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“You can do it,” Cam urges. “You’ve fixed worse.”

“I know, but…” Folk looks at Poet again. Really looks. At the blood and torn flesh. At the magnitude of what he’ll have to do to make his brother whole. “I can’t.”

“What if⁠—”

“No.” Folk shuts Cam down and his jaw works so hard I swear I hear his teeth grind together, and the worst part of it is Poet says nothing at all.

He turns away, fixing his gaze on the horizon, and the pain in Folk’s lighter eyes cuts me to the bone. The helplessness that he cannot fix this—that none of us can without forcing Poet to face a fear he hasn’t been ready for since he woke up to a silent world.

My whole being searches for a way to make this better. Every part of me wants to. Needs to. But I can’t, and Folk’s helplessness becomes mine.

I thread my fingers into Poet’s hair, kneading the base of his skull. He leans into the touch without looking at me, his shoulders rigid in a way I’ve never felt before, rising and falling with breath only steady because he’s forcing it so.

Help him.

But how? I know that love is asking impossible things. That it’s trusting someone enough to let them carry you through a storm. My friends have shown me that. Poet showed me that the day he found me at the side of the road, even if we didn’t know what it meant yet. Why can’t I do it for him?

You can.

I swallow hard. “Po⁠—”

Light sweeps the yard. White not blue. A black car pulls up in the lane and a hooded figure gets out, bypasses the gate, and hops the fence.

The Rebel Kings move as one, a solid wall of leather and denim in front of Folk, Poet, and me. And perhaps, if I lived in their world, I would have been afraid.

But I know that car. I know that hood.

And so does Mal.

Because it is Skylar, and after months of subconsciously avoiding him, I have never been so happy to see my friend.

23 POET

My top fields are embers and smoke, and I have a headache bad enough that my eyes aren’t faring much better than my ears.

The nurse can sign.

I tell him I don’t need it. But I’m wrong. I’m too tired to dissect the unfamiliar lines of his mouth and he sniffs me out pretty quick.

He’s hot.

The nurse.

Sandwiched between him and Mal Gallagher as they work together patching me up, I’m at more risk of burning alive than I have been all night, and somehow, I manage to wordlessly communicate that to Oscar.

He smiles and squeezes my hand, but I see the same strain in him I see in my brother, and the moment won’t stick.

Skylar gets my attention: Lip read what I say. I don’t know all the signs.

Valid. I don’t think I know how to sign everything that’s happening in my world right now.

Oscar loves me.

Skylar taps my arm.

Right. I school my features into an expression that might convince him I’m paying attention. Try harder when he waits a little longer.

“I’m going to inject local anaesthetic,” he says eventually. “It’ll hurt, but not as much as stitching you up without it.”