Basement.

Stairs.

Teeth everywhere. Hands everywhere, everywhere.

Ugh, their head hurt.

***

"You should leave soon, Allsaint doesn't—"

"We should leave? You look like you haven't slept in a week."

"I haven't."

"This isn't the time for jokes."

"I'm not joking."

"..."

"I've always been sick, Callie, for as long as you've known me. That's what happens to people like me."

"So, what...? You were going to abandon us? Slink off and die alone in your hole? That's a horrible plan! You're a horrible person."

"..."

"..."

"Cal?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell Mu."

"Yeah."

"..."

"How long have they been awake?"

"Dunno, hey sunshine."

True blinked slow at the blurry faces of Eliza and Cal. This time they were wedged between sink and tub. Someone else lay in the tub. Drooling, but breathing. Radio had survived.

Eliza was saying something that swam between their ears uselessly. They would have killed for an ibuprofen right then. Prying themself out of the corner, they gripped the rim of the sink and examined the damage. Half their face was stained red. The epicenter, the remnants of their eye, had crusted shut. The lid sagged inward, all loose and floppy now that there was nothing underneath. They poked it, hissed at the searing pain.

Reality burrowed under their flesh. Maggots, bot flies, dredging up panic. Shit, they'd really done that, shit, shit.

They smashed the mirror. Had to break something. It wasn't enough. They put another web of cracks in the glass.

Couldn't get their brain to restart.

Someone cleared their throat. True jumped to face the noise. They had to move their whole head to do it. No periphery on that side anymore. Icepick migraine pain lanced their skull from socket to base.

"Do you know where you are?" Cal asked. He leaned on the doorframe, his hands stuffed in his pockets and for a fleeting instant they felt like punching him for making noise. Felt like punching him to make their head stop hurting.

Eliza, rocking back and forth on the toilet lid, cracked a smile that included every one of her sharpened teeth. They jabbed a finger at her and forced words past their stiff jaw. Their own voice vibrated the inside of their head, unbearable.

"If you...talk...I'll kill you."

She batted her eyelashes at them and mimed zipping her lips. Amusement brightened her eyes, but for now at least, she stayed quiet. Crouching beside Radio, True took in its colourless lips and the row of tiny black stitches nestled among its older scars. It shook its head and smushed the heels of its palms into its puffed-up dark-circles eyes.

Okay, time to go. The sooner they got out of the fungus house, the better. They very distinctly recalled Allsaint barging in and dropping them on their bullet wound yesterday. Bracing on the tub edge, they offered Radio their hand. It met them with a limp, uncertain grip.

A minute passed. And then another, and Radio climbed to its feet at the speed of molasses and tipped its head in the faintest of increments all around the room. Its other hand swung lifelessly at its side while True's pulse climbed. That was not the look of someone alive.

"Radio?" they breathed.

At first, nothing. Dull black eyes. Then, a glimmer seemed to return to them. Or maybe that was too hopeful. It could have been a mushroom spore, who the hell knew what terrible feats of decay lingered in that bathroom, planting in its sclera. At the tail end of a very long, very unsteady breath, its brow crumpled, and it grabbed True's chin. Its grip clumsy and cold.

It blinked, this time not a slow one, and at once the mushroom spore glimmer burst into a spotlight. The heat bored holes into them. Into their face. Into their missing eye. It tore apart from them.

Ouch. In the sting of its recoil, they lit it slide out of reach. It hit the wall, bumped into Eliza, and pinballed back into them. Staggering under its weight and their headache, they managed to catch themself on the opposite wall and steady Radio at the same time.

"Let's get out of here," they said. Whatever Radio had to say about the state of their ugly face could be said outside the confines of the cannibal den. No matter how much it scraped at their raw emotions to see it look at them like that.

They adjusted their mask and looped Radio's arm over their shoulders.

"Where are you headed?" Cal asked.

"The first building I can find with a lot of locks and now windows," they answered. "And after that probably to gut that fishery."

And if nothing else they were going to bury a knife in Otsana's heart for what she'd done to Radio.

Cal untucked his hands from his pockets. He'd bitten his nails down to nubs.

"Are you going to punch me again?" True asked with a heavy does of sarcasm.

"No," he said. "Your pack is with Suni."

Damn it.

A shiver went through them, blooming into the sensation of a screwdriver chipping the bone on the inside of their empty socket. They had the world's worst headache and none of this was helping.

"Fine, I'll get that first."

"She's not at the caravan."

Well, why the hell not? Talking hurt too much to waste the words it took to ask that, so instead they said. "Then take me to her."

Cal didn't budge. For a moment, True thought he was going to tell them that he didn't know where she was. But then Eliza squeezed past them and nudged Cal on her way out. "I wanna say hi, too. She was so niiiiice when we were travelling together."

