“It all hurts,” I said, voice still slurred. I couldn’t even move, let alone distinguish nausea from the rest of my pain.

“Yeah, but do you feel like you’re going to throw up? Right here? Right now?”

I thought about it. My stomach hurt, but it was less of a queasy discomfort and more of a someone-just-kicked-me-with-stilettos discomfort. “No,” I said.

Hugh sat back, and I heard him sigh in relief.

“It all hurts,” I repeated. “Can you . . . make it stop?”

He hesitated, and a moment later, Cody appeared beside him. “What’s the matter? You’ve gotta give her something. Look at her. She’s suffering.”

“Understatement,” I mumbled.

Hugh’s face was still drawn. “I’m not gonna knock her out if she’s got a concussion.”

“She passed your tests.”

“Those are field tests. They’re not one hundred percent accurate.”

“Please,” I said, feeling tears well in my eyes. “Anything.”

“We know it won’t kill her,” I heard Peter say. I’d been right about him being here.

Hugh hesitated only a little longer. “Go get some water.”

Cody disappeared, and Peter replaced him by Hugh’s side. Hugh’s expression was still grim. “Sweetie, I’ve got to clean up your back, and it’s going to hurt.”

“Worse?”

“A different kind of hurt. But this has to be cleaned up so you don’t get an infection, and then I need to shift you to check out the rest of you. The drugs’ll help, but it’s all going to hurt at first.”

“Go for it,” I said, steeling myself. At this point, I couldn’t really imagine worse pain. Besides, Hugh was a doctor. Everything was going to be okay now.

Cody returned with a glass of water. Hugh made me drink some first, just to make sure I could keep it down. When I did, he gave me two pills to take with the rest of the water. I nearly choked on them—my throat felt raw and swollen, maybe from screaming—but I got them down.

I wanted to ask what I’d just taken, but it seemed like too much work. “Should kick in in about twenty minutes,” Hugh said.

I could see him fumbling with something in his lap. Standing up, he leaned over my back. Something wet touched my skin.

“Son of a bitch!” Again, my words were slightly incoherent, but I think he caught my meaning.

Stinging pain—a “different” pain, indeed—raced across my skin where he’d touched it. It was electric, sharp where the rest of my body throbbed. My desire to get away from that horrible stinging was so strong that I actually managed to move a little, but all that did was trigger the hurt in the rest of my body. The world blurred once more.

“You’re making it worse,” he warned. “Stay still.”