Marcus extracted a pair of latex gloves from his kit and got to work, deciding to let Tom speak. It was dangerous to make noise... possibly even more dangerous than having the light on, but it also gave the guy something to focus on other than the pain. "Yeah, I fucking get that."
Dugger was a fucking psycho, as far as Marcus was concerned, and he wasn't surprised to hear that the man had finally turned on his own people. That had been a matter of time. The guy had been quick-tempered and cruel, seeing the apocalypse as some kind of free ticket to embrace his inner delusional God complex. When Marcus had first joined up with them, anyone who wasn't deemed useful wouldn't be helped. Sentenced to die by the undead. It had been a sticking point with him from the start, but he'd proven himself quickly to be very fucking useful, so he'd had some leeway to argue. It had been easy enough to see where that road was going to lead, as Dugger began to get more paranoid and even less altruistic with each passing day. There'd already been barbs thrown around about culling dead weight in regards to Robertson, if he recalled. Not to mention some not-quite-humorous-joke about repopulation thrown in Sarah's direction.
It had been a powder keg waiting to go off, and with everyone in the group armed, Marcus had not wanted to involve himself. He'd hoped that eventually someone in the group would have put Dugger down, but too many of them had bought into his alpha male bullshit. Let him be the de facto leader just to have someone to follow. Marcus couldn't blame them, really. Hell, he sure as fuck hadn't volunteered to do the honors.
Interesting that this guy hadn't toed the party line, either. Marcus felt a brief flash of regret for not having known that. He hadn't wanted to risk pulling any shit down on himself by testing the waters before he'd split; he'd just split. But maybe if he'd known for sure who would've been willing to go with him, he could have have had someone to travel with.
It turned out that the only thing worse than traveling through a desert wasteland with certifiable shitheads was traveling through one all alone.
He didn't say any of this, however, fixated on the task at hand. Time was definitely not on their side.
"Don't move," he hissed, when Tom started to tense and seemed to twist. The kid had the right idea and was obviously trying to stop himself, but even with the headlight it was still hard to see and any movement was only making it worse. Marcus sacrificed some of his drinking water in order to clean the area as best he could. He moved confidently, having done this many times before.
"Marcus Caravahlo," he offered, flashing a smile that bordered on friendly despite their precarious situation. As if they were meeting at a bar instead of in an alley that any second could be overrun. "Look, hombre, I got a suture kit, but no time for a topical and I'm afraid to fucking move you too much. Don't want you riding bitch like this. You want this fucker closed up, I can do it right here, but you're gonna need to be real fucking quiet and bite back on some pain. What do you say?"