He closed his eyes. All of the aches and pains, the soreness in his throat from vomiting, and the more physical side of his emotional exhaustion were making themselves felt with every beat of his heart. Sunlight streamed in through the window of the machine shop.

“Rain.”

He startled, flipped over, and scrambled away from Mama Mathers, her fingernails scraping his scalp. She knelt on the ground by where he had been sleeping.

His back was to the wall as he stared at everything that wasn’t her. Looking at the images and hearing them made them last longer. His prosthetic hands—if he dwelt on the design, focused on the schematics, on the work he needed to do, and the possibilities, if he didn’t think about—

Her hand touched the side of his head. He flinched away, then froze, shaking.

He was so tired. Already, he was on edge.

“You’re going to show me what you’ve been up to. Show me the progress you’ve made in preparing to kill the others with matching powers,” Mama Mathers said.

He stared at the sunlight that came in through the window, the dust in the air illuminating it. More dust and sawdust on the floor had patterns where footsteps had left tracks. Clothes had been layered over a bag to serve as a kind of pillow. Erin’s sweatshirt. There was a wet spot where he’d drooled on it.

“Don’t disappoint me,” Mama Mathers said.

He made his way to his feet, his bruises and aches from his encounter with his uncle not helped by his sleeping on the hard floor. He bent down to get the bag, picked up the sweatshirt, and folded it so his drool wasn’t too obvious.

Was Erin safe? She—

Mama Mathers was in the corner of his vision. Even his suspicion about who was responsible if Erin wasn’t safe was enough to bring her to bear.

She would have had to go home. Her parents were fanatic enough they’d excuse almost anything, but he couldn’t imagine her staying all night.

A note sat on the table, beneath a connector tab from one of the digit manipulation systems he’d been working on. He really wished Erin hadn’t moved it—just the fact that it wasn’t in order meant another ten or fifteen minutes of work.

Not that she could have known.

You sleep like you’re dead. It’s freaky.
See you in the morning, bud. We’ll figure something out.
~Erinnn~

The name was penned out in an exaggerated cursive, the ‘n’ exaggerated and drawn out long with a dwindling series of dips and raises.

Bud.

He touched the name and realized he still had her sweatshirt.

He wanted to hold it to his face and inhale, only because he felt so desperate and alone that he wanted any connection that wasn’t—wasn’t her.