Pain is begging. Your body begging. Begging you to take notice of this bad thing that's happening to it, to you, begging you to make it stop before too much damage is done. But sometimes your body gets confused. And it keeps begging even when there's nothing to be done. Sometimes it begs so much that it screams. Loud enough to wake the dead.

Tonight, like usual, it wakes me up long before sunrise. Pleading for me to reattach my fingers and wash away the infection that comes and goes, comes and goes depending on the day. I pity my body. It doesn't understand what I do – that this is the new norm. Life with eight fingers. Life with two gaping holes in my hand. Two burning, pus-filled, raw, bloody, disgusting gaping holes that, at their worst, feel like someone is going at them with an electric drill. Digging into my flesh and bone.

I roll over, very slowly, because Dad's three feet away and the lightest sleeper in the world, and because someone will be on watch. We've been taking one-hour shifts, one of the benefits of having so many people now. More sleep. If you can get it.

I've woken up during Abraham's shift, I see his outline across the camp, he's leaning on one of our two salvaged vehicles . . . Rosita is curled up against him, safe and sound. Each of Abraham's hands dangle off of one of his knees. His fingers rub together slowly. They snap into sticks when I sit up. I can't see his eyes, but I can feel them. I incline my head and pull my feet under me, easy, easy, and then I rise like air. Dad doesn't wake up.

I look at Abraham again as if I'm asking his permission to go. He doesn't nod, doesn't speak, but his fingers start moving again. I take that as him giving me the OK to walk a dozen feet into the woods to pee. I don't need to pee, but, well, I never told him I did.

One of the cars is behind Dad, who's behind me, meaning on the edge of our camp. I have to walk around the car. Which means walking past Dad's boots, then Owen's straight-as-a-board body. Something about Owen – he doesn't move when he sleeps. Wakes up in the exact same position he fell asleep in. That's nothing at all like Carl. Even now, I see him shifting in his sleep across the campsite. He's being fitful, that's what my Nana would have called it. He always moves when we sleep next to each other, but – it's not so fitful. Not so much, at least. Usually it's him pulling me closer.

I slip around the car.

There's a stream fifty yards from camp. I walk there, never snapping a branch, and then watch the water run. I love how running water looks under moonlight. Or – I like how moonlight looks on running water. It's wild. Wild light, spinning, leaping, twisting, dancing, all at a speed I can't comprehend. Wild, wild light.

I want to stick my bad hand into the water, but it's covered by the latest makeshift bandage – a strip of a shirt – which I'm not supposed to get wet. So instead I kneel, dip my good hand into the water, and splash my face with it. The water isn't very cold, but it's something.

"Little girl, little girl," someone drawls from behind me. "You should know better than to wander around all by your lonesome . . . Anything could happen." A pause, and he's closer when he says, "Some bad man could get ya." And he's whispering when he finishes, whispering with his hot breath pouring right onto my neck –

"Scream, bitch. Scream and I'll kill you and I'll kill your daddy, I swear to God."

I watch the wild light on the water. "You do that."

He doesn't answer, and my neck isn't hot now.

"Yeah." I dip my hand into the water. "That's what I thought."

And then a white hand reaches into the stream next to mine and twists the shining ripples along with me. "That was great, Sydney," Beth says. "You're doing so great now."

I look over to see her, but she's gone. I run my wet hand over my face. "I'm tryin'."