Whiplash

(Trish)

My name is Trish Una and this is not my story. I was in the middle of my own campaign when a team of masked men showed up and demanded that I go with them, "for my own safety." If I'd known how roundabout this side quest was going to be, I never would have agreed. At the very least, I would have packed my makeup.

My mother had died the night before. Yeah, thanks, tragic backstory. You have to understand that she never wanted to be a mother in the first place and her family's money meant that she never had to. Between the governesses and the boarding schools, Donatella was more like a glamorous aunt whom I visited a few times a year. Honestly, I was closer with Flor's family. My mother had only begun to take an interest in me since I'd hit my teen years – since I could speak my mind and share her interests and ask nothing of her but an allowance. So yes, her decline and death did rob my hopes a bit, but there wasn't much there to begin with.

Flor flew me straight "home" to Calabria as soon as we got the news. I knew other adventurers were likely to break into her jewel-box of a studio flat and rifle through her belongings for clues. I wanted to get there first.

Donatella had always claimed that the strange people who followed us, broke into her home, and occasionally kidnapped me were after her family fortune. I knew that wasn't true. They didn't ransom me, for one thing. They stole the strangest things, shunning jewelry and purses of which Donatella had many. And something was always off about them. I never could put my finger on it until I met Flor. Now I knew: they were all stand users.

When the first round of kidnappers found me that afternoon, I was settled on the floor like a child, sorting Donatella's jewelry by country of origin. I knew about most of her trips; since I was a little girl, I'd collected any boarding passes and receipts that I found when I visited her. My friends back at school would goggle at them and tell me all about the places they represented. I pretended I already knew, while my imagination ran wild. I never let on that I had been nowhere but southern Italy and schools in Switzerland and the airspace between them.

But this time, my interest was not vicarious. There had come a point when I realized that I was nothing more than a cut-rate souvenir, unable to compare to the treasures that Donatella kept in her home. Today I was looking for the intentional souvenirs from the trip that had produced me. I knew the location – Sardinia – but I thought, if I found the pieces, maybe I could find the seller. Maybe a jeweler there would remember them. Him. "Solido Naso." The name that had cemented my friendship with Flor and set my life on fire. The name that ought to have explained everything and never did.

Flor was out getting us a pizza when they arrived. They had black cloth masks and they flashed me ornate little silver tokens as if I should know what that meant. When the scarred man told me they worked for my father, I knew he was probably lying, but I still couldn't resist. It was the first plot hook in a month, after all.

I stuffed a cute daytrip bag with all of Donatella's Italian pieces in hopes of meeting a jeweler who could sort them out for me, plus my phone and charger, and a change of clothes tugged from her extensive closet. Pink and black arithmetic dress of plus two charisma? Quirky but I'll take it. Donatella would have bought it based on the designer, not because she'd ever wear such a thing. I texted Flor from the car as the masked men spirited me away, and that's how I got into this mess.

After changing hands among competing kidnappers four more times, each time with new tokens or passwords or secret handsigns to convince me that these men, truly, worked for my father, I was just about fed up with this wild goose chase. Some of them weren't even stand users! What the hell am I doing? I was asking myself. I split the party for this nonsense?

You want me to pick you up? Flor kept texting.

Just give it until tonight, I kept saying. If my father really is a mysterious international figure, sooner or later his mooks will find me, right?

Whatever you say, Patricia.

Trish is my full name. Flor teases me because I made the mistake of using his full name when we first met. We go to a girls' boarding school, so he's waiting until we graduate to change his name from Florence to Firenze. His British parents are cool with that, but obviously the school is not, so for now, he uses his childhood nickname. Flor.

When the sardonic little old man handed me off to this latest bunch of weirdos, I just rolled my eyes. I texted a few photos to Flor between Capri and the vineyard:

I took his shirt and mopped my face with it, should have seen his expression!

Check out this dude's HAT! Wtf is that? And he smells like *ass*. Gonna call him Asshat from now on.

This guy is clearly mafia royalty. Look at that ermine suit. Are there ranks below kingpin? Dukepin, earlpin?

Think I can ask this little queer boy(?) to lend me a fresh bra? Gah, I can smell myself! Can you air-drop me some Chanel No. 5? Jk don't blow my cover.

Look, Golden Boy thinks he's so "gang-star"! What do you think?

