“Parker traced you, with Phoebe’s help.” His breath felt exquisitely warm against my chilled skinsomething I thought I’d never feel again. “When I woke in the hospital and found out you weren’t therethat you weren’t even at the accidentI knew something was wrong. I got ahold of the twins, who called Kurt. They picked me up and we started driving around until they could feel you.”

“Jesus,” Kurt muttered again. “These are metal. There is no way we’re going to get them off.” He slid out of the duster and dropped it over me. “Jesus. Ember, stop shaking. You’re ripping the skin off your wrists.”

“I… I c-can’t help it.”

“It’s okay.” Hayden tucked the edges of Kurt’s coat around me. He stroked my face and my forehead with quick brushes of his fingers. A strong shudder ran through me as he brushed back my hair. “Em, I need you to open your eyes and look at me.”

I didn’t realize I’d closed them.

“I need to melt the metal to get you free.” He paused, his eyes sharpened by a protective shine. “I need you to be perfectly still.”

“O-Okay.”

Hayden glanced over at Kurt and nodded. “Make sure she doesn’t move.”

“You got it.” Kurt shifted closer and groaned. “Dammitrats. I hate rats.”

“M-Me too, b-but I think they h-hate me more,” I said.

Kurt laughed, a real honest-to-God laugh. “Trust me, that’s a good thing.”

I rested my head against Hayden’s chest as he felt around behind me. His body heat felt marvelous, so much so that I ignored the first flare of intense heat, but then I felt pain. Real pain.

I stiffened.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. “You helped us find you, did you know that?”

I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut. I should’ve thought about it more when he said he needed to melt the metal. The kind of heat needed to do that had to be ridiculous. My wrists felt like they had been shoved in an oven. Pressing my face into his chest, I whimpered.

“Em? Did you know?” he asked again, coaxing a response from me. “

N-No.”

“Yeah, you kept thinking about Mr. Theo and being in a basement. We wouldn’t have known to check down here if it hadn’t been for you. You did really good, Em.”

Searing, red-hot pain shot through my arms, but I managed not to move. Melting metal stung like holy hell. But it was working. The cuffs were already loosening.

“It’ll be just a little bit more, and we’ll be done.”

“She’s pretty messed up, Hayden,” Kurt said like I wasn’t right there. “You need to hurry up. Her leg is bleeding real bad.”