A bolt of pain rips through my stump and races up my arm, burning through every nerve so suddenly that I let out a strangled scream. I had temporarily forgotten the pain, but it comes back with a vengeance. I hunch over my hand, trying to make the pain stop, but there’s nowhere to put it that doesn’t hurt. The agony keeps coming.
Just like that, the moment is over. Nico’s hands drop from my face. One slides to my shoulder to steady me while the other moves to grip my wrist, supporting my arm before I can jar it more.
“Focus on breathing,” he says, and his voice has shifted back to that commanding tone he uses in the field.
I try to breathe, but no amount of breathing is stopping this pain. I know pain is information. I know Dad dragged his buddy to safety on a dislocated shoulder. I know I’m supposed to be tough enough to push through this, but knowing something and doing it are two very different things when your arm feels like it’s been doused in gasoline and set on fire.
I tilt my chin toward where the other half of my hand must be somewhere beyond the red glow. “Do you think we can reattach it?”
“I can play Dr. Frankenstein,” Nico says. “But no promises you’ll be able to move your fingers after I’m done.”
I begin hysterically laughing as I picture myself with four limp fingers dangling from my hand like one of those gummy neon hands you buy at the dollar store that you fling against the wall.
“Would you still hold my hand if I can’t use four of my fingers?” I ask.
“I’ll hold your hand if you have no fingers,” he says.
I make a quiet promise to hold him to it as he carefully raises my arm above my head, explaining how it’s going to help staunch the blood flow, but it’s like I’m in the cargo hold of a ship being rocked by waves. I realize with a pang that he’s also holding his arms above his head now, which can’t be good for his hands, but when I try to move away, he won’t budge.
I need to think about something else other than my hand. Anything else.
“How do you do it?” I ask. “Your whole mind-over-matter thing?”
“There’s a place I go. In my head.” He adjusts his hold on my wrist.
I try to focus on his touch, but it’s not strong enough to drown out the pain.
“Somewhere nothing can touch me, no matter what’s happening to my body,” he continues.
“Is it where you build your walls?” I ask.
He nods, and I feel the movement against my temple. “I found this hiking trail when I was fourteen. A five-hour climb up this mountain. You can see for miles up there. I used to go camping every spring. Get up early and draw the sun burning fog off the trees.”
I imagine the crisp mountain air filling my lungs, the smell of pine sap, and the soft light that only exists at dawn. I used to tell people I’d rather die than go hiking, but now I wish I couldgo, and look out across the tops of the trees in the early morning light with Nico by my side. “It sounds perfect.”
“I used to love being in the woods until Billy decided they were the perfect place to…” He gathers himself. “I never went back into those woods. But when things get bad, when the pain gets too much, I go up that mountain in my head. Billy may have ruined those woods for me, but he never made it up there.”
I hold onto his words and try my hardest to block out the throbbing in my hand.
“Maybe this will become where I go,” Nico says.
“This place?” I ask, smiling. “Really?”
“Obviously not.” His free hand comes up to brush my hair off my shoulder, tucking it behind my ear. “This. You.”
It’s like the sun comes out on me. For a second, the pain doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the way he’s looking at me.
Morrow is going to take this from us. He’s going to rip this away from us before we even get to have it. Nico has already been through hell, survived things that should have broken him. It’s not fair. I’m done with lonely, egotistical men taking things from me that don’t belong to them.
I won’t roll over and let Nico die for me. I need a plan.
“Hey.” His voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. “Where’d you go?”
“I’m just thinking about how much I want to murder the Game Master with my bare hands.” Well, my one remaining hand.
He tips his head back against the column behind him, and he does a sleepy smile that I can see clearly now. “There’s my angry girl.”
I smile so widely at being called that.