Omg, Shirtless is so worried about Little Queer Boy(?) buying groceries alone, he can't even sit down! How cute is that? Trenchcoat's trying to talk him down. It's so serious, Flor.

I was just killing time until the next shoot-out. But I started picking up little clues.

Flor, they didn't even try to convince me that they're the *real* ones. Do they not know people have been fighting over me since yesterday?

Flor, they don't know who their boss is. Whoever it is, he has them scared. That's so F'd up! And my father is so F'd up! What if it's him.

Flor! You should have seen this adorable argument between Dukepin and Trenchcoat. They are ALL ABOUT each other, omg adorbz. I think they're like, a divorced gay couple staying together for their little queer son(?). In the f'ing MAFIA! This pointless sidequest has officially paid off.

Omg Flor, they are ALL stand users. I don't care if they're working for him or against him. They'll get me closer. Don't pick me up yet. I'm gonna stick with them and see where this goes.

So when a ratty little dude dragged me onto a train, I was officially done going with the flow. I wanted my cute gay guys back, and Trish Una gets what she wants.

(Giorno)

The drive from the vineyard to the train station would have been improved if Narancia hadn't shot out one of the tires trying to solve a deadlock between Bucciarati and Abbacchio over who – if anyone – should stay behind on a suicide mission to delay the traitor team pursuing us. As it was, we had everyone with us but the van bumped, thudded, and flubbered down the highway at a top speed of 70 kph.

"At this rate, we're going to miss the 16:05 train," Fugo leaned forward to inform us, pleating a paper schedule and tucking it back into his pocket. "The next northbound train isn't until 17:35."

"What are you, some kind of train wizard today, Fugo?" Narancia spun full around in his seat. I grabbed the steering wheel from under his animated hands, crumpling the map that blanketed my lap. Narancia stamped on the gas, to absolutely no effect. "I don't see you casting any speed magic right now! So what the fuck!"

"If someone hadn't wrecked car number three on the way back from Pompeii–" Fugo cut his eyes at me.

"It had no brakes," I offered meekly. "And Bucciarati took all the mirrors off to stop that mirror guy from keeping tabs on us. Illuso? At least I missed the oncoming traffic."

"Giorno's just a kid! You're lucky he can drive at all or the guys would still be at Pompeii! And about a thousand years old, and dead!" Narancia was still turned backward in the driver's seat to confront Fugo while I steered. "If you wanna pick on someone, pick on me! I'm the one who set car number two on fire this morning!"

"You had to do that," Mista said amicably from behind me. "That motorcycle freak was after you, right? I'm the one who dropped a fucking rock on car number one yesterday."

"That's a different situation," Fugo insisted. "You were saving Bruno's life. Narancia set a whole city block on fire to stop one goddamn stand, and Giorno just got in a regular, pointless car accident. And lost an hour walking back to the vineyard after because our phones had no reception there."

Gold hummed indignantly in my mind. It had been a high-speed chase, in fact. I got in a regular, pointless car accident after losing our pursuit; speeding back to Pompeii to retrieve Abbacchio's hand which he insisted he didn't need; sneaking past a police cordon into the smoking ruins of a historic ruins; retrieving said hand so that Bucciarati could reattach it with magic zippers; and driving safely most of the way back to the vineyard. Then the car stalled in a rotary and we got rear-ended and spun out – onto the verge, not into oncoming traffic, thanks to Gold's quick modifications to the tires. And Gold's abilities provided me with a white stag to ride back to the vineyard, saving us hours of untold risk. I only walked the last fifteen minutes because the animal bolted and I fell off. Gold wanted me to set the record straight, but I saw no reason to escalate the present conversation, especially given Fugo's apparent state of mind.

"It was just as well," Mista said, as I pulled the emergency brake lightly and shouldered us past a slow-moving little Fiat that had just merged in front of us. "Trish had time for a shower and we had a proper lunch–"

"Narancia! Floor it!" Bucciarati called out suddenly from the back seat, where he and Abbacchio were still recovering. "Mista! That driver–"

Narancia took the wheel back as I pivoted to the window. Yes, in fact, the driver of the little Fiat was the chubby, fish-faced man that Abbacchio had pointed out to us on the way to Pompeii. A new recruit to the assassins team, he'd said; unknown ability.

