CHAPTER 52

Her room was full of paint, brushes, and several easels with art in various stages. An image of a beautiful tree dropping blossoms caught his attention, but he shook his head and moved around Yuki's bed to where Dana had landed. She had pulled the bed's comforter off on her way down, and was wrapped up inside of it.

"Dana?" he crouched down and gave her a shake.

"Mmmf," she replied.

"You okay?" He pulled some of the blankets off of her, then recoiled in horror.

Dana's head was at an unnatural angle, a large lump in the side of her neck. Her arms were still twisted up in the blanket, but he could tell that something was wrong with her shoulder.

She let out a raspy sigh that sounded more like a cough. "Apparently my neck is broken," she said, her voice like a scratched record.

"I... I see that. Um... do you think I should take you to... Zel?"

Dana stared at him for a couple of seconds, her grey eyes flat and lifeless. "Oh, sorry. I tried to shake my head no. If we can get me... situated, I should be fixable without her help."

"Yeah, let's... uh..." He tenderly moved the blanket off of her side, then tried to shift her by dragging the fabric.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Trying to move you without hurting... oh." He grabbed the blanket and dragged her into the middle of the room and unwrapped her.

"Dead girl broken bad." Tink's features were scrunched up in disgust. "Husband fix?"

"Of course." He grabbed Dana's shoulders and lifted, then placed himself under her torso and stood. She was now hanging over his shoulder, butt first. "Tink, do you think you could try and get that hole patched? Yuki's more likely to forgive us if she at least has her wall back."

"Tink try." She slipped the goggles over her face and moved to examine the hole. "Whole house broken today. Husband make Tink work too hard."

"Sorry, Tink." He felt bad, leaving her with the mess, but Dana needed him first. He carried her down the hall to his room and put her down on the bed. Laid flat, he could see that one shoulder hung much lower than the other, and one of her feet was twisted the wrong way.

"How should I start?" he asked.

"Once everything is lined up, I'll heal." A weird gurgling noise came from her mouth. "Ugh, I can't swallow."

He looked at her and shivered. She couldn't see him from her current position, but he was looking at the weird knob in her throat. By all rights, if he had been caught in the door's blast, then the same thing could have happened to him.

"Let's start with your foot?" It was more a question than a statement, and he waited for a response.

"Whatever gets me fixed, but..." She wheezed. "Just start soon, okay?"

"Okay." He grabbed her foot and pushed her pant leg up. It looked like a bone in her shin had popped up, so he gave it a tentative push. "So, just shove it back?"

"You can try. I've had this break before. It seems that my injuries cause weak points sometimes. Twist my foot around and then push on the raised part."

He felt nauseous, but tensed his jaw and did what she said. Her skin was cool to the touch, and he almost got sick when he felt how springy the bone was when he pushed on it.

"You gonna play with it, or put it back?"

"Sorry." He pushed on it a couple times, then climbed onto the bed and held her foot in place with his knees, then used his body weight and both hands to shove the bone back into place.

He felt a shifting beneath her skin as the bone mended, and when he lifted his hands, the bone stayed down. "Is that better?"

"No idea. My neck is broken, remember?"

"Oh. Right." He moved toward her shoulder, then grimaced. Maybe he should have taken her to Zel, or someone with any sort of medical experience, because he was freaking out a little. "How about the shoulder?"

"Dead girls don't swell up. If you can rotate it around, all you have to do is pop it back in." She coughed, then let out another wheeze. "It won't hurt me, so get creative."

"Once more unto the breach, I guess." He grabbed her shoulder and wiggled it around, trying to picture it as something other than a human arm. He gave the arm a push where he thought it should go, and felt the bone inside scrape against the socket.

"You seriously don't feel that?"

"Even if I could, it would just be uncomfortable. Like, the pressure would be there, but no pain."

"Okay, well then let's get it over with." He straddled her torso and picked up her arm and leaned into her. This took several minutes of trial and error, but eventually he felt something give and her arm popped back into its socket.

"Oh, yeah, just like that," Dana groaned.

"Excuse me?"

"Dead girl humor. It's a thing Lily does." She turned her eyes toward him, so he leaned into view so she could see him better.

"Ah, yes. Lily. She makes life interesting."

"She makes death interesting, too."

"Glad to know you didn't break your sense of humor when you went through that wall." To be honest, he wasn't even sure he had heard her crack a joke before.

"It's deadpan humor." One side of her lips twitched into a brief smile.

"Was that... a zombie joke?"

"It's either laugh or scream. I'm lying on your bed with a broken neck, trying not to freak out a little, so if you don't mind?"

"Right, sorry." He got off the bed and positioned himself over her head. "So what do I do here?"

"What's it look like?"

"Well, your head is crooked, and—"

"No, tell me what it looks like."

"Oh. There's a lump in your neck where it's crooked, so... I wonder if I just need to push your head back on top of it?"