The System Can’t See Me

The hook stayed in Kai's hip.

He could feel it whenever his ribs moved under Nia's forearm. He had stopped trying to breathe quietly. Quiet did not make the pain smaller. It only made him listen for the next movement behind the red pipe.

Nia lay across his back and side, as still as she could manage. Her breath warmed the torn shirt between his shoulder blades. The hand trapped beneath her body scraped once against the floor, then stopped. Her forearm remained over his ribs. It hurt when she put weight on him. It hurt when she tried to take it away.

Kai stared at the red pipe.

The pipe looked ordinary from this close. Old paint. Rust near the floor. A line of damp along its underside. Beyond it, the gap was full of black plates and dark space.

"Can you hear me?" Nia asked.

"Yeah."

"You're going pale."

"You can't see my face."

"I can hear your breathing."

Kai shut his eyes for a second. He did not ask what that meant. He did not want her to explain the way his breath kept catching or the way his right thigh trembled against the floor.

The point inside his hip shifted.

His eyes opened.

Nia felt it through him. Her forearm tightened before she could stop it.

"Don't move," Kai said.

"I'm not moving."

The hook drew back.

Not far. Just enough to pull at the torn skin from inside.

Kai's good knee scraped against the concrete. His body tried to curl around the pain, but the lunch box blocked his left shoulder and the trapped wrist held his right side down. The motion went nowhere. It turned into a shudder under Nia's weight.

"Kai." Her voice was low now. "Talk to me."

He could not get air around the first answer. On the second try, he said, "Still here."

The hook moved again.

This time it came out.

It did not slide free. The point caught as it withdrew and tore through the widened wound at his hip. Heat ripped across his side. Kai's forehead struck the floor. His trapped hand clenched under his ribs, and the torn palm ground into grit.

Nia cried out with him.

Her forearm slipped from his ribs as his body jerked. For one second, she lost the little contact she had. Then she fell back across him, shoulder first, driving his chest against the floor.

The hook cleared his hip.

Kai felt the absence before he understood it. The pressure was gone. The pain was not. It spread across his side in a wet, open line that made every muscle near it pull tight.

"Don't touch it," he said.

Nia had not reached for it. Her cut hand was still trapped under her, and the other one had landed against the concrete beside his ribs. She looked toward his hip anyway. He could feel the turn of her head against his back.

"I'm not," she said.

Something scraped behind the pipe.

The hook passed back through the gap.

Kai watched the wet black curve disappear behind the red paint. It left a thin line across the concrete where it had dragged, then nothing. No sound followed that he could separate from the drip above them or the water around Nia's foot.

Nia let out a breath.

Kai heard it and said, "Don't take that for room."

She went still. "I know."

The torn skin at his side pulsed. He kept his hip against the floor because lifting it was not possible. His jeans were still split to the waistband. The remaining cloth stuck to the outer edge of the wound, damp and heavy. He did not look down. Looking would not change what either of them could do.

Nia shifted her shoulder a fraction.

Kai made a sound through his teeth.

She stopped again.

"Sorry."

He wanted to tell her it was fine. It was not fine. He settled for, "Stay there."

Her forearm lay across his ribs again, lower than before. It pinned her across his back and made every small shift expensive.

For several breaths, the mouth beyond the pipe did not change.

Then a black plate shifted against the red paint.

The pipe rang once.

The sound was small, more felt through Kai's cheek than heard. Rust dust loosened near his mouth. He blinked it away.

Nia whispered, "Did it touch the pipe?"

"I don't know."

Neither of them moved to find out.

The black plate slid back. A wet edge passed through the gap beneath the pipe, low enough to skim the concrete. It stopped beside Kai's open hip wound.

Kai held still.

The edge was not the same shape as the hook. It might have been another part of the same thing. It might not. It had no outline he could make sense of from where he lay.

Nia's injured fingers pressed against the floor beside his ribs.

"Keep your hand there," Kai said.

"It's staying there," she said.

The wet edge came closer.

It brushed the torn denim at Kai's waistband.