Three gunshots rang out. Mista already had the window open and his stand in action. As our van jogged just a bit faster, the Fiat screeched into a spin-out: two tires blown and the windshield shattered by Mista's bullets.

"Was that the right one?" Mista asked.

"Yeah, you got him," I said, dismissing Gold Experience. Having a team was so much better than working solo. In my head, Gold raised an eyebrow – unconvinced.

Impossibly loud – the van shuddered forward, gusts of hot, sulfurous air rushed in through the windows – my head whipped around as a fireball engulfed our pursuer's tiny car not far behind us.

Bucciarati closed a zipper on the back door of the van and another across his chest. "Grenade," he said nonchalantly. "Sorry, gentlemen. And lady. Should have warned you."

Damn! I thought he'd used up his arsenal on the way out of Pompeii.

Tiny jet engines buzzed close over the van's roof, then cut out.

"Aerosmith was already on it," Narancia called back over his shoulder. "Save your ammo – you can count on me!"

"Focus on your driving," Bucciarati told him. "Giorno, how's that map looking?"

I straightened the map quickly and tried to spot our location –

"Five kilometers to our exit," Fugo said smugly. "We'll need to change lanes."

Narancia turned the radio all the way up and started singing over it.

(Abbacchio)

Again.

I think I'm looping.

Bones crack when I move.

Strength falls away like a cane from my hand and I am falling.

Impact and you are out of reach.

Is this memory, nightmare, or reality?

Your timeline runs out in five seconds. Impossible to accept. Four. Three–

Again.

I think I'm looping.

Gunshots and my life is over. Why am I still breathing?

You're here.

I bury my face in your hair – not even salt and pepper, why is it ghost white in my memory? I know this skin when it will be thin like tissue paper and as dry. I know the worry lines around your eyes will only get deeper as you watch me trudge through the decades. I want to tell you I'm sorry, that you deserve better, but the words have flown.

Your sapphire eyes never get any less sharp. I want to tell you that, too.

(Bucciarati)

"Goddamn self-sacrificing son of a bitch," I murmured into Leone's ear. "You didn't like it the last time someone took a bullet for you. Don't do that to me!"

I knew from the way his eyes flickered that he was in some kind of waking dream. Unreachable. Too far gone for words. I'd never say such a thing if there was a chance he'd hear me. My eyes stung but if I let up for a moment, I'd be useless to my team. And the hitmen squad were not going to wait for me to regain my composure. I bit my lip so hard it bled.

I held Leone tighter. That fucking stand had made me grateful for ribs that don't crumble under a touch. I was so fucking mad. I stroked Leone's hair – ash-blond, not silver – and it didn't come away in my hands. Breath shuddered in and out of my lungs; clear, unrasping lungs, and I was fucking grateful.

Throat slit limbless was too good a fate for that man. I wanted to go back and do something worse. Make him feel what his stand did to us. But if he didn't love someone this much – and who the hell does? – then there was no way he'd ever feel what I'd felt. Besides, dead is dead. There are no do-overs for how you kill someone.

When I closed my eyes, the moments of that wicked fight in Pompeii resurfaced like wreckage thrown up on the shores of my half-dream. Giorno looking dashing in middle age, then early senescence, as he claimed the key with a vine of nightshade laced across the beautiful mosaic floor. The moment the stand user showed himself, stepping over our prone bodies and age-defeated stands to take the key right out of Giorno's hand – capturing it even as Giorno changed it to a butterfly. The man laughed softly to himself as he pinned its wings so gently, so harmlessly between his fingers. I saw the hope in Giorno's eyes wink out. Drained of life force by the enemy's aging effect, Gold Experience lay helpless in his arms.

Leone sprawled brittle and broken on the ancient tiles, limbs lying at odd angles worse than mine, silent even in his agony. But Moody Blues! The stand rose like a marionette on strings of pure memory, a lithe and youthful Leone – the most beautiful sight I've ever seen.

Knife fighter, vengeful ghost, dancing with lethal grace; time seemed to stand still as he pulled muscle memory from a past I scarcely remembered. I wrenched my eyes off him long enough to pull a grenade from my person with Sticky Fingers' enfeebled grip. Activated grenades should not be rolled weakly across ancient mosaic to rest at an enemy's feet. I was risking everything. I was relying on the enemy's body to shield Giorno from the blast. I was relying on Leone to distract the enemy down to the last second – and withdraw his stand in time. Luckily, timing has always been his forte. Leone is always counting the seconds.

