Terminal Fuse

{THIRTY}

The vines hiss and surge!

We seize Jaydon's unconscious body and lug him after us.

And just in time, for the doors slide shut, and the plants splay out against it. Tiny tentacles trickle through the slit between the elevator doors, searching for us. Victoria jams a fist into the downward button, and the elevator begins moving. Meanwhile, I leap back into action, cuz my death's been temporarily postponed, and now I have enough time to do something. So I begin slapping Jaydon and trying — freaking trying — to remember what he did to Victoria.

"Jaydon, dude... Wake up. Please."

His eyelids have almost emptied of all color. The warm brown of his irises and the black spots of his pupils have filmed over, and he's drooling. No, not drooling... leaking. He's drowned in that green fluid, and there's nothing I can do to bring him back. No matter how much I yell at him, or shake him, or...

</Let me/>

"No, no," I'm thinking. "I can't let you in."

</We can save him. Trust me/>

Archie's here: so close that I can feel his presence washing over me. It frees me from all the pain, as if I'm slipping under the covers of a warm bed. I'm too tired and weak to argue or fight, and I'm agreeing before I even realize it.

My body moves mechanically. I'm giving him chest compressions and rescue breathing. I do not even need to think; my muscles and bones move automatically. It's like one of those days you'd arrive home from school, but then only realizing that your mind wasn't on the trip at all. Like it'd been switched off and every action had already been programmed in, leaving you to just let the commands run their course. So either the autopilot been switched on, or I've been switched off. I've even become desensitized to the pain commanding every cell in my body, enabling me to push down with my broken stub of a hand and feel nothing. Something has taken over, and...

And it's Archie, I know it is. He's saving Jaydon for me.

Suddenly, Jaydon rockets forward, vomiting green, then falls backward. Victoria catches him before he can wack his head on the cold floor. But he's breathing; his eyes are clearing; he's alive.

And, oh shit, the pain's returned — and worse! It hurts too much to even curse or scream. I roll off him and cradle the bloody stump of my hand against me. That's all I can do cuz everything hurts. Maybe it was the chest compressions, or perhaps the dwindling adrenaline — but my whole body throbs and aches.

</A quick analysis of your pain receptors shows them all firing. This would indicate a high level of pain. Do you wish me to reduce their activity to a more manageable level?/>

I merely groan in response.

</I'll take that as a yes/>

His presence swarms over me like bees. Tiny needles pricking me, injecting me with some anesthetic. And immediately, everything's back to how it was minutes ago: a sharp but endurable ache. Archie's consciousness slides off me, similarly tired, cuz he's sharing this physical load with me, isn't he? Not so much deadening the pain as shielding me from it. But he creeps back, removing himself enough from me that I don't feel his weight upon me. There's a sense of freedom here, away from him; he's withdrawn from me, but it leaves me feeling empty and cold.

Jaydon continues gagging beside me. The acid slicks the floor and splatters the area whenever he heaves. Eventually, his stomach empties, and he rests himself down — too drained to care about the puke his face falls into. My hair is matted in it as well; stray strands drift on the surface like seaweed. I reach over to rub his back. When our eyes meet, questions and answers wordlessly pass between us in a series of raised eyebrows, shrugs, half-smiles, and bit lips. Both our eyes grow wet, and he smooths one tear away with his thumb.