Page 115 of Icarus

“Icarus, I’m scared,” Helios cried.

“It’ll be fine; just pull the release and we’ll be—”

There was a crack. The rope snapped like a whip in the air and his stomach lurched as they plummeted like a comet.

Icaria

Icarus felt the grass on his face before anything else. Then he felt Celestina’s hands touching him, moving him. He tried to reach out to her, to push himself up.

Then, agony. Bright and red.

“Oh fuck, I can see his bones.”

Luca was talking. He could hear someone crying too. Celestina maybe. Or Helios.

“I’ll go get my car. Try not to move ’im too much.” He remembered that voice. The diner owner, not the police. Thank god.

At bare minimum, the weight of Helios had been taken off his back.

“His . . . ribs are cracked,” Icarus murmured. “I got him out, but his ribs are cracked.”

There was the sound of a car door and feet scrabbling. Icarus opened his eyes for a second, then slammed them closed again as the world swam and his stomach lurched.

“Okay, we’ve got to pick ’im up. You twos, grab his legs and I’ll get his shoulders.”

“I don’t know if we’re supposed to move him?”

“He can’t just lie here! Did you hear that guy up there?!”

He could feel Celestina and Luca holding on to his feet, but the instant the diner owner touched his shoulders, he was awash in a pain so glorious the light drowned him, and far away he could hear the sound of screaming.

The agony ratcheted up to a level that made him feel less than human when they dropped him on the car seat. How he had been built to feel this kind of pain was beyond his comprehension. His entire body was lightning and he was burning alive.

“We have to drag him in farther,” Luca said, “so Helios can sit under his legs.”

“No, no—” Icarus moaned, but they pulled him anyway.

For one instant nothing hurt at all, and then the entire world went black.

Hypnos

He was already crying when he woke up. The salt tracks itched his cheeks as they crystallized and Icarus turned his face to rub them into the sheets.

Nowhere but a hospital could ever be this white.

On the plus side, he hurt considerably less and was undoubtably on some kind of pain medication given to him by the same hospital staff that had put both his arms in casts. They’d even put him to sleep sitting up halfway.

His shoulders ached and he knew immediately that they’d popped out of the sockets and been reset. This wasn’t the first time he’d fallen from a height.

He tested the rest of his body, gently flexing his muscles to see what else might have been damaged. His kneecaps and toes ached a bit, but otherwise the rest of him seemed to be fine. So, Icarus concluded he’d fallen face-first pretty much parallel to the ground. Reached out to catch them, shattered both his arms, and forced his shoulders out of their sockets, then his knees and toes had hit the ground and he’d immediately been crushed by Helios.

Could have been worse.

He sighed.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

The curtain between him and the bed beside him snatched open.