The System Can’t See Me

The last strip of denim took the pull before Kai did.

It tightened across his waistband, low on his right side. The cloth had already been torn almost to nothing. What remained dug into the open wound above it and dragged the edge of the injury against the concrete.

Kai's breath stopped halfway in.

Nia felt the tension through his back.

"It's caught again," she said.

"I know."

Her forearm lay across his ribs. The hand beneath her chest was still trapped between her body and the floor. Her other hand remained open beside his ribs, cut palm against grit. She did not reach toward the hook. There was nowhere she could reach from.

The pull stayed light for a moment.

Kai did not trust it. A pause had turned into another pull before.

Behind the red pipe, something shifted.

The waistband drew tight.

Kai's right hip moved first. The wound scraped across the floor. His good knee slid beside him, flat and useless. The bad ankle dragged through the runoff, swelling against the wet cuff. The lunch box held his left shoulder at the bend, so the rest of him turned around it instead.

Nia came with him.

Her shoulder slid across the middle of his back. The trapped hand under her ribs caught harder between her body and the concrete. She made a small sound and pressed her face into the torn shirt before it could become anything louder.

"Your hand," Kai said.

"Still there."

The hook pulled another inch.

Denim stretched. Kai felt the last seam begin to separate under the waistband. The movement lifted the torn cloth against the wound at his hip and made his leg lock from the pain.

Nia's right knee dragged behind her. The damaged calf pulled long and tight. Her bare left foot slipped in the runoff, then stopped against the back of Kai's bad ankle. She tried to keep her weight off him. The effort only left her shaking across his ribs.

Kai's trapped wrist scraped beneath him as he moved. The numb fingers did not close. His palm tore a little farther along the floor.

The hook did not pull again right away.

Kai lay twisted against the concrete, waiting for the cloth to give.

Nia's breath touched the back of his neck.

"Can you tell if it's still on you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Same place."

She did not ask again. There was nothing useful in a more exact answer.

The black plates behind the pipe shifted apart and closed the gap a little. Kai saw no face in them. No eye. No mouth that he could name. Just wet sections moving where the crawlspace narrowed.

The hook jerked.

The final strip of denim ripped.

The sound was thin. Kai felt it more than he heard it: a quick release at his waist, then the scrape of his hip as his body dropped back to the floor.

The torn strip vanished behind the pipe with the hook.

Kai's jeans gave him nothing now. The right side was open from hip to waistband. The cloth that remained bunched under his stomach and left the fresh wound bare against the concrete.

Nia's body slid down his back when he dropped. Her injured forearm scraped across his ribs. The hand trapped under her chest twisted again. This time her fingers made a weak, uneven drag against the floor before they stopped.

She went silent.

Nia went so still that the breath at his neck thinned to nothing.

"Say something."

"My hand."

"What about it?"

"It's under me wrong."

He tried to picture her hand again. The trapped arm was folded beneath her chest. The other was spread beside his ribs. Her right knee was somewhere behind her, dragging the bad calf against the floor. There was no spare limb between them. No surface either of them could push against without pressing harder into the other.

"Can you straighten your fingers?" he asked.

Nia did not answer immediately. Her shoulder shifted a fraction. Kai felt the motion travel through his ribs.

"Not all of them."

The answer was quiet. It did not need to be louder.

Kai's stomach turned. He did not know whether trying again would hurt her more than staying still.

Nia took one short breath. "Don't move your hip."

"I can't."

"Good."

It was not comfort. It was the only thing either of them could give the other.

The open wound at Kai's side kept pulsing against the concrete. He could feel a slow warmth under the remaining denim, but he could not get his hand there. His right wrist was pinned beneath his ribs. His left arm was still trapped beneath the hard edge of the lunch box. He let his head rest against the floor and listened to Nia's breathing return, one careful breath at a time.

"Nia?"

"I'm here."

Her voice was close, but it did not sound close. It came through clenched teeth.

