Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
The beeping stopped.
I had my teeth clamped so hard my jaw hurt. The silence that replaced the continuous note was denser than the sound had been. It filled the cabin completely.
Then a click. Small, mechanical, almost polite.
And something let go of my leg.
The weight vanished. The cold band of pressure against the bone simply ceased. I looked sideways. Mercury's eyes were shut, her whole face braced, her hand still crushing mine. The tendons in her wrist stood out. She was still waiting for the pain she had already decided how loud she was going to be about.
I looked down.
The bracelet had come off my ankle and was sitting loose on the floor of the car—dark metal, inert, the red digits dead. Hers had too. Both of them lay against the rubber mat like something that had finished its only job and had nothing left to say.
I was right.
