The System Can’t See Me

The hook had torn free.

Kai did not think of it as gone.

It waited somewhere beyond the red pipe, close enough that he could see the dark curve at the edge of the gap when the black plates shifted. His waist still burned where it had caught. The right side of his jeans had come apart completely. The cloth under his stomach was wet and twisted. Nothing covered the wounds along his hip and waist now.

Nia was still across his back.

Her forearm rested over his ribs. Her free hand lay beside him, palm open against the concrete. The other hand remained caught beneath her chest. Kai could not see either of their faces. He could feel the pause in her breathing when the trapped fingers moved under her.

"Can you feel that hand?" he asked.

"Enough," she said. The answer sounded rehearsed, and Kai did not believe it.

Kai left it alone.

The black plates behind the pipe shifted.

A broad section slid into the gap.

It was wider than the hook. Wet, uneven, and almost flush with the concrete. It moved low beneath the red pipe, not fast enough for Kai to call it a strike. The part of it he could see had no edge he could name. It was simply there, taking up the space in front of them.

Nia felt it too.

Her free hand pressed harder into the floor.

The cut palm slipped.

"Nia," Kai said.

"I know."

The broad black surface came farther through.

It touched Nia's shoulder first.

She flinched. The movement drove her forearm into Kai's ribs and pulled her trapped hand tighter beneath her chest. Kai felt her whole body lock against his back.

The surface did not stop.

It pressed her down.

Nia's shoulder lowered another inch. Her cheek hit the torn shirt between Kai's shoulder blades. Her free hand slid across the concrete beside his ribs, unable to hold her. The trapped hand scraped beneath her chest. This time the fingers did not make a sound.

Kai felt the change through his ribs before he saw it. Nia's weight settled across him. His chest could still move, but each breath had to push up against her forearm and the floor at once. The lunch box stayed against his left shoulder. His right wrist remained under him. There was no room to move either pressure away.

Nia breathed into his back.

"It's on me," she said.

"Where?"

"Shoulder. Back."

The black surface pressed again.

Kai's body slid forward a fraction. His open right side scraped concrete. Pain flared across the hip wound, then the lower cut, then the fresh tear at his waist. His good knee dragged beside him. His bad ankle bumped through the runoff behind him.

Nia came forward with him.

Her right knee skidded. The damaged calf stretched, then folded behind it. Her bare left foot scraped through the water and struck Kai's ankle. The trapped hand beneath her chest caught against the floor with a dull jolt.

She made no sound at all.

"Nia?"

Her breath came out hard against his back.

"I'm here."

Kai heard the strain in it. He could not turn his head. He could not see whether the black surface still covered her shoulder. The red pipe filled the edge of his vision, and the wet plates beyond it kept shifting around the place where it had come through.

The pressure shifted across Nia's back.

Her free elbow bent. The cut palm dragged over the floor. Her shoulder rose half an inch and stopped. The hand beneath her chest did not move with her.

Nia's breath broke.

She collapsed back over Kai's ribs.

"My hand," she said.

Kai waited.

"I can't feel it now."

Kai went still.

The black surface continued over her shoulder and down the torn fabric between them. Cold wet contact crossed Kai's back. He jerked before he could stop himself.

His trapped wrist scraped beneath his ribs. His left shoulder drove into the lunch box. The box stayed wedged. Pain climbed his arm and settled at the base of his neck.

Nia's forearm slid sideways across his ribs. Her body moved with the black surface, not away from it. The trapped hand beneath her chest caught harder. Her free hand curled against the floor beside Kai's ribs, but the fingers would not close around anything.

The pressure traveled lower.

Kai saw the wet edge move across the floor beside Nia's free hand. She pulled the hand in as far as she could. It barely moved.

The surface passed over the backs of her fingers.

Nia's breath left her in a single sound. Her fingers flattened against the concrete, then slid loose as the pressure moved on. She did not look at the hand. Her cheek stayed against Kai's back.

The wet edge crossed his exposed waist next.

