The System Can’t See Me

The front of Kai's waistband slipped out from under Nia's hand.

It did not tear all at once. The wet denim twisted first. Her fingers had been following the stitched edge near his hip, but the cloth had turned with every shallow breath and every small pull from the weight of his body. When she tightened her grip, the seam rolled beneath her palm instead of staying where it had been.

Nia tried again without lifting him. Her thumb pressed into the waistband. Her other fingers closed over it. The cloth gave under her hand, cold and slick, then slid through her grip by the width of a knuckle.

She had no purchase on it.

Kai felt the change before he saw it.

His hip turned away from the wall.

"Nia."

"I know."

Her back hand still held the waistband near his spine. The front hand slid over the wet cloth and caught again closer to his side. It was not the seam anymore. It was a fistful of denim, stretched thin where the jeans had twisted around his waist.

"Don't pull," Kai said.

"I'm trying to keep you from rolling."

The shoulder under the lunch box hurt before he moved. The pain sat under the pressure of the cracked lid and spread down the arm that no longer answered him. His trapped wrist pressed into the floor under his ribs. The good knee had folded beneath him. The bad ankle lay flat ahead, swollen and useless.

His body had no way to correct the turn.

He tried to make his body smaller instead. The effort tightened his ribs and shoved the trapped wrist deeper into the concrete. His fingers tingled once, then went distant again. It changed nothing at his hip.

Nia drew one breath through her nose and shifted her hips.

Her right calf gave against the wall.

The movement was small. It still pulled a sound from her throat. Her left foot slid in the runoff, heel scraping at the wet concrete. For a second, both of her hands loosened at Kai's waist as her lower body lost the position it had been holding.

He rolled.

Nia caught him with her thigh.

Kai's hip dropped across the top of her left leg. His weight drove her thigh into the concrete and pulled her left knee toward the mouth. Her right calf dragged off the wall by a few inches. The torn denim at the score darkened at once.

Nia's head struck the wall with a dull sound. She kept her mouth shut around whatever she might have said. The impact ran through her body anyway. Kai felt it in the leg beneath him: a hard jolt, then a tremor that did not stop.

Nia's hands closed around his waist again.

Kai froze where he had landed. His right side was lower than before, his back no longer carrying much of the wall. The lunch box pressed against the left shoulder from above. The wrist under his ribs burned where the concrete trapped it. His good knee lay bent in front of Nia's hip now instead of under his own body.

His hip had not found a place to rest. It had landed on a part of Nia that was already trying to hold both of them up. The moment her left leg gave, he would keep turning. He could feel that much in the strain under him.

"Did I hit your leg?" he asked.

Nia made a sound that was almost a laugh and had no humor in it. "You are on it."

"Can you move it?"

"Not without dropping you."

The words made him try to lift his hip.

Pain shut the attempt down before it became movement. His shoulder tightened under the box. His right wrist drove harder into the floor. Nia's fingers clenched at his waist.

"Don't do that again," she said.

"I was trying to get off you."

"You can't. Stay where you are."

Kai swallowed. Her left foot remained in the water. Her right calf had lost the little support the wall had been giving it. Nia's thigh shook beneath him, and her hands were still the only thing slowing the turn at his waist. None of it fit together. It was simply where the fall had left them.

Blood ran from her right calf along the concrete. Kai saw it pass below her thigh and join the runoff at her heel. The water carried it away in thin dark threads.

The black plates beyond the red pipe did not move.

Kai kept his cheek against the wall. He watched the edge of water move around Nia's bare foot and did not look away long enough to guess what the dark at the mouth meant.

Her back hand found the waistband seam again. The front hand stayed bunched in the twisted denim at his side. Every time Nia breathed, the grip shifted a little. Her left thigh trembled under his hip.

"Tell me if your leg goes," Kai said.

"It's already going."

He closed his eyes.

Nia's right calf tightened again. The tremor traveled through the leg under him. His hip moved with it. The front waistband pull slipped a fraction. Nia caught it against his side, but her fingertips dragged across the torn shirt at his ribs.

"Don't try to lift yourself," she said. "Don't twist. I need to feel where you are."

Every part of him wanted to take weight off her leg. His body did not listen. His good knee had no push left. His bad ankle could not help. His left arm was useless, and the wrist under his ribs was trapped so hard that his hand had gone distant again.

"All right," he said.

Nia adjusted her left thigh under him by less than an inch.

Her breath broke.

Kai felt the movement travel through his hip. The thigh did not lift him. It only kept him from sliding farther. The right calf dragged again along the wall, and the water touched the outside of Nia's right ankle before she could pull it back.

She stopped moving.

"Water's on your right ankle," Kai said.

"I know."

He looked down as far as his shoulder allowed. Runoff had reached the cuff of her torn jeans at the right ankle. The score on her calf sat higher up, dark against the wall.

Her voice was not sharp this time. It was thin.

Kai wanted to tell her to pull the right leg clear. He could not see how. If she moved it back against the wall, the left thigh beneath his hip would shift. If the left thigh shifted, he would roll. The waistband was already turning beneath her hands.

Nia's front hand slipped lower and caught at the side seam of his jeans. Her nails scraped through the wet fabric. She had no room to reset her grip. Her back hand was pinned between Kai's weight and the wall, holding what it could near his spine.

"Can you get your hand out?" Kai asked.

"Not without moving you."

He looked at the dark water at her left foot, then at the torn cuff around her right ankle. Neither leg had room to move cleanly. Her left thigh kept trembling under him.

"Then leave it."

"I was planning to."

Neither of them moved. Runoff soaked the cuff around Nia's right ankle while her left thigh trembled under Kai's hip.

The lunch box creaked once above Kai's shoulder.

Nia's hands went rigid at his waist. He felt the fingers of her front hand bite into the denim. The grip hurt through the wet fabric, but it held.

The box did not slide farther.

For a moment, Kai listened to Nia's breathing. One breath caught. The next came back too quickly. The third stopped halfway when her right calf tightened beneath the torn denim.

He did not ask whether she could still feel the leg. There was no answer that would make room for either of them.

His good knee twitched where it lay near Nia's hip. The scrape along it pulled tight under the torn denim. He tried to flatten the leg without using it as a push. The small motion sent a line of pain through the bad ankle and into the side of his body. Nia's front hand slipped again.

She caught the jeans at the side of his hip before he turned farther.

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't apologize. Just stay there."

He wanted to ask where else he could go. Instead, he kept his cheek against the wall and said nothing.

Beyond the pipe, the crawlspace mouth stayed dark. The hook remained somewhere behind it. The Archive copy and the torn strip from his jeans were gone with the water.

Nia's thigh shook beneath his hip.

"I can't keep you here long," she said.

Kai looked at the wall. The bad ankle lay ahead of him, close to the runoff. The good knee was bent in front of Nia's hip. His right wrist remained crushed under his ribs. There was no way to take his weight back without using one of the parts of him that had already stopped helping.

"I know."

"You have to move when I tell you."

"How?"

Nia's hand tightened again at his waist.

"I don't know yet."

Her front hand shifted at his waist, searching for cloth that was no longer in the same place.

Her left foot slipped in the water.

Kai's hip dropped another fraction onto her thigh.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!