Levi went still, watching his mouth in the dark shaping words, but no sound came out. He leaned closer.
“— changed it twice,“ Asher was saying. His consonants were soft around the edges, like he was talking through a mouthful of something. “Didn’t mean to…”
“Asher?”
“— fix it. Before he gets back in. I can rework the —”
Levi reached for the bedside lamp and turned it on. As his eyes adjusted, he saw each detail in pieces — the flush across Asher’s cheeks first, high, patchy, and too red; then the wet sheen of his hairline, the damp dark of the pillow under his head; then his eyes, which were open, wide and glassy, looking at the ceiling.
Levi sat up. “Asher, hey. Look at me.”
Asher’s lips kept moving. His eyes did not.
Levi put his hand on Asher’s shoulder. The t-shirt was soaked through and the heat coming off the cotton was wrong. It was the heat his hand felt once on Ethan’s forehead during a flu that ended with a trip to the hospital.
“Asher, hey. Hey, it’s me. It’s Levi. Can you hear me?” Levi grabbed his shoulder and shook him gently.
“... the monsters,” Asher was telling the ceiling. His hand twitched on the sheet, the fingers spreading and closing without purpose. “You don’t like the monsters. I can take them out. It’s parameter work, it’s nothing, I’ll…”
Levi’s mouth went dry. He put both hands on Asher’s face, leaning over him. “Dovey, look at me. Please look at me.”
Asher’s eyes drifted toward his voice, almost found him, slipped past, then drifted back. He was smiling a little. The corners of his mouth had gone soft and pleased and his eyelashes were wet.
“Le-viiiii,” he said it like he was going to sing it and gave up before deciding on a note. “You’re here. Good. I heard the lock.”
The bottom of Levi’s stomach dropped. “What lock?”
“The lock. The bad one...” Asher’s hand came up, slow and uncoordinated, and found Levi’s jaw, but his grip was weak. Asher’s grip was never weak. It could pin his wrists and close around his throat or stab a monster to death, and right now it could barely hold his jaw. “If we’re in again, it’s okay. I have you this time. I’ll do it different. I won’t let you be scared.”
“Asher, you’re not — Asher, you have a fever.”
“I’ll fix it…” His thumb tried to move against Levi’s cheek and managed only a small twitch. “I don’t know…but I’ll change it…”
“Asher, stop. Stop talking about the game. We’re not in the game. We’re at your house. You have a fever, you’re — you have a fever, I’m going to —” Levi froze, his hands wanting to move and unable to decide which direction.
His leg.
Levi pulled the blankets back. Asher was in boxers. The dressing on his thigh had peeled back at one edge — sweated off, maybe, or pulled at in his sleep — and the gauze was rucked up and the skin under it was bad. The wound itself was mostly healed, but one broken spot in the center was red and weeping, with all the skin around it shiny and taut like something was pressing up under his skin. From the edges of the wound, climbing up Asher’s thigh toward his groin in long thin tracks, were red lines.Oh no.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
How long had it been like that? How long had Asher been walking around with that under a bandage?
“Asher,” Levi kept his voice level. “How long has your leg been like this?”
“— it has to be that way,“ Asher was telling someone above the ceiling. “If I increase the fear baseline, the system reads it as low engagement and generates less hostile —”
“Asher.”
“— I built it. I built it. I should be able to —”
Okay. He needs a doctor. Now.
“Phone,” he said to Asher, who was not listening. “Asher, where’s your phone?”
“— mm?”
It sat on the nightstand, plugged in, screen-down. Levi lunged across the bed for it. His hand was shaking and he didn’t try to make it stop. “What’s the passcode?”