Myers stared at Seventeen and the wretched figure he made, watching him pretend that what had happened amounted to little more than a few bruises.
His hand remained against Seventeen's chest for several more seconds, the faint blue glow beneath his palm slowly weakening with every pulse until the last traces disappeared beneath his fingers.
Seventeen waited for an answer.
His breathing was still uneven, but at least now he could breathe without feeling like something was lodged halfway down his throat. Each inhale pulled painfully against his ribs, and the metallic taste coating his tongue made him want to spit whatever blood remained in his mouth onto the floor, but he forced himself to stay still.
Myers finally pulled his hand away.
"A lot."
Seventeen stared at him for a moment before giving a quiet, unimpressed sound.
"...Hm."
Myers didn't elaborate.
Instead, his bucket slowly turned toward the other side of the room.
Seventeen followed the movement and, for the first time since waking, remembered that Myers wasn't the only person there.
His eyes found her first.
Morgan.
She sat farther back from the couch with one arm pressed tightly against her stomach and her body hunched forward just enough that Seventeen could tell the position wasn't comfortable. Her long ears, which he remembered standing rigid above her head, now hung much lower, and even from across the room he could see the exhaustion weighing down her face.
She looked terrible.
Her clothes were dirty and wrinkled, her fur was a mess, and dried blood stained different parts of her body in places where Seventeen couldn't immediately tell whether it belonged to her or someone else.
A cough suddenly broke from her.
Morgan immediately covered her mouth, but another followed before she could recover from the first, harder this time and deep enough to make her body curl around the arm already pressed against her stomach.
Seventeen watched her carefully.
Something uncomfortable tightened in his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries.
Her.
The last clear memory he had of her was that face above him. The anger in her eyes. The movement he had been too slow to stop.
Then the pain.
His fingers moved toward his chest without him realizing it, stopping over the place where she had torn him open.
Morgan noticed.
Her eyes shifted down toward his hand before slowly returning to his face.
For several seconds, neither of them said anything.
Whatever anger had been there before was gone now. She wasn't staring at him like something that needed to be killed anymore, but Seventeen couldn't tell what had replaced it. Guilt, maybe. Unease. Curiosity.
He didn't particularly care.
She had nearly killed him.
Whatever Myers had apparently told her while he was unconscious didn't suddenly make her safe.
Seventeen kept his eyes on her.
"...Her."
Myers looked between the two of them.
"Yes."
"She killed me."
"You aren't dead."
Seventeen slowly turned his head toward Myers, careful not to let his face change when the simple movement pulled painfully against his neck and chest.
Myers remained completely still.
"...Almost."
"That's different."
Seventeen stared at the bucket covering his face.
He wasn't sure if Myers was trying to make him feel better.
If he was, he was doing a terrible job.
A slight movement from Morgan's direction pulled Seventeen's attention back before he could respond.
Someone else was sitting on the bed beside her.
Smaller.
Much smaller.
He had noticed the third shape when he first woke up, but between the blood, ringing in his ears, and Morgan nearly becoming the second person to kill him in as many minutes, he hadn't paid much attention to it.
At first, he assumed it was another child.
Then one of the figure's ears shifted.
Long.
Thin.
Rabbit ears.
Like Morgan's.
The boy seemed to realize Seventeen was staring at him and immediately straightened his back. The movement was too quick. His face tightened before he could hide it, and one of his hands moved slightly toward his side before stopping halfway.
He was hurt.
Badly, from the look of it.
Still, the boy forced something resembling a smile onto his face.
"...Hey."
Seventeen didn't answer.
The boy's ears twitched.
For a moment, he seemed like he wanted to say something else, but Seventeen's stare apparently convinced him otherwise. His eyes dropped away and the weak smile disappeared with them.
Myers broke the silence.
"That's Rheo. Morgan's younger brother."
Seventeen looked between them again.
Now that he knew, the resemblance was obvious enough. The ears, parts of the face, even some of their mannerisms were similar.
Everything else wasn't.
Morgan looked like what Seventeen imagined a Rabbitman was supposed to look like. Even exhausted and injured, her legs were long and powerfully built beneath her clothes, and there was something naturally imposing about the way she carried herself.
Rheo looked almost unfinished beside her.
