She hopped the fence, walked over to the shadows, and bent down, feeling out for the pieces and picking them up.

“This isn’t going to zap me or anything, is it?”

“Don’t—” Rain paused. “Don’t touch the oblong pieces, the thin ones. Hold them by the stems with the wires, or the shoulders.”

“Okay.”

Gingerly, Allie collected most of the pieces. She handed them over to Rain. He took the contact pad that had ripped away and switched it off before gathering it into his arm with the torn shirt.

Allie gave him the last piece, then kept her hand on top of it.

“Figure it the fuck out, Rain,” she said.

I’ll die, I’ll get killed by my cluster, and I won’t be a concern for you anymore, he thought, staring into the little dots where her eyes were reflecting the distant fire.

I’ll die, he thought. I can’t fight my unpowered uncle. How can I fight… all of that?

“I’ll try,” he said.

The door opened. Rain’s aunt.

“Allie, there you are. Inside. Get the bigger first aid kit from the basement. I want to patch up your dad’s cuts, and the smaller kit doesn’t have any bandages.”

Allie turned to go, obedient.

“If you want first aid, Rain, knock on the master bedroom door, or go straight to Allie. She’ll tend to you. For now, get yourself to bed. You’re coming to church in the morning.”

Rain swayed slightly on the spot, then said, “Okay.”

The door closed behind his aunt.

He got to his bag and dumped the pieces of the arm into it. Picking it up, he made his way inside. The stew had been put away. No dinner.

He went up the stairs and into his room. He settled in at his desk. The day’s homework was on the table, waiting to be done.

Slowly, he set out the pieces of his tinker hands.

Days worth of work.

No secret to be uncovered, no use he hadn’t yet figured out. Not legs, not claws.

This, these fragile things, they were the only things that came to mind when he reached out for his tinker power. Between ten and thirty minutes passed while he found all the smaller pieces, setting them in the right places. He had some wire and tools on his desk, and he got them out. To start with, he would fix everything he could fix in five seconds. Then he would move on from there.

The spell was broken as his alarm clock buzzed. He always set it for the evening, not the morning, because there was a timeframe.

He started to rise to his feet, but he’d been sitting still too long, while hurt too badly. His body refused to cooperate.

With inching progress, he made his way toward the alarm clock.