The enemy lost hold of his stand effect as the explosion ripped away his legs. Broken bones and all, Leone lunged for him. There wasn't time for him to re-age us before his life winked out under Leone's knife.

Giorno's key-butterfly flitted down to sip from the pool of blood, teasing out the hard-won minerals with its delicate spiral tongue. A brush of my fingers and it reverted to a gold and ruby key.

I had Leone's entire leg open in front of me, setting bones with careful zippers, when Moody Blues flashed into existence at his side. It shrieked like a fire alarm.

"Run," Leone said.

One look at his face and I zipped his leg closed – a useless bag of splintered bone and spasming muscle. Then I hauled him up and braced him on my shoulder as I ran.

Sticky Fingers opened a wall of the Tragic Poet's House for us to escape. The ancient street outside was littered with civilian casualties – younger companions frantically trying to rouse their elderly parents and partners, a guide aghast at the unison death of her seniors tour group. The media would report a mass heart attack, perhaps, induced by something, something, a solar flare – who knows?

Leone gripped my arm painfully, panic wild in his eyes. I felt a fever heat in my blood and I knew with certainty who pursued us now. Expect devastation.

"Clear the area!" I shouted, stumbling around bodies, dragging Leone forward. "Evacuate the survivors! There's an active shooter with–" Oh, how to tell these poor dumb tourists? "With a deadly magnetic ray! Experimental weapon! Leave your dead, clear the living!"

Giorno gaped at the litter of corpses from the previous enemy. I smacked him over the head.

"Run and don't look back," I told him, pressing on. "New enemy. Telekinetic instant kill. If he gets you in his range, you are already dead."

"We really shouldn't have killed Prosciutto back there," Leone hissed in my ear. "Karma's protection–"

"I know," I said, "but he didn't give us much choice."

Leone shuddered, gripped my hand tighter. Blues appeared on his other side – mirroring me. As I hoisted Leone higher onto my shoulder, Blues did the same. Much easier. I took off at a sprint. Leone yelped as his shattered leg dragged. No help for that.

"Sorry, love," I panted.

Giorno ran ahead, bounding like a gazelle. Gold Experience opened the walls of buildings for him with curtains of vines that sealed flawlessly behind us. But he was fast and I was burdened. When he paused at a corner for me and Leone to catch up, I pressed the ruby key into his hand – were we going to die for it? Or would we die for nothing?

"Go," I told Giorno. "He controls iron. The car will be a deathtrap if he catches up to you. No more waiting, just go."

"But–"

Moody Blues made an urgent, low humming sound. Gold Experience, blinking into existence behind Giorno, seemed to lock eyes with the other stand for an instant. Then Gold seized Giorno's hand and took off at a dead run. They plunged into the next ancient house, briefly turning the wall into a fluttering cloud of moths and back again. They were gone.

Leone gave a strangled cry, exactly as the fever heat struck my blood again. We could both erupt in a spray of needles and razors at any moment now. The only question was why I was alive to know this.

I spun around, searching frantically for the lensing that would mark the edge of Risotto Nero's mirror-coated body as he slunk through his surroundings. Glazed with his stand, he would be immune to my zippers; I can't unzip stands, only flesh and matter. But if I could locate him, I could strike the ground at his feet, a pillar behind him, a roof overhead – trip him, crush him, catch him mid-zipper and slice him in half when I released it.

Nothing. If he wasn't moving, he was as good as invisible. But with Blues, maybe–

"Leone," I whispered, "can you–?"

His eyes were locked on mine in such an expression of terror that I doubted my words held any sense for him.

"Leone." I pressed my hand to his cheek. "Please. You have to locate him."

"Leave me."

"WHAT? What the fuck! No! I will not be leaving you to die here alone!"

Blues – in its own lavender form now – touched my bad shoulder so gently, hummed soft and low. Leone was struggling for words. I could almost see him trying to pull them from the air over my head.

"He wants me alive. I'm certain. You'll die. You can't carry me. Go. Just run." Leone stiffened suddenly. "NO!"

