The crowd exploded in a cheer and the announcers started into their prewritten speech about Abraham’s exploits. The screen flashed with images of him, but I could not take my eyes off the man who walked the field.
At first I thought he was taking his time around the field for show. But after he had crossed a short distance, he began limping.
The crowd noticed it too. Cheers shifted again to strained muttering.
Before he even reached halfway around the stadium, he stumbled and fell.
No.
I didn’t pause, couldn’t stand aside. My heart was pounding with fear.
I ran out of the room and down the hall, jogging the switchbacks that took me down and around the underwork of the stadium, to the door that emptied out onto the field.
He had to be alive. Galvanized couldn’t die, right?
Even before I reached the field, I saw the galvanized from the other Houses running to help Abraham or already at his side, doing what they could to shield his body from the cameras while they helped him sit.
He was unconscious. But there was something else wrong with him. Something much worse.
He didn’t seem to be tied together right, as if pieces of him had loosened, been torn away. They were propping him up to sitting, but one of his arms was too low, not just dislocated out of the shoulder socket, but no longer attached to him at all. His torso sat wrong on his hips; his legs weren’t moving.
If they weren’t holding his head, I thought it might fall off his shoulders.
He shuddered, convulsing.
The crowd gasped, screamed.
I ran for him.
Voices yelled in my ear, voices yelled around me. I didn’t listen to any of them. Abraham was falling apart. Dying. Had this been Reeves’ plan? To kill Abraham?
I had promised to stand aside while the event played out. But I couldn’t let this happen.
“Let me through. Let me see him.”
Dotty stood in front of me and pushed her palms against my shoulders to make me stop.
“Listen to me, Matilda,” she said, low and quick. “He’s hurt. He’s falling apart. That means he’s been attacked by a House head with Shelley dust. We are going to take care of him as best we can.”
“Let me touch him,” I said, “I can help.”
“If you touch him, he will feel his body dying. He will feel his skin tearing, his bones breaking. If you touch him, you will bring him agony. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded, the shock and reality of what was happening mixing up with all the confusion and raw fury in me.
Foster was doing the most to support Abraham, and Clara was on her knees, a lavender-robed angel talking to him, comforting him.
I would make it worse, make him worse.
“Matilda!” Elwa’s voice screeched in my ear. “Get off the field now.”
I jerked my head up, expecting death to be riding down on me.
The crowd was silent. They were on their feet, and my startled face was on every screen around the arena.
The announcers in my ear called me the woman in gray. They couldn’t believe I was galvanized. They thought I had to be a fan, that my stitches were so fine and beautiful that they would not be strong enough to hold a real galvanized together.
“Off the field,” Elwa said again. “Matilda, darling, now.”
