She was in a complete stranger’s arms, but she took a load off. Carly breathed slow and released her muscles from their suspension. Save her hand against the gouge in the meat of her shoulder, she loosened entirely, and found eerie comfort in the damp warmth of his chest and his words, which flew around in circles above her head. She indulged in the strange familiarity that he brought.

Carly was faint, and she’d pushed most of what he’d said aside until he said something very, very true: she’d felt it. She didn’t need him to elaborate to know he was telling the truth, because she had. It’d beckoned her like an old friend, and it made her feel at home when everything was falling apart. Most of all, it filled her with a primitive hunger and misplaced adrenaline.

They were nearing the emergency wing. “What was it?” she asked. Her voice was soft, malleable, and her amber eyes, once wicked and wild now half-lidded and tamed, stared up at him. “What did I--?”

When they came inside, they got attention. The nurse at the front desk pressed something, then people flooded in. To Carly, it seemed like hundreds, but in reality it was only a few people in scrubs with a stretcher. Once she was laid down, she reached out at Tzek and pointed her finger. Her eyebrows knitted together tiredly.

“Hey!” she said, her voice lame, “Tell me! What did I feel?”

And then, her head lolled to the side, almost in a drunken state, and she submitted to unconsciousness.