He hadn’t known what exhaustion was until now. Every drop of energy had been kicked out of him, and every second he remained standing up seemed like a triumph.

Robin left Amber without a word, and clattered up the stairs as fast as he could, getting to his door.

He dug into his pockets, not at all surprised to find everything still there. Phone. Keys. Wallet. Of course they hadn’t taken anything. That hadn’t been the point. They had beaten him for Standedge. They had beaten him because he hadn’t left yet. They had beaten him to send a message. He pulled out his keys and took one jab at the lock, thanking God he got the key in the lock. He was seeing about five versions of it.

He entered his room, staggering a few steps and then slipping on something on the carpet. He was momentarily airborne, before his arse connected with the floor with a sharp whack.

“Arrrggh,” he managed. He scooted around on the floor to see what he had slipped on. At first, he thought that someone had posted about ten paper notes under his door. No, hundreds of them—uneven and ripped. And then he saw a colored page. It was one he knew well and he picked it up to make sure. A picture. It wasn’t paper—it was stronger, and it was ripped in half. He took the two pieces and held them up next to each other. The blue cover with the pictures of her. Without Her by Robin Ferringham. Someone had ripped up an entire copy of his book and posted it under his door.

It was a slightly vaguer message than the beating, but still undoubtedly nothing good. Robin laughed at that, despite himself—despite everything.

He got up and went into the bathroom. He didn’t want to, but he forced himself to look in the mirror. He understood why Amber had winced when she looked at him. He looked like a Picasso painting—his left eye was not just stuck shut, it was swollen shut. The cut on his forehead had expanded. His cheek was scratched and bloody from where he’d scraped the ground, and his nose was a sickly kind of purple and twice its normal size. He snarled at the mirror to see that the tooth he’d lost had been one of his molars.

Not getting that back.

He laughed again, before realizing nothing was funny.

He picked up the roll of toilet paper by the toilet and unrolled it about five times, until he got enough paper to last him for hours, and he balled up two bits and shoved them into his nose.

He walked out of the bathroom.

What was the time? It didn’t matter.

Who were the people in the hoodies? It didn’t matter.

Who ripped up a copy of his book and stuffed it under his door? It didn’t matter.