Chapter 15
MY FOREHEAD and temple had gone numb. The rest of me hurt.
I didn’t want to wake up. Nothingness felt better than any part of me.
Steps shuffled nearby.
A damp cloth moved over my forehead.
I lay on something irregularly flat. Hard edges gouged my back.
Blood pounded in my ears, my hands, my feet.
Feet. Something under my feet, raising them. My unsupported knees ached.
My pulse pounded all through me. The pain had a sound, and it crashed cymbals and bass drums along my spine in rhythm with my heartbeat but a fraction of a second behind the beat.
My jaw hung open. My tongue had dried out. I pulled my mouth shut and worked my tongue around. It obeyed instructions, but sluggishly. I didn’t blame it.
“Can you hear me?”
A young girl’s voice—Julie?
Another young girl’s voi
