He could feel every single nerve ending as the arrow turned despite their grips.

As it turned out, he did indeed need that leather strap. Instead of throwing his mouth wide to scream, he bit down on the pain, and the scream echoed around within his body. He could feel his scream burning through him.

Riot straightened and craned her neck to see how he was holding the arrow.

“Dang it, son, don’t grab the shaft, grab the feathers. You need friction to hold it steady. Hold it tight.” She chuckled and added, “Pretend you’re holding the Lost Girl’s hand.”

Several biting remarks occurred to Chong, but he did not have the breath to speak them. Instead he shifted his hand position, clamped down harder on the leather strap, and waited for her to try again.

She gritted her teeth and channeled her strength into her fingers.

The arrowhead did not turn. The whole shaft shifted inside the tunnel of flesh. The pain was every bit as bad. Chong screamed a muffled scream of torment, sucking in the sound, feeling tears and sweat burst from him. Feeling the heat of fresh blood on his stomach and back.

“It’s stuck like a boot in mud,” growled Riot needlessly. She tried again. And again.

Chong could feel nausea washing around in his stomach, but he did not dare give in to it. If he started vomiting now, it would make everything worse.

“Y’all want me to stop?” asked Riot.

Chong did. He really did. He wanted to tell her that. Maybe beg for her to stop. Stopping was the only sane choice.

“N-no . . . ,” he wheezed, forcing the word past the leather strap.

Riot leaned over and looked at him for a moment, studying his eyes. There was a strange expression on her face that Chong could not interpret. She gave him the smallest of smiles and a tiny nod, then bent back to her work.

Riot tried again. And again. Over and over, and each time it was worse than the time before. Chong wept unashamedly.

Then . . .

“It’s turning!”

Suddenly the pain and the awkward, terrible shifting of the arrow in his body changed. The arrow became almost still except for a faint tremor as the arrowhead turned and turned on its threads.

“Got ’er done!” cried Riot.

Chong closed his eyes and collapsed back, soaked with sweat and exhausted. The arrowhead was one step.

It was the easy step.

There were two more.

Riot got up and ran to the fire. She wrapped a piece of cloth around the knife and removed it from the fire. Three inches of the blade glowed yellow-white. She hurried back to Chong and knelt in front of him.