If Cal's eyes rolled any harder they were going to get stuck behind his skull, but he peeled himself off the doorframe and motioned for True to follow.

In the haze of the early morning mist, they walked down the bedewed sidewalk. Radio snuck looks at the empty eye socket, even after True bit a hole in their mask and used a long thread from their sash to pull it up over both new and old scars.

The staring shouldn't have bothered them. They were used to it. Just not from Radio. Did it matter that they were grotesque to it, the way they'd always been to the rest of the world? They glanced at it. A little colour had returned to its cheeks and it was walking on its own. It had handled its impromptu surgery a hell of a lot better than True had.

No, it didn't really matter, it just stung.

There it went again, eyes darting to the covered eye socket. It looked away just as quickly, turning not quite in time to hide a wince.

"Quit that."

It fixed its eyes on the road ahead, only to throw them another side glance, when it thought they weren't looking. They shoved it. It staggered a few steps, mouth open in surprise. It shoved them right back and caught them by the chin while they were off balance. Throwing it off, they stormed away. But it was ready and snagged them by the shoulder before they could escape.

They weren't sure who threw the first punch, but it only took a couple seconds for both of them to be rolling on the sidewalk, grit grinding into hair, fingernails clawing at skin. For an instant, they had the upper hand, pinning Radio to the concrete, then just as quick it heaved off, and landed a kick to their side.

They hit their knees doubled over, agony turning their body into a white-hot pulse. Pain so bright it had snot running down their face cavity.

"Ow, fuckin' asshole!" they groaned.

Taking their face in both clammy hands, it forced them to face it and unhooked the mask. Its lead-weight stare sank into the bloodied socket. Brow knit low over its nose and lips pressed into a thin line, like it was studying the and it didn't like what it was seeing. Funny, because they didn't really like what they were seeing either. True caught it by the wrists and pulled its hands away.

"Don't stare."

Its stern expression softened, much to their disgust. They didn't want its pity any more than they wanted its horror. They'd made their choice, and they'd make it again if time reversed. Radio was just going to have to get over itself.

Shivering, Radio pulled itself free and touched the place Otsana had stabbed it. A question.

"Fair trade," they said, firmly. Wheezed. They walked a thin line between hyperventilating on too-shallow breaths and the molten feeling that clawed their insides when they took a full breath. They ran a thumb over the stitches. All intact.

"You look like a dodo when you sit like that," they muttered when they'd remastered the act of breathing.

As if shaken out of a distant thought, it clicked its teeth together, and reached down to scratch words in the grit.

Run away.

True pushed the back of their hand at it. No. Out of the question.

Smacking down onto flat feet, Radio flashed signs at them, a scowl pinching its expression. They cut it off before it worked itself into a frenzy. They hadn't learned enough sing to keep up.

"I'm not leaving until I've finished what I came here for."

It dug its calloused fingers into its scalp.

"I'm burning those fuckers to the ground, Radio."

"Well, now that that's been established."

True flinched at Eliza's sudden appearance on their blind side. She grinned down at them, sharp yellow teeth glinting in the sun. Briefly, True entertained the idea of whacking her with their shovel. Her smile stretched, eyes darkening, like she was reacting to the murder in their thoughts. They caught sight of her fists curling, and reached for a shovel that wasn't there.

Cal's scarred hand clamped down on Eliza's shoulder.

"Your doctor is wandering off," he said into her ear. With a hum, Eliza flicked a scraggle of hair over her shoulder and skipped off the sidewalk, leaving Cal alone to lay his disapproving gaze on True and Radio.

"Do you fistfight everyone?" he asked.

"Yeah," True said, "you're next."

To his credit, Cal didn't take the bait. Though they were dangling it pretty close to his face. And when had Allsaint joined them, anyways?

They straggled to their feet, checked their shirt for blood in case the stitches had burst. Although the shirt they had on was the same one they'd almost died in, so the bullet hole and the dark stain obscured anything else going on under it. It didn't feel like they were bleeding, at least.

Radio was watching them again. They shoved it to the back of their mind. As they pulled their mask up, Radio seized their raised hand to catch their attention.

Pulling a snarl, it tapped their hand once. Then it flashed a thumbs up and tapped their hand twice.

One bad, two good. "Okay," they said, but the meaning didn't sink in until Radio shifted to their right side. Out of sight, but within reach.

Well, it looked like Radio was abandoning the shovel length rule for good. Or at least until it got sick of putting up with them.

Blue sky began to burn through the early morning mist, and Radio reached across the gap between them and tapped twice on their right hand. True bit back the habitual impulse to shoo it away. Instead, they turned their hand over and tapped twice on Radio's palm.

That was going to take some getting used to.