She doesn't want to kill me.

But she will.

She just doesn't care.

Doesn't care if I live.

But she doesn't want to kill him.

Doesn't want to kill Edgeworth.

Miles.

So she's... going to kidnap him instead... going to... hurt... I don't... don't know.

At some point Phoenix drifted off again. He woke without being touched, waited through a fresh round of pain and dread, and fell asleep again when exhaustion outweighed the gnawing fear and hunger in his gut. The next time he woke was because of Lucy's finger trailing across his cheek. She traced his face lightly and murmured notes to herself, and didn't seem to care whether he was asleep or awake for it. He tried to figure out what the traced lines might mean and gave up when his fogged mind resisted the horrible pictures. Coherence was difficult to hold and time slipped away like water. Lucy was in and out of the shack, in and out, back and forth, up and down.

Up and down? Phoenix blinked hard and tried to center himself. Whether from pain, hunger, or blood loss, he was verging on delirium. Although he no longer held any hope of rescuing himself, holding on to his sanity while in captivity was one struggle he intended to win. When his friends came for him, he'd answer their questions and provide evidence with his own body and lock this girl up for a long, long time.

He blinked again and returned to the present. Something was different. What was different? His arm was loose. Fear choked him. No no no no keep me tied to the chair keep me tied don't get your axe don't cut it off don't! Gulping for air that wouldn't come, Phoenix jerked his freed arm back into place and tried to look calm, still, compliant.

His arm lifted despite himself and kept raising even as he struggled, and so Phoenix flailed with the rest of his body. The world tilted and he felt something hit him hard enough to bruise. Blood and dirt coated his tongue as he mouthed silent pleas. Don't cut it off don't cut it off don't cut it off.

"Jesus, calm down," said Lucy's voice. It was coming at a strange angle, like she was crouched down at his ankles. The world lurched again and Phoenix felt the tip-tip-settle of his chair being lugged back to a sitting position. I... I fell over. I hit the ground. He spat and licked his lips, and again tasted the dirt from the floor. Yep. Definitely delirium. That was almost funny.

"I wasn't trying to run," Phoenix said hoarsely. He didn't know why his arm was free, but any untied movement in front of Lucy was a bad thing. Anything that might make her get that axe again was a bad thing. His filthy pants and shirt clung to him in spots where cuts had re-opened from his fall, but he could no longer pick out individual spots of pain. "I... you were lifting my arm? It wasn't me?" It was hard to think. "I need more water." He needed more blood, too.

"Here," Lucy said, bemused, as she held up another bottle for him. "And yes, I was lifting your arm."

It was easier to focus when he'd finished the water. How long had it been since the last bottle? "Food?" Phoenix asked hopefully. He didn't know whether he could keep anything down, but his body demanded that he at least try.

"I don't need you to eat," she said, and his shoulders sagged. "I just need you to stay alive long enough for... god, you're bleeding everywhere." With an irritated sigh, Lucy turned and left.

For the first time, the door stood open long enough that Phoenix's eyes were able to adjust to the sunlight outside. Working with his free arm to release the other was impossible; Lucy had to be right outside and he'd only be able to scrape a bit at the ropes before she came back. Instead, he studied the sliver of world beyond his shack and tried to find anything that might help him understand his situation. It has to be a park. There were pine trees and palms and jacarandas and eucalyptus: all the trees he'd grown up playing under. He could hear a mechanical thumping noise in the distance, and little else but the sound of water in a fountain or against a lake (pond? reservoir?) shore. Occasionally the barking of a dog or shouting of a child was carried on the wind, but it faded as soon as the gust did.

Makes sense, he thought, even with his abuse-addled mind. No one's come to check on me, and I've made noise. We have to be somewhere isolated. Maybe... maybe the hills out toward San Bernardino? Down toward San Diego or up near Ventura? No, no, the air didn't feel damp enough to be near the coast. They were inland. His first guess was better. East, Phoenix thought, satisfied. She expected to call Edgeworth and have him show up, so they had to still be near Los Angeles. The foliage looked right for the area, too, and all those green leaves told him that they hadn't gone so far that they'd hit desert. He had to be somewhere east of central Los Angeles but still firmly in the greater metropolitan area. Done.

That tiny victory filled his heart. After all, solving that mystery was more pleasant than thinking about how he might die. It was simpler to focus on something besides himself, too, and even his fear was fading as he gave his mind another challenge besides what was being done to his body and Lucy's secret plan for Edgeworth. I don't know the area that well. Where are parks this big? Something about what he saw had the feeling of being up among hills, but even if he was right, he couldn't say how high or in which range.

Lucy's form darkened the doorway and Phoenix looked mutely down. "You haven't moved," she said.

