop twitching like that!”

“Don't shine in my eyes,” Nikto prayed.

“Don't,” said Vitor Kors, “don't shine.”