Hispleasedoes something weird to my heart because it sounds so desperate, like he wants to look more for his sake than mine. I’m about to pull my sleeve back when I pause. I haven’t shown my bare arms to anyone before—I mean, technically, Dylan could have seen them every time we showered together, but he never commented on them so I don’t know if he noticed. I’ve always kept my shirt on around men. Unless I’m contaminated by ectoplasm and making out with Nico, apparently, in which case I didn’t even consider this before letting him rip my shirt off.
People knowing how I feel about myself is a humiliation on a level that’s impossible to come back from, but Nico already knows I died. Knows what happened to my family. He knows what it’s like not to want to exist anymore, and there’s a good chance he already saw my arms when we were in the kitchen that night.
So, I roll my sleeves up to my elbows, and his fingers probe for any signs of embedded glass with careful attention that makes my heart feel full. There are some shallow cuts, alreadyclotting, but nothing deep. His thumb pauses on the scar on my left wrist.
“On the anniversary when I was sixteen,” I say, getting ahead of the question. “I also tried when I was thirteen, but I guess some cosmic force really wanted me here.”
He wraps his whole hand around my wrist.
The hiss of the speakers across the room is quiet, but it still makes me jump.
“Subject Two will now restrain Subject One to the pole,” he almost growls, sounding out of breath.
I glance at Nico. His face has gone carefully blank.
“I’m going to need you to help me get over there,” he says. “Can you walk with me?”
I nod numbly and use the column for support as I haul myself onto my feet. The lump of the bandages sends sharp pain through my soles, but it’s bearable now that the glass is out. I slide my arm under his. He tenses, but then his weight settles against me. He’s so tall and solid. My shoulder barely reaches his armpit. If he collapsed right now, I’d go down with him, so I don’t know who I’m kidding, thinking that I’m doing anything to help.
We move toward the pole together in tiny shuffling steps. By the time we reach the center of the room, his skin is so damp that the old blood on his face isn’t completely crusted anymore.
He positions himself under the chains, reaching for the cuffs. I grab the cuffs before he can get them around his wrists.
“I’m going up there.” I raise my voice so the speaker picks it up. “You hear me? I’m taking his place.”
“Absolutely not,” Nico says, his eyes flashing with danger. He looks almost unhinged. “There’s no version of reality where that happens.”
“I’m not letting you go up there,” I snap at him. “You’re not doing this.”
“I’m your team leader, which means you’re my responsibility,” Nico clips. “I don’t let my people take hits meant for me. Do you understand me?”
I’m crying so hard I can barely see, my breath coming in these awful hiccupping gasps that I can’t control.
He lifts the cuffs from my hands, clicking one around his left wrist, and then his right. The chain links bite into my palms.
“Pull it fast,” he says. “Okay?”
I hate this. I hate that he’s the one about to hang from those chainsagain, and he’s still trying to make me feel better about it.
The chains rattle as Nico leaves the ground. I keep pulling until his feet are flat on the tile, then tie the chain to the cleat.
His head drops forward, dark hair shrouding his face as his chest rises and falls. The bandages around his feet are already darkening with fresh blood. I angle his soles toward the lightbulb until I find two tiny glinting pieces embedded in his heel. I extract them and re-wrap both of his feet as tightly as I can, as if that alone will keep his blood where it’s supposed to be.
He still tries to shrug away from the blanket when I offer it, but his arms are useless, so I arrange it around his shoulders anyway. Then I wipe his face with my sleeve until most of the blood slides off his damp skin like dark fish scales, and the cuff of my sleeve comes away tinged red.
“Eden,” Nico says, once I’m sitting back down against the column. “Can you… Can you keep talking to me?”
“About what?” I ask.
“Anything.” He makes a quiet groaning sound as he readjusts his hands. “I just need to hear your voice.”
It’s like all my bones have dissolved, and now I’m just this trembling, shapeless thing barely held together by skin. I’m usually good at coming up with random things to talk about, especially when I’m nervous, but the pain is making it hard to think.
I end up telling him how bad I was at tap dancing when I was taking classes, and how I could never remember any choreography, so my teacher would always put me in the back during recitals. I tell him about the time I wore Dad’s deodorant to rehearsal and overheard an older girl accusing her friend of hanging out with a boy because she could smell him on her. I even tell him about that day I got nervous singing, but found Dad in the audience, and he was smiling at me to encourage me to keep going.
When I’ve finished telling him aboutThe Addams Family,he asks if I could sing. I end up choosingIrisbecause I love the Goo Goo Dolls. I feel so stupid doing it, given the Game Master can also hear me, but that feeling goes away as I watch Nico’s breathing slow from those quick, panicked gasps to something close to deep and even. I enjoy the feeling of the notes and keep singing until his eyes drift shut, and his head drops forward, unconscious but somehow still managing to look like he’s listening for my voice even in sleep.
Morrow had no patience for subjects who wouldn’t play along. He simply increased the pain.
