“James,” he says. “Let’s go.”
22
Rosabelle
I never make it to the surface.
I’m shoved roughly back inside my body, blood and organs jammed into their flesh casing, but the fit is all wrong. My skin feels strange, like it’s been pulled on incorrectly, catching on sharp corners. It’s as if my lips have been stretched over bone instead of throat, my eyes seated over muscle instead of nerves.
I can’t see.
I make out only flaring lights and smears of movement. I feel my eyelids fluttering desperately, my head whipping back and forth. I open my mouth but I can’t speak. My airways feel strangled, as if I’m drawing in oxygen through mesh. Sounds are muted and tinny, voices carrying as if from miles away.
I try to scream.
The sound is guttural. My body torques as I fight for breath, growing lightheaded as the effort fails. I try to lift my hand but my leg spasms, connecting painfully with something solid, the sound of glass shattering as if from afar. I try to scream again but I have no mouth, my voice stuffed inside a throat with no outlet. I can only make deep, mournful sounds of agony. I crane my neck, my blind eyestracking light and shadow as a low keening pushes through my chest.
Panic is cratering me.
I wrench myself, trying to sit upright, but there’s no sense to it; my head slams into something hard, pain exploding between my ears and I whimper, seeing stars, as a faraway scream pierces the fog.
I’m trapped inside my body.
I cry out again, thrashing, but the sound is muffled and faint; it’s as if webbed flesh has grown over the opening of my mouth. I feel hot tears burning skin, my nerves flaring too bright, the settings dialed in all wrong.
I don’t know what’s happening.
Pain and terror are suffocating me. I know I need to calm down but there’s a disconnect between my brain and sinew, a confusion in communication. I can’t shut down, can’t grasp my own mind long enough to pull the plug. I hear my heart beating but feel it in my teeth; I try to touch my face and this time my arm flings out, smashing into something that causes pain to flare, white-hot, along my skin.
Blood.
I think I’m bleeding.
There’s a muted clatter, a rush of distant commotion, the vague impression of screaming, but the only sounds loud enough are in my head. I make out the pitiful whine of my own broken, stifled sobs, my fears growing greater with every passing second. I can’t find my fingers. I’m starting to feel faint from a lack of oxygen.
I jerk what I think is my head, then my limbs, the results uncertain. I’m hyperventilating. I try to reason with myself, to remember myself—but I can’t remember where I am or how I got here. I have no idea whether anyone can help me. I don’t know how to escape this prison of my own flesh—
Weight collides with me, hands everywhere, pushing me down. I scream badly. I smell leather, choking out sounds of terror as I’m jerked around, the pull of harnesses tightening like bands across my body. Voices grow louder, sharper—
No, I try to say.
NO—
I’m wild, bleating like an animal; I try to free myself and something solid connects with my head so hard it separates time. Sounds drag, stuttering, elongating screams as pain erupts inside me; lights flicker as if in slow motion, reverberations trembling like the sluggish tempo of a song.
I slacken, my head spinning.
I think I’m choking on my own tongue, drowning as I fail to draw oxygen. I’m strapped down so tightly I can only spasm. I gasp for air as I push my eyes wider, as if the effort might cure my blindness. The din around me grows louder and louder, voices merging into a body of distorted sound.
I try again to scream; it sounds like a sob.
My chest is caving in. I can’t feel my legs. Weight on me again, hands and hands and I cry out, choked, my head thrashing back and forth, light shattering into sparks, hands and hands on my arms and legs, on my throat, the tug of harnesses—
Rosabelle?
The sound of my name reaches me as if through space, separating from the mass of unintelligible noises, and I realize it’s been spoken into my ear.
I stiffen.
