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"No I’ht Well… if you won’t appear, will you at least stay?"

I felt the ghost of her hand brush the back of one in an instant "Until the end I promise"

"Okay," I said, and popped open the lid on the unit "One…"

"Two…"

I sla the needles to start their business They bit deep, and I hissed, biting ht a easier I didn’t feel any difference at all Blood tests always hurt, but this one orse than most, maybe because the unit was so pried, I pulled hts, no alar to indicate whether I’d passed or failed Not that I really needed the confirht," as they said when I was in training--but it still would have been nice You were supposed to see your results That was how the testing worked

"Hey" George put her hand on o lie down? You’re exhausted"

I shrugged her hand off "No, I don’t want to sleep through this If this is the end of ht struck one if I’ you, can I? You’re a pretty coe this quality of crazy"

"Thanks a lot"

"You’re welcome"

She fell silent, and so did I I was too tense to carry on a conversation, even with a dead person who lived only in ht, and she’d keep trying to stopat each other and I spent the lastwith the one person I least wanted to argue with I just wanted to know that she was there, and that I wasn’t going through this alone

So I stared at the test unit instead of talking to her, willing it to develop lights and tell me what I needed to know All I needed was for it to confir any fking toaster couldn’tat the test unit, feelingfor the other sy, the sensitivity to light, thelines that separated hu, and h to tell ression would be Every little step along the way