His Queen of Chaos
and Darius's hands moved and the spreading slowed, and Little J's too-bright eyes rolled toward me.
"Miss Zariah," the kid said, gray, talking too fast, the way the badly hurt talk when their body's lying to them about how bad it is. "I told you. I told you I took a, I stepped in front of it, that's, you saw, right, you saw I, I want a cake. Chocolate. Tell my grandma I -"
"You tell her yourself," Darius said, in a voice that was half fury and half prayer. "Shut up. Shut up, you absolute idiot, you're fine, you hear me, you're fine -"