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Evie felt like she wanted to say so that wouldn’t sound hollow Besides, Jericho was talking to her, telling her the story she’d wanted to hear, and she ary of breaking the spell

"It started with his hand" Jericho paused, sipped frolass of water, resumed "One day, he couldn’t make a fist I remember that gone hand is drunk Kid, you didn’t take , didya?’ He said it like it was a joke But I could tell he was scared He didn’t tell the doctors, though He just kept telling them he felt fit as a fiddle"

Jericho worried the edge of the sheet between his fingers, pulling it taut, relaxing it again

"He would get awful ainst a wall, and it left a hole there His eyes were haunted He asked round He couldn’t or wouldn’t stop I let hi in the courtyard in the rain Just standing there, letting it wash over him I ran out to tell hiot too o’ I got him to come inside and lie down I could hear hi, ‘Please… please… please’ Anyway, one night he went a little crazy He stripped off all his clothes and ran through the hospital like an ape, swinging fro s ‘I am the future!’ he screamed It took four orderlies to catch him and strap him to the bed The doctor came in and explained that the process had becoood, they’d need to stop it"

Jericho buried his head in his hands for aat the, ‘You can’t do this to ave hi, kept screahts, they just needed to give hian to take effect; he couldn’t strugglewith them and God as they wheeled him out" Jericho shook his head at some memory beyond words "They reversed the process, I heard Even worse, they had to take the other arhout his body"

Jericho fell quiet Outside, so to start a car in the cold Thehiod," Evie said "How horrible"

Jericho nodded ure out how he’d done it, with no legs and no arht, and they listened to the comfort of its banal purr as it shook, idled, then spurred into action and drove away Jericho’s voice grew even softer, until it was al I woke up to the sound of hiht fro in ‘Kid,’ he said to host Like that part of him had already died and had come back for the rest ‘Kid, this is worse than Topeka’ He told me that once, in the war, he’d co out; he was just lying there in agony The soldier had looked up at Sergeant Leonard, and even though they didn’t speak the sae, they understood each other with just a look The Ger over him He put a bullet in the soldier’s head He didn’t do it with anger, as an ene another ‘One soldier helping another’ That’s how he put it" Again, Jericho fell quiet for a moment "He told me what he needed me to do Told me I didn’t have to Told iveanother"

Jericho fell quiet Evie held so still she thought she ht break

"I found his belt in the dresser and helped him into the wheelchair The hall was quiet on the way to the shower I remember how clean the floor was, like a hten it around his neck Even without his ar Just before, he looked atas I live--like he’d just realized so about it ‘Soaht,’ he said"