It touched the lower cut. Kai's right side locked. The pain made his good knee scrape forward and his bad ankle strike the concrete beneath the runoff. He had no way to lift his hip. The wounds at his side dragged through the grit one after another.

Nia's damaged right calf came with him. Her left foot caught against his ankle. The hand beneath her chest remained pinned and unfeeling. Her other hand lay flattened beside his ribs, fingers spread too wide to close.

The black surface slid beneath the red pipe and was gone.

Kai did not move after it left. Nia did not either.

For a few seconds, Kai could hear only their breathing. Nia's came through her teeth. His caught before it filled his chest. The floor pressed against the fresh tears at his side, and her forearm pressed across his ribs. He tried to take a deeper breath and stopped when the pain dragged him short.

Nia felt it.

"Slow," she whispered.

He tried again, smaller this time.

His next breath went in. The one after it did too. Neither helped. They only made the ache at his waist more specific.

The red pipe rang once.

Kai opened his eyes.

The gap beyond it was full of wet plates, close enough to make the red paint disappear in broken sections. The hook was not visible.

Nia's trapped hand remained beneath her chest. Kai nodded once against the floor, and the movement left his cheek in damp grit.

Her free hand was still beside his ribs. The backs of the fingers had been pressed red against the concrete. She flexed them once. The fingers moved, but not together.

"Can you use that one?" Kai asked.

"No."

She did not sound surprised. That made it worse.

Kai watched her hand settle flat again. He wanted to tell her to move it somewhere safer. There was no safer place on the floor. The crawlspace had taken every spot that might have held a hand, a knee, or a shoulder and made it hurt somebody.

The black surface had pushed her free hand farther forward. It lay past Kai's ribs now, closer to the red pipe than to either of them. The fingers were streaked with grit and red at the knuckles. Nia did not try to pull it back.

Her forearm began to slip down his side.

The movement was slow enough that Kai noticed it only when the weight on his ribs changed. Nia's shoulder followed. The hand trapped beneath her chest stayed caught. Her body did not fall cleanly; it dragged over him a little at a time, each inch stopped by the trapped hand or the damaged knee behind her.

Kai tightened his stomach without meaning to. The fresh tears at his waist pulled against the concrete. His breath caught.

Nia froze.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's not you."

The answer was not true, but it was the closest thing he had.

Her right knee tried to take some of the shift. The damaged calf could not hold it. The knee slid across the floor, and Nia's bare left foot dragged through the runoff behind her. Her ankle scrape caught on the grit. Her forearm settled lower against Kai's side.

She was still on him. She was only no longer in the same place.

Kai's trapped wrist ached beneath his ribs. He could feel the torn palm on the floor when Nia's weight changed, but he could not turn the hand or put it between them. His left shoulder remained jammed beneath the lunch box. He watched the red pipe and waited for the slow slide to stop.

It did, eventually. Nia lay angled more across his lower back now, her free hand ahead of them and her trapped hand still under her chest. Her forearm no longer crossed his ribs as firmly. It did not make room. It only changed where the pressure hurt.

Under Kai's stomach, the bunched denim soaked through. He did not look for the source. He could not separate his blood from the red already ground into Nia's palm.

Nia let out one careful breath.

"You still with me?" Kai asked.

"Yeah."

Her voice was faint, but it was there.

Nia's right knee twitched behind him. The damaged calf answered with a tremor that ran up through her hip and into his back. She held the movement in before it turned into another shift.

"Your leg," Kai said.

"I know where it is."

He let that go too.

The black plates shifted behind the pipe. One wet section passed over another. Kai could not tell whether the broad surface was still behind them or whether the gap held something else now. He kept looking because there was nowhere else to look.

Something scraped across the concrete on the far side of the red pipe.

Nia's forearm tightened over his ribs.

Kai felt the hook before he saw it.

The metal point touched the concrete beside his open waist. It did not catch him. It lay there for a breath, wet and dark against the floor.

Kai held still.

Nia's free fingers shifted once beside his ribs, then stopped.

The hook dragged back beneath the pipe.

It left a pale line in the grit and nothing else.

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