The jolts of tension that went through him put my heart in my throat – three, four shocks in quick succession – but no steel blades burst from his chest. Instead, he threw his hand in front of me, seemingly at random, and intercepted a whirling cleaver in mid-air. As it clattered on the paving stones, the blood that sprayed from Leone's wrist glittered silver – cooled to gunmetal gray. His hand landed with a wet thud.

"Get out of range!" Leone yelled in my face, shoving me away with one hand and one stump. The fiery prickle in my blood pulsed and tugged in a syncopated rhythm. Leone spun on the spot and screamed at thin air: "STOP IT!"

"You don't know what you want, do you, Leone?" Gleaming reflections oozed to the ground as Risotto Nero stepped closer, leaving a pool of quicksilver behind him. "Indecision is agony. Let me ease your pain. You'll come with me. I'll let Bucciarati live. I'll even call off my team; keep the girl, I don't need her if you cooperate. And you will cooperate. I felt it the instant Prosciutto expired. You've wronged my team and you've wronged me. You're no longer my innocent victim, Leone. We're even. Karma Chameleon's curse has lifted and no one you wanted to protect from me is protected anymore. No one. Think about that for a minute."

I became aware of a shrill hum at the highest range of my hearing – like the sound of electricity in high voltage wires. Blues. Moody Blues was emitting a steady, unending keen of absolute misery. It set my nerves on end.

"He can't help you unmask the boss," I told Risotto tersely. His eyes flicked onto me and I was very aware that I stood within his stand's working radius. I had to hope this madman didn't lose sight of my value as a bargaining chip in his bid for Leone's cooperation. "I don't know what replay you're thinking of capturing, but it will be immediately obvious who helped you. Leone might as well sign his own execution order, as soon as help you."

"That's not really a problem to you, is it, babe?" Risotto stepped closer and I saw Leone's eyes dilate, saw his breaths run short and shallow. "There's only ever been two things you want from life. Love, and death. You know Bucciarati can only give you one of those things. I can give you both. It's so simple, Leone. It's not even a choice."

"Three." Leone forced the word out through the strangle-hold of fear. Then he narrowed his eyes at Risotto and took one step back – into his own stand's reach.

Blues clicked into action – a replay of Risotto Nero himself in black-and-white, gritty and flickering like old cinema film.

"Him or me?" Blues demanded, a tinned memory of Risotto's voice. Wearing Risotto's form, it leapt forward like a cat; its hands wrapped around Leone's throat and lifted. "You love him, or you love me? ANSWER ME!"

The memory paused. Leone dangled just off his tiptoes, frozen like a lamb in the grip of a wolf. I knew this one. This was from their last fight before I stole Leone away.

Gripped by his own memory, Leone's eyes rolled back. He struggled feebly, swaying from his stand's hands. I realized he couldn't breathe. Blues reverted to its own form but its grip did not relent. I saw its fingers flex tighter.

"Leone, no!" I yelped, springing forward.

I raised Sticky Fingers, ready to assault Blues if that's what it took to overcome Leone's deathwish. But Leone glanced at me with one glassy eye. The RESOLVE etched across his face was so fierce that I fell back a step in awe.

Leone had taken himself hostage. Risotto needed him alive. So if Risotto made a single move that displeased Leone, then Leone would die. Risotto's powers were extensive, but we all knew very well that saving lives was not in his repertoire.

Risotto laughed at me – a quiet, pleasant laughter that made my skin crawl. "He can't follow through on that. When he passes out, his stand will vanish and he'll start breathing again. Then I can kill you and take him with me."

Moody Blues cocked its head at Risotto as Leone went limp in its arms.

"You're wrong," I said, watching Leone's still chest. I was drowning in all the feelings I didn't feel. "You have to back down. Blues is a singularly weak stand. It takes almost nothing to power it. He can keep this up to the death."

My voice cracked on the last word. I wrapped my arms around Leone and attempted to lift him enough to let him breath past his stand's hands. It was useless. Blues raised its arms the centimeters that I managed to lift, maintaining the lethal pressure on its user's throat.

Desperate, I opened a zipper across Leone's chest, hoping his lungs would pick up oxygen straight from the air. I was buying him seconds. At this point, I worried that a blow to Moody Blues to dislodge its grip might knock Leone into the afterlife.

