I looked. Sure enough, he was nowhere near the blackened mess where what remained of sleeve and skin were indistinguishable just from the residual heat that had come through the shield, and where the metal of the buckler was slag.

The pressure swelled with the realization there was no source. Like the Wretch had me by the bone and was squeezing hard enough to crush me. It was one of… too many things that were going wrong or giving way. I kept the sounds that I made small, to minimize the chances that I’d scare the kids.

Every part of my body felt like it was defaulting to wrong inputs or wrong outputs. A brain to not process, to not dwell. An arm that didn’t move where every sensation it did have was a false one. A throat meant more for holding the acid of puke I’d swallowed again before it could leave my mouth, for holding the feeling of being burned, and a knot at the base of it like the Wretch had her fist there, right behind the collarbone, stretching it out. A hummingbird heartbeat that was beating so fast it felt like I had no heartbeat at all. Skin that was more a gaping, massive vulnerability than a wall between the inside of me and the world outside.

“Get Cradle,” I said, wincing at the pain in my arm. “You’re a natural superhero, Trist—”

I winced.

“Not your first rodeo,” I tried again. “Maybe your first dream-zone fight.”

“Second,” Tristan said, looking up. He looked like such a superhero in that moment. Square jaw, intense. A giddy and delirious part of me wanted to kiss him, hug him, embrace that as much as the handsomeness of him. Which would probably traumatize him on a few levels.

It scared me that my emotions were so out there, so far out of bounds, when I’d prized and fought so fucking hard to establish my bounds.

Maybe—yeah.

The outcome looked and felt grim enough that I was finding a whole lot of stuff I’d been holding onto didn’t matter. There was a very real chance I’d never see my parents again. Amy.

Things I needed to come to terms with.

“I’m not using my power or anything,” Tattletale’s voice cut through my thoughts, forcing me to focus my thoughts like I might try to focus my eyes in a moment of double-vision. “But now would be the time to go if we were going to go.”

Focus, I told myself.

“Go kick some ass,” I said, reaching over and across my body for Tristan’s arm and missing it entirely. I pointed instead.

“I don’t want to be the guy who charges in and leaves his friends vulnerable behind him. Not anymore.”

“You have my permission. Go. Vamos.”

He stood at that.

The relief that hit me came with another momentary blackout. Sveta’s cool hand on my forehead stirred me to awareness again.

Tristan was talking to Kenzie. “—don’t want to see this.”