The table behind them began to hiss more loudly, and the orange glow intensified. Jessica took a step sideways to get away from the heat. The glow spread to the creature on the table, and parts of it seemed to turn from side to side.

“Hold out your hands,” the girl said.

Platform sneakers. Denim. Hideous. Jessica held out her hands for the clamps, but the girl left them in place. Instead, she slid both hands into Afton’s open body and lifted out a bloody object. His kidney, that’s his kidney. Black leather combat boots. Black leather combat boots. Charlie’s black leather combat boots. The animatronic girl held the kidney up in the air for a moment, and blood dripped from it onto her face. Charlie’s boots. Charlie. The girl turned to Jessica, and she shrank back.

“Hold out your hands,” the girl repeated with cold insistence, and Jessica obeyed, fighting not to retch as the warm organ was placed gently in her hands. It’s meat; it’s not part of a person; just think of it as meat. Platform sneakers. Stiletto boots. Penny loafers. She watched in a daze as the girl took a curved needle and black thread and began to sew William Afton back together, starting with his innards, and ending with the first incision, making a row of Xs across the left half of his body. At last she finished, snipping the last thread off with practiced ease.

“What’s next?” Jessica asked, her voice sounding faint against the rushing in her ears. Yellow sneakers with a blue streak on the side. Those brown pumps Mom got me. Oh, Mom—

“The next part is easy,” the girl said, pulling the gloves off and picking the kidney up again with her hand and approaching the table where the mass lay.

“What are you going to do?” Jessica quivered.

“What did you think all of this was for?” the girl said softly. “He told you: piece by piece.”

Jessica looked down at the creature on the table, glowing orange at its core, and dripping fluid from its various parts, the drops landing with a hiss on the hot surface.

“This is a transplant,” she said.

The mass of melted parts for a moment looked human, its demeanor suddenly childlike as it squirmed, and its head turned to face Jessica. For just a moment, Jessica thought she could make out eyes looking back at her. Suddenly, the silence was broken as the animatronic girl clenched her fist around the kidney and slammed it against the creature’s chest, pressing so hard that the metal underneath sank inward, embedding the kidney deep inside where it gurgled and hissed. More fluid seeped out the sides of the creature and burned on the table, as the girl wrenched it back and forth inside.