Risotto stepped closer, an unusual expression on his face–

A glimpse of gold and the paving stone beneath his foot dissolved into brown-black glitter and seething motion. Wasps. They parted like quicksand and swarmed over him as he sank in. A thousand times louder than Moody Blues' electric hum of misery, the wasps' humming rose to a dire pitch as a vengeful tornado coalesced around Risotto's torso and head.

Silver-glazed once more, he was shaking violently. Not with pain, I realized. With laughter. Heat shimmered above his head like an invisible halo – oh, it was just like Risotto Nero to always hold one detail of his ability in reserve!

The iron that flowed in seemingly endless quantity from his myriad, oozing stand was molten hot this time. Wrapped in silvery armor against the stings, he didn't really have to burn Gold Experience's wasps to death. But clearly he wanted to. Risotto stepped out of the wasp pit as it flooded with red-hot liquid metal.

And he screamed.

I have never heard such inhuman agony as what Risotto Nero was articulating as he thrashed on Pompeii's ancient stone street, silvery armor running off him like mercury to reveal skin instantly boiling, blackening, crisping, flaking away like ash. All over his body. Just as if he'd been dunked in molten metal himself. His lungs singed and he was rasping, coughing, groaning as he tried to twist away from the pain of heat-flayed skin against sun-warmed stone. Helpless as a maggot. I almost pitied him.

For one superstitious instant, I thought he was suffering the wrath of Pompeii's ghosts. Then I remembered one crucial detail about Giorno's creations.

"The damage reflects back on the attacker," Giorno murmured, stepping around the corner of the building where he'd kept hidden. Looking stiff and resentful, Gold Experience accompanied him past Risotto's burned body to my side. "Gold, revive Abbacchio."

The stand glanced his way and Giorno's hands balled into fists. "Gold!"

Gold Experience obeyed, but not without a moment's distaste before it laid its armor-clad hands against Leone's chest where he hung from his own inert stand's grip. A glow like sun in a flower's petals passed under Gold's hands and Leone shuddered back into motion. His eyes rolled, his fingers pried at his stand's unrelenting hands.

Giorno frowned. "Mellow Yellow, put him down!"

"Blues," I said quietly. The stand tilted its blank face toward me. I reached up and ran my thumb across the timer on its forehead. "Let go. You did good. We can escape now."

Moody Blues eased Leone down onto his feet. I caught him in my arms as his stand faded out. He was hacking, clawing at his throat, doubled over gasping for air. I steadied him until the breaths whistled in and out cleanly. His hand in mine was clammy, almost gray; shock, my fragmentary medical knowledge whispered.

Just paces away, Risotto Nero lay motionless on the stone pavement. His clothing was unharmed, but every centimeter of exposed skin was blistered, singed, or seeping blood. Outside this alley, the sunny street was deserted aside from a dozen age-defiled corpses. A couple stray flies investigated them.

"We have to leave now," I told Giorno. "Help me carry Leone. I don't think his stand is up to it at this point."

"Wait." Giorno turned to Gold Experience. With insectile grace, the stand stooped and stroked the stones at our feet.

I stepped back, expecting some new clutch of stinging, thorny, crawling horrors. I did not expect fur. Thick, luxurious, yellow-white fur the exact color of these sun-bleached stones – over two meters of it. Muscle rippled beneath the fur and the creature hefted itself onto its four stout legs: as tall as a horse, but much broader. Then it stood upright, nearly twice my height. A tremendous white bear swayed and snorted in this alley of Pompeii.

"Giorno, do you actually control your creatures?" I asked, pulling Leone back a step.

The bear came down on all fours again, shaking the stone under my feet. Giorno stared up at it in wonder. He ran a hand down its shoulder and the bear snarled, turning to show him its teeth. Those were serious teeth.

Gold Experience flicked the bear directly between the eyes and its expression went slack. Its movements slowed. Its ears twitched with the enjoyable surfeit of life force that overwhelmed its senses.

"Quick, climb on," Giorno said. His eyes were bright like a child's at Christmas.

"Are you sure about this idea?"

He shrugged. "I read it in a book once. I mean, bears are strong, fast, and hard to hurt. So I think it fits our needs right now."