The cloth moved over the wound. Kai's leg locked. His good knee dragged half an inch, but the flat concrete gave him nothing to catch against. The bad ankle bumped in the runoff behind him. Nia's left foot slid against his calf as she tried to keep herself from following the movement.

The edge passed on.

It crossed Nia's forearm.

Nia jerked away before she could hold herself still. The movement scraped her forearm over Kai's ribs, and her shoulder struck his back. Her trapped hand twisted under her body. She made a sharp sound and tried to pull the arm in.

It did not come free.

The wet edge had not cut her. Kai saw no new blood. But her forearm shook above his ribs, no longer resting flat. Every tremor went through him.

"Nia."

"My hand's stuck."

"Where?"

"Under me."

He almost said he knew that. The answer would not help either of them.

The dark edge remained between them and the pipe.

Nia's left foot slipped in the runoff. Her body shifted backward by an inch. The trapped hand caught between her ribs and the floor, stopping her with a jolt.

She went rigid.

Her fingers scraped at the concrete beneath her. Kai could hear the nails catch, then slide. The hand was bent somewhere under her chest, not flat enough to bear her weight and not free enough to pull out.

"Can you feel it?" he asked.

"Some of it."

The answer came after a pause that made his stomach tighten.

Nia tried to close the trapped hand. Nothing visible changed, but her breath caught against his back. The fingers made a weak scrape under her ribs and stopped. She did not try a second time.

Her other hand was still beside Kai's ribs, palm down on the concrete. The cut across it had left the fingers stiff and spread. It could touch the floor, but it could not take enough of her weight to lift her away from him.

Kai pictured the two positions without looking: one hand trapped under her chest, the other open beside his ribs, her forearm across him, her right leg dragged out behind her. There was no place he could tell her to put anything. Every part of her that might have pushed had already found the floor and failed.

Nia exhaled through her nose. "It's not broken."

Kai heard the uncertainty in it. He did not answer.

Her shoulder trembled against his back. She tried to settle without dragging the hand again. The movement barely changed her position, but the heel of her palm rasped once over the floor. Nia shut her mouth around the sound it pulled from her.

Kai could do nothing but stay still beneath her. The hook wound at his hip burned against the concrete. His trapped wrist could not reach her. His left arm remained under the lunch box. Even if one of them had room to shift, neither had an angle that did not put more weight through the other.

Kai felt the change in the pressure over his chest. Her forearm rose. Her shoulder pressed harder into the middle of his back. The right knee behind her dragged across the concrete. The damaged calf tightened, then trembled so hard he could feel it through the floor.

"Leave it," he said.

"I can't get it free," she said.

Her voice broke on the last word.

The wet edge at the pipe shifted again.

Kai watched it pass close to Nia's forearm. This time she did not flinch. She locked every part of herself that could still lock. Her hand remained trapped beneath her. Her left foot stayed in the water. The only movement was the shiver in her right leg and the blood-dark streak along the calf behind it.

The edge slid under the red pipe and vanished.

Nothing took its place right away.

Kai did not relax.

The hook had come out of him. The dark edge had gone back. Neither fact gave him room to raise his chest, pull free his wrist, or get Nia off his back. His hip still burned against the floor. The lunch box still pinned one shoulder. The right hand beneath his ribs remained numb and scraped raw.

Nia spoke without lifting her head.

"Can you move your foot?"

Kai knew which foot she meant. The bad ankle in the runoff. He tried to flex it.

Pain ran through the swollen joint. The movement stopped before it began.

"No."

"Okay."

She said it because silence was worse.

Kai listened to the water touch the concrete behind them. He could not see the mouth without turning his head, and he could not turn his head without shifting his shoulder against the box. So he watched the red pipe and waited.

The black plates returned all at once.

They did not rush forward. They filled the narrow gap behind the pipe, close enough that the red paint disappeared between them.

Nia's forearm pressed across his ribs.

Kai felt a tug at his waistband. The hook had caught the torn edge of his jeans, lower than the wound.

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