I understand why the others followed protocol. I see why a scientist would choose the quick snap of certain death from recall over enduring this for one more second. But this hurts just a little worse than when I was twelve and mouthed off enough for Nik Senior to have four of his guys stomp me for it.

I’ll have two minutes of pain-free movement once I use the syringe, but I’ll need more than that to reach the road. I’ll have to move, and regret moving, then move again, and only when I’m about to go down will I use the syringe. The damage is in the top half of my body: ribs, shoulders, jaw, and the one arm curled awkwardly backward like my elbow’s forgotten its job. The pain is only bearable in the space between breaths. Each time my lungs expand the feeling of ribs grinding wrong makes me wish my jaw wasn’t broken so I could scream.

    I used to think the traverser’s death was punishment for trespassing into a world where you didn’t belong. Now I’m sure it’s a test. To see if you deserve to stay as much as they do.

I breathe shallow, taking in too little air, to limit the movement in my chest. Passing out is more likely now, but it’s likely either way and at least this way I won’t hurt all the way to unconsciousness. The first step is too hard, even moving my weight softly is violence, and I imagine, or I hear, misplaced bones tapping each other for luck.

If I make it out of the riverbed before using the syringe, I can buy myself an extra thirty seconds to run for help. Versions of me have died all over, but not this one. Never this one. If this is how I was supposed to go, it could have happened when I was fourteen, or eight, or sixteen, or any of the other times it happened to other mes. I tell myself it’s just another shallow grave to crawl out of.

I cross out of the riverbed and onto the hard, gray land of Ashtown. I’m losing my vision. It’s time. I use the syringe, and move a second before it takes effect. Bones already broken splinter, gashes already bleeding gush, but I do find a road.

Just before I pass out, I get to the shoulder. This world is as medically advanced as mine. They should have pods. They should be able to save me…if whoever finds me cares enough to try. If they’re better people than I was, when I found myself.

I set my cuff to an away message, so Dell will think I just wanted to do this trip radio-silent. Better for her to think I’m being difficult than dying, because the protocol for the latter would kill me. Just in case, I rip off my collar and shove it into my vest. She won’t be able to initiate a proximity pull unless I turn it on again.

My two minutes is up, and in the snap of agony everything goes dark for good this time. I’m whispering to Nyame that she can’t have it back. I stole this life, but that doesn’t mean she can have it back.

* * *

I MUST BE dead, because life is pain and this is goddamn euphoria. The dark surrounding me is total, but for light-painted colors that I know aren’t really there, like the aurora borealis left behind when you rub your eyes too hard. I don’t know if I’m awake or asleep, still in the hatch or on my way to hell. All I know is I am not alone.

My body is broken to the point of delirium, and this is what my mind offers as a hallucination. I hear his steps before I see him, but I already know. I know the scent of his long hair, the sweat finely coating his neck and chest. I’ve avoided looking at him, even seeing his name in data, since I left Earth 22. I always thought I would panic when he came for me, but the sight of him calms me, because it means things are finally going as expected. I always knew he’d be standing over me when I died. Down deep, in the place behind my sternum where I keep all my shame, I am glad it’s him. I want to be with Dell, but I wouldn’t want her to see me like this. I want to seem strong and impenetrable to her. But him, he can be beside me when my heart stops beating, because he’s always treated me as small and weak and precious anyway. For all the times Nik Nik has almost killed me, his presence now feels inevitable.

In the dream he asks why his name is on my back, and I don’t know how to work my mouth into an answer.

Because I spent my money removing the other tattoos first.

Because I liked being reminded that once upon a time I belonged to someone, even if he was the worst person I have ever known.

Is my name still on your chest?

That’s what I want to say. But the world is going watery, the black of the room closing in, and his face recedes into the blur like a light I’ve either been running from or chasing my whole life. The darkness takes me, but I tell him I hate him before I go. It’s not much, as far as last words go, but it’s one of the few things I can stand by.

* * *

    BACK ON EARTH 22, I got the tattoo just after my nineteenth birthday. I’d been hooked up with Nik for over a year, and he’d gotten me a present. That’s why I did it. I don’t even remember the gift anymore, but it made me feel happy and loved and I couldn’t stand it. So I got the tattoo for him, thinking we’d be even.

His name, each letter as big as my hand, spread from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. I wish I could pretend he made me do it. That he’d held me down and branded me, like the stories say. I want to remember the pain of the needle, but when I think about that day I just remember the warmth of belonging and the thick in his voice when he said he was proud of me.

Nik Nik always said he was proud of me. He didn’t say I love you. He’d say, I’m proud of you. Or, I’ll keep you. Or, You’re safe. But it was all the same.

It didn’t work. We were never even. The next time I saw him with his shirt off my name was across his chest, and that warm feeling I was trying to hide from just came back again.

It was like day and night, the warmth of his approval just as out of proportion as the cold abuse of his disapproval. But it was warm for a while after the tattoo. Then one day I walked toward him with my arms open and he punched me in the gut so hard I pissed blood for a week. I don’t even remember what I’d done wrong. It wasn’t long after that he took me out to the river, to drown me for what he didn’t know would be the last time.

* * *

WHEN I FINALLY wake from the dream about Nik Nik I’m sober enough to know I’m drugged, which makes the fuzzy disconnection terrifying. I am in a bed with something soft at my back propping me up. There’s a cloth over my eyes. The cool material is thick enough to keep me from seeing anything, but my nose is telling me two things. The first is where I am. The air of Ashtown is hot and thick with dirt. I know I’m not on the edges, in the Rurals or the wastes; I’m near its heart, where the ground is gray and the air bites back with sulfur like breath from a not-dead-long-enough volcano. I haven’t slept in a smell like this since I left my world. The Rurals smell like dirt, too, but it’s honest. Salted maybe, but not this acidic.

    The second thing I can smell is the boiled-down sap of wasteland bushes. Medicine. I’m being cared for. Sure, I can hear the mechanical whir of a pod over me, but that doesn’t require more effort than closing a clasp and hitting a button. But someone has rubbed oil into my skin, placed the strong-smelling sap beneath my nose to calm me. This is care, but I’m not in the Rurals where it’s obligatory. The House? Someone might have mistaken me for Nelline, but a quick movement of my mouth signals the telling pull of the veil. When I’m visiting a place where I was recently alive, Dell always gives me the face of a deep wastelander. Spotted with sun damage, cracks across the lips, filmy eyes—the kind of face quickly looked away from, even out here. Not the kind of person who would warrant medical care, and not the kind of face you’d trouble yourself to bring in. But Exlee’s always been a softie. Maybe I just got lucky and caught them on a good day.

I hear a beep from the pod. Whatever drug has kept me disoriented and hallucinating, it’s just administered another dose.

“Please…” I say, even though it’s too late. Already I can feel the dull throbs lessening. I try to hold on to the pain, and the awareness it allows.

Someone in the room shifts closer, but I can’t see and soon won’t be able to think.

“You’re awake. Can you tell me your name? Do you remember your name now?”

Now means he’s asked before, but I don’t remember it. The voice is quiet, and seems to come from underwater, but I know it. I just can’t think clearly enough to place it. Pax? He was at the House.

Do I remember my name?

I do. I don’t. I remember her name, but I can’t remember my own.

Caramenta, Caramenta, Caramenta.

But that’s not me. But it is. Or I am no one.