He was around Seventeen's height, maybe slightly shorter, with thin limbs and a leg that lacked the obvious strength his sister's carried. Bandages disappeared beneath his clothes around several parts of his body, while dark bruising climbed from beneath his collar and spread along the side of his neck. One arm remained tucked unusually close against his body, and the longer Seventeen watched him, the more obvious it became that Rheo wasn't sitting comfortably.
He was choosing the position that hurt the least.
Seventeen recognized the rest without needing Myers to explain it. He knew what not having enough food looked like. The thinness around the arms, the lack of weight where there should've been muscle, the way the body seemed smaller than it had any right to be.
He'd seen enough of that in himself.
"And he's the reason we're here," Myers added.
Something changed immediately.
Rheo's eyes dropped toward the floor, and the little bit of confidence he'd managed to force into his posture disappeared. Morgan glanced at him before looking sharply toward Myers.
"Myers."
He ignored the warning in her voice.
"Rheo went into the Underring."
Seventeen had heard the name before, though he knew little about it beyond the kind of people who ended up there.
His eyes returned to Rheo.
The boy wouldn't meet them now.
"He went without telling her," Myers continued, nodding slightly toward Morgan. "By the time she found him, he'd already lost."
Rheo's fingers tightened against his leg.
Morgan shifted beside him.
"You don't have to tell him that."
"It's fine."
Rheo answered quickly enough that Seventeen almost believed him.
Almost.
The boy gave another small smile, but this one disappeared before it ever properly formed.
"I lost. That's all."
Myers looked at him.
"No. You were beaten badly enough that your sister had to buy your life back."
Rheo went still.
Morgan's expression hardened.
Seventeen noticed Rheo's ears lower almost immediately, but it wasn't the mention of losing that seemed to bother him most.
His eyes had moved toward Morgan.
Only briefly.
Toward the arm she still kept pressed against her stomach.
Then away again.
Myers continued more quietly.
"By the time Morgan reached him, the fight was finished. His opponent simply hadn't decided to stop."
Seventeen's attention returned to Rheo.
That, he understood.
There was a difference between losing and being allowed to leave afterward.
Morgan had apparently understood it too.
"She threw the Coward's Cut before he could finish the job."
Seventeen frowned slightly.
"The what?"
Rheo's face tightened.
Morgan looked toward her brother, but Myers answered before either of them could.
"The price for leaving the Underring while you still have the choice."
Seventeen waited.
Myers seemed to realize that meant absolutely nothing to him.
"You put money down when you enter a fight. If you want out before it's over, someone throws that same amount into the ring again. The winner takes everything and lets you walk away."
His bucket tilted slightly toward Rheo.
"Or get carried away, depending on how late someone throws it."
Seventeen looked at the bandages covering Rheo again.
He understood.
"So she paid."
"She paid."
That was all Myers needed to say.
Rheo stared down at his hands.
Seventeen initially assumed the embarrassment came from needing his older sister to save him, but the longer he watched, the less that seemed to fit.
Rheo wasn't looking at his own injuries.
He kept glancing at Morgan's.
At the arm against her stomach.
At the way her breathing changed whenever she moved too quickly.
At the blood on her clothes.
Every time Morgan coughed, his ears twitched.
Myers noticed it too.
"She wasn't exactly in good condition before she went looking for you."
Rheo's jaw tightened.
Morgan immediately looked at Myers.
"Enough."
Myers didn't continue.
He didn't need to.
Seventeen could figure out the rest himself.
Morgan had gone after Rheo while already injured. She'd paid whatever amount was necessary to stop the fight, dragged him out, and then pushed herself far enough afterward that she'd gone searching for Myers in the state Seventeen remembered seeing her in.
Dirty.
Coughing.
Barely stopping long enough to breathe.
Desperate.
Rheo knew it too.
That seemed to be the part he couldn't look at.
For the first time, Seventeen understood why Morgan had been in such a hurry when she'd found Myers.
It didn't make him feel any better about what happened afterward.
His gaze returned to her.
"Then she tore a hole in my chest."
Morgan's ears rose slightly.
"I thought you were following him."
Seventeen watched her for a moment.
"I was standing right next to him."
"You looked suspicious."
"I look like I'm dying."
Morgan's mouth opened slightly, but whatever response she'd been about to give never came.
Seventeen didn't smile.
Neither did she.
He still didn't trust her.
From the way Morgan continued watching him, he doubted she knew what to make of him either.
The difference was that she no longer looked prepared to kill him.
For now, Seventeen supposed that was enough.