“I have given up my career for six months to manage this,” Marianne snapped, leaning closer and pointing a finger at his chest. “I have watched you waste away in a machine you built because you couldn’t be bothered to behave like a normal adult. You will not speak to me like that in this room. Not after what I have done for you.”
“I’m only going to ask one more time. Take me to see Levi.”
“No. Do you hear me? Absolutely not,” she said through her teeth, jabbing him in the chest with one finger. “You are going to stay in this bed and you are going to think very carefully about the choices that have led you to this moment in your life. You should be married, I should have grandkids, but instead I’m taking care of a thirty-five year old man-child who is recovering from playing a game for six months straight because you couldn’t just — “ She caught herself and shook her head. “You should be grateful you’re alive. You should be grateful there is anyone left in this world willing to take care of you.”
I tried.
“Fine,” Asher sighed. “Have it your way.”
She was leaning over him, her throat eight inches from his face. His arm was at maybe forty percent strength thanks to whatever they had been doing to him, but the scalpel was sharp and the angle was generous.
The movement was a single upward arc — right to left. The blade caught and then it sliced through.
It’s exactly the same as it was in the game.
Huh.
Her hand went to her throat, fingers pressing against the cut as if to hold it shut, and the blood sprayed over them and between them and down the back of her hand. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it that was a word. Just gurgles and a wet gasp, then another, and then a sound that was smaller and wetter. She went down against the side of the bed.
He watched her the way he’d watched the NPCs die hundreds of times — with interest, not urgency. The sounds got quieter. Then they stopped being sounds.
Asher sat up, the scalpel still in his hand because putting it down was not a consideration he ran, and scooted down toward an arm brace leaning near the foot of the bed. He fitted the cuff around his forearm and tested his weight distribution by standing slowly. It held.
Marianne’s coat was on a hook by the door, a long, ugly taupe thing made of wool, but it would do. He put it on and tested out doing a few more steps around the room
Brace, foot, foot. Brace, foot, foot. His right leg wanted to fold at the knee every third step and he didn’t let it. He needed to be able to walk a little when Levi saw him. Levi had to know he was stillhimand that Asher was going to do what he always promised to inside the game: protect him, care for him, and make everything good for him.
Though if he wants to fuck right away, we might need to postpone a bit…I think I need to eat first.
…I’ll make him dinner.
He was four steps from the door when it opened from the other side. Paul stood in the doorway, looking down at a clipboard in his left hand. Twenty-three years married toa woman like Marianne and he still carried a clipboard like it would protect him from something. It never did. Paul was eternally a man who knew the right thing to do and did the easy thing instead. Asher had known men like Paul his whole life. They were useful.
Paul’s eyes went to the coat.
Then to the gown under it.
Then to his Asher’s face.
Then to the scalpel.
Asher flicked the blade across Paul’s cheek — a short, lateral motion, two inches, skin and nothing deeper. Paul stumbled back, both hands going to his face as the clipboard hit the floor. “Ash-Asher?”
“Get me Levi Mercer’s address,” Asher said, adding a quick smile onto the request.
Paul’s eyes moved past him and held very still, the only color remaining in his face being the blood on his cheek, then nodded a series of short, fast, stupid nods.
Asher waited, his weight was on the brace and his arm shaking — not from what he’d done, that was already settled — from the atrophy. Six months of nothing and his body was a tool that had been left out in the rain. He was going to need to fix that. But he could still hold Levi in shaking arms. That was good enough for him..
He was going to fix all of it. Get the address, get in a car, find Levi, and never ever let anything get between them ever again. He was going to fix everything.
33
Live Action Adaptations Always Suck
Thestrangerhadhisfinger inside the wound.
Levi could feel the knuckle against the shattered edge of his kneecap as a nail scraped cartilage. The sky above the tree line was the color it had been in the first loops — purple-black, with bright stars, strangely beautiful for what was happening. The stranger’s face was above him, close, those mismatched eyes studying the way Levi’s mouth moved when the pain crested.