Gold Experience handed Giorno up onto the bear's back effortlessly. With Sticky Fingers, I managed to pull up first Leone and then myself behind him. Leone wasn't speaking, but his expression said it all. My zippers don't do a damn thing about pain. All of the bones I'd mended for him were still causing him a world of hurt, and all of the bones I hadn't had time to mend were unadulterated hell.

Then Giorno kicked the bear. It shook its massive head – along with the thick, loose skin all down its back where we clung – and then it took off at a mad run.

Bears are not easy to ride.

Leone made a strangled noise of pain in his throat as the bear's thumping gait jostled us around. I tried to steady him without losing my own grip.

I managed a half-second glance behind us as we sailed out of the alley where we'd faced down Risotto. His body was gone. I swore. I'd been so certain he was incapacitated! But all that was left was a gleaming puddle of his metal – silvery, mirroring the sky.

"Oh, fucking hell."

(Abbacchio)

"Don't let them take you from me," Bruno was murmuring over and over into my hair. "He can't have you. They can't have you. Don't die on me."

I roused. The pain in my bones had eased to a tolerable ache, spiking as the van bumped down the highway on its flat tire. I regretted yelling in Bruno's face while we limped down the roadside far behind Giorno that I was worthless, broken, spent, best used as a sacrifice to my former squad to ensure our team's escape. It may have been true, but it was hard on him.

I regretted telling him about the sculptor's stand, its final prediction at the hospital that night. Last night. Damn. That we'd traded in a forecast of Bruno's death for a forecast of mine, Narancia's, and his own. That I only hoped it meant a choice of those three and that I was choosing the only acceptable option.

I shouldn't have put Narancia's life on the line in that conversation. Argument. Screaming match. While we waited for Fugo to arrive with the van and Trish and the rest of the team.

I shouldn't have yelled at Bruno that he was nothing next to my partner. That he'd never loved me, only the way I made him feel. That it wasn't me he'd miss.

And he shouldn't have tried to walk away when I refused to get in the van.

We really shouldn't have done any of that in front of the team. Especially Narancia. I winced, remembering the pain on my favorite child's face – before he opened fire on the van and started screaming at us to make up.

Oh, Narancia. I could hear him laughing in the front seat, translating hysteria into joy. As the van swerved wildly. Wait. Had Bruno let him drive? Oh, crap.

"Oh, did I wake you?" Bruno shifted me off his shoulder so he could look into my face. "How are you feeling?"

Sorry.

Alive.

Functional.

Ambivalent.

Fond.

Thankful.

The words were back, they just weren't ready to be spoken.

"No words yet?" he asked.

I did an in-the-middle hand gesture.

"Okay." He rested his cheek against my forehead, but I pulled away. "Leone – okay, I'm sorry."

I didn't mean to reject his gesture. I just needed to see his eyes. Even touched with pain, they were blue as the clearest sky. I swore I could see a single white-wing gull spiraling up in his inner sky, like hope rising above the troubles of this world.

I'm only at peace when I'm with you. Tell him that, I thought. Better than an apology, just the truth. If he only knew his worth.

"Worth," I said instead. Oops.

Blues was still tripping me up, the wrong words echoing in my head when I opened my mouth to speak. The motion sickness wasn't helping, either. Stand senses lagging a meter behind as the van swerved and fishtailed.

"Worse?" Bruno looked crestfallen.

I shook my head, gave him a helpless gesture. Bruno knows my single words aren't always meaningful.

"Oh. It's okay, don't push yourself. Blues must be on overdrive after everything today."

I nodded and kept trying to sync up my stand in my head. The right word would be so valuable right now. I wanted to ease the pain I'd given him today.

"Peace," I managed. That was good enough for now.

Bruno eyed me quizzically. When I didn't take it back, he smiled. And because he's incorrigible, he pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, "I still love you."

I breathed him in. I could have reminded him for the thousandth time that we weren't getting back together, but it didn't seem urgent. The thought slipped my mind. I settled back onto his shoulder and let Blues trace the road we left behind us: hypnotic streaks of former selves, fleeing from the edge of my vision. With my eyes closed, it was beautiful instead of nauseating.

Certainly better than looking ahead, where possible car crashes flickered all around the safety of our actual path. Future selves blinking out of existence like the light dancing on ocean waves. Thousands, thousands; alarming and impossible to sort out before they came to pass.

Much easier to watch the past as it fell away in a single, lucid stream.