Kai tried to move his right side away from the exposed wound. The attempt tightened every muscle in his back, then failed under the lunch box and the trapped wrist. He got no farther than a tremor.

Nia felt it.

"Don't fight it," she said.

"Wasn't fighting."

"You were."

He did not answer.

The hook disappeared behind the pipe with the torn denim strip.

For a few seconds, Kai could see nothing in the narrow gap except black plates. The relief that tried to rise in him was small and ugly. He pushed it down before it reached his face.

The space at his waistband felt wrong without the pull. The right side of his jeans had been the last thing between his skin and the hook. Now the torn edge only lay damp against the concrete. He could not move it off the wound. He could not tell how much of the cloth had gone with the hook and how much was still under him.

Nia's forearm trembled across his ribs. Her free palm was too cut to take her weight, and the hand pinned beneath her chest would not straighten. She shifted it once, pain caught in her breath, and she left it alone.

"Can you feel the trapped one?" Kai asked.

"Some."

The word had less certainty than before. Her shoulder moved once as she tested the hand beneath her chest, then went still.

"Leave it," he said.

"I am."

The black plates shifted behind the pipe, one wet section passing over another. Kai watched because there was nowhere else he could look.

A wet edge came low through the gap.

It crossed the floor beside Kai's open hip.

Nia's shoulder went stiff against his back.

The edge did not touch him at first. It skimmed over the concrete, leaving a dark smear through the wet grit. Kai saw the line stop near the torn waistband, then slide again.

His good knee jerked. The movement pulled his trapped wrist under his ribs. The torn palm scraped hard enough that his fingers curled once before going numb again.

The edge brushed his side.

Pain flashed across the bare skin below the open hip wound. Kai's breath broke. He could not pull away. The lunch box kept the left shoulder in place. Nia's forearm was across his ribs. The right wrist was trapped. The bad ankle lay in the runoff behind him, useless as the rest of him.

Nia made a sound into his back and pressed the cut hand harder into the floor. It slipped. Her elbow folded. She landed more of her weight across Kai's ribs.

The edge passed under the red pipe again.

Kai lay still until the pain stopped changing.

It did not stop. It settled into a hot line below the other wound, close enough that he could not tell where one ended and the other began.

"Where?" Nia asked.

He had heard the question enough times that it should have felt ordinary. It did not.

"Lower."

Her breath shook against the torn shirt. She did not ask for more.

The gap beyond the pipe went dark again.

Kai listened to water move around Nia's foot and his ankle. The sound had no rhythm he could count.

Then the hook returned without the denim.

It slid through the narrow gap and came to rest against the bare skin at Kai's waist, just below the fresh cut.

Kai felt Nia freeze across his back.

The hook pulled.

Its point caught in the bare skin at Kai's waist. There was no cloth left to take the force.

Kai's body moved before he understood what had caught. Pain tore across the exposed side of his waist. His hip slid over the concrete. The open wounds burned together, one above the other, and his good knee dragged uselessly beside him.

Nia was pulled with him.

Her trapped hand caught first. Her fingers scraped under her chest with a sound Kai felt in his teeth. Her forearm came down across his ribs. The cut hand beside him folded at the wrist and slid, leaving a thin red mark on the floor.

Nia gasped.

Her right knee skidded behind him again. The damaged calf dragged over the concrete, and her bare left foot slipped through the runoff before catching against Kai's bad ankle again. The old scrape at her left ankle ground across grit beneath the water.

She tried to keep her free hand from folding under her. The cut palm slid instead, leaving her forearm to take more of her weight across Kai's ribs. Neither of them had chosen the new position. It was simply where the pull left them.

Kai tried to stop moving. The only part of him that answered was the trapped hand under his ribs, and it answered by scraping his torn palm harder across the concrete.

The lunch box stopped his shoulder. The hook kept pulling at his waist.

For a second, his body twisted between them.

Then the point tore free.

Kai dropped back to the floor with Nia across him and the torn side of his waist open to the concrete.

The hook remained just beyond the red pipe.

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