Chapter 14 · Recovery Tag

Lea didn't say anything for the first three blocks. Just drove, eyes on the road, jaw tight enough to crack bone. I slumped in the passenger seat, blood still wet on my hands, the shard wrapped in my torn sleeve like some cursed artifact. Every bump sent a spike through my ribs. The implant wound in my forearm throbbed, raw and angry.

"You dug that thing out with your fingers," she said finally. Her voice was flat. Controlled. That was worse than yelling.

"Didn't have a scalpel."

"You didn't have *sense*." She took a corner hard enough that I braced against the door. "You could've bled out. You could've nicked an artery. You could've—"

"I didn't."

She shut up. The silence stretched thin, brittle. I watched the city slide past the window, neon bleeding into rain, and tried not to think about how many times I'd bled out in other loops. How many times I'd woken up whole again, the counter on my wrist ticking down like a doomsday clock.

Six lives left. Maybe five, depending on how you counted the one I was living right now.

Lea pulled into an underground garage I didn't recognize.