"No."

"Good." She closed the door behind her and for a long beat everything was black to Phoenix's eyes. Lucy needed the adjustment time as well, and he could make out her features when she moved again. "You will want to keep staying very still."

"Why?" Phoenix asked, just before she pulled out the boxcutter knife. He sucked in air through his teeth and tried his best to stay rigidly still as she knelt between his legs and methodically began removing his pants. She left his boxers, and sliced away the bottom pieces of the pants where they were bound under the ropes, but otherwise she quite efficiently peeled him like an orange.

She's right in front of me, Phoenix slowly realized, and my arm is free.

Not daring to breathe, Phoenix inched his arm forward and balled his fist... or tried to. His hand wouldn't respond. Despite himself and how it might draw Lucy's notice, he looked at the fist he couldn't make. His left hand, the hand she'd pierced with the glass shard, was a mess of blood and tissue and red, swollen skin. The sight alone was stomach turning, but the realization that he couldn't move his hand was beyond terrifying. Lucy was forgotten as he tried to move one finger, then the next, and only managed in wiggling his thumb a little. Otherwise, it was a useless and bloody piece of meat on the end of his arm.

"Did you really think I'd risk getting down here if you could grab me?" Lucy asked conversationally, right before she slammed something down on Phoenix's leg that made him gasp. She'd found something burning hot, something freezing, something... like a bottle of rubbing alcohol and sterile cotton pads from a first aid kit. "Hold still," she reminded him again, right before a needle dove into his flesh.

"My hand," Phoenix moaned as she stitched up a particularly deep wound on his thigh. "What did you do?"

"Between the glass and all the movement since then, there's probably a lot of nerve damage," Lucy said. She studied another deep cut before disinfecting it as well, and grinned at the noises it earned. "Remember, you can't die too quickly."

Should he be glad it wasn't his writing hand that she'd practically gutted? No. This was his court hand. He couldn't point, he couldn't slam it. Hell, even if he made it through this week alive, they still might have to take the entire hand off if infection set in any more than it already had. Tears filled his eyes as Phoenix stared at the wreck of his body. If he could feel pain, he was sure the wounds would be agonizing. He wished he could feel them.

Phoenix was helpless, trapped, had no idea what was happening to him... and was suddenly, violently angry. With a great heave, he wrenched his free arm around and slammed it into the side of Lucy's head. Pain rolled up his forearm as the mangled palm hit her and the rough, deep scab tore open. Unsteady laughter ripped out of him like glass pulling out of his skin. "I felt that," he wheezed. The nerves were there, the doctors would fix it, she hadn't won. Not yet.

"You hit me," Lucy said flatly, and stood. Phoenix's blood painted her cheek in a smeary palmprint.

"I felt that," Phoenix repeated, giggling. Maybe it wasn't like before, but he'd felt something. "You didn't wreck my hand."

"You're losing it," Lucy said.

Was she concerned about him? That was hilarious, and Phoenix couldn't stop laughing. And the way she'd looked when his limp arm smacked the side of her face... so startled and offended... she'd almost fallen... fallen back... on her ass in the dirt...

"You can feel this?" Lucy asked, grabbing his bloody hand, and Phoenix's delirium vanished. He swallowed silently. "Good."

Why the hell had he been laughing? Nothing was funny. It was hard to believe that he'd ever have the chance to laugh genuinely at something again. "That's what I came in here to do," she said, prying his fingers apart. Fear twisted deep inside his chest. "Before you knocked yourself over and I needed to keep you from bleeding out."

"I... I can't feel it," Phoenix said. It wasn't entirely a lie; he could feel pressure on his hand, but the parts that weren't numb tingled like the skin was asleep. "I snapped before, I was saying anything that came to... I..." He swallowed. "Whatever you're planning, I can't feel it, so it's pointless."

"I don't care if you can't feel it," Lucy said with the same ease she'd rejected the idea of feeding him, and brandished her boxcutter again. "But I suppose we're going to find out if you're telling the truth or not." As Phoenix's breath quickened, she pried back his ring finger so that it stood tall above the bloody back of his left hand. "The cut will be cleaner if you don't move," she murmured as the blade descended toward the side of his finger.

"Please don't," Phoenix whispered as the razor's edge touched the side of his finger, down near the palm where the skin arced away in a soft web.

"It doesn't matter," Lucy reminded him as the boxcutter slid upward, slicing a neat line along his finger. "You can't feel this. Remember?"

The worst part was that she was right. He was aware of the pain, but it was no worse than a paper cut. He was able to stare in mute, unblinking horror as Lucy split open his skin from palm to fingernail and he barely felt a thing. The cut was deep but thin, and less blood welled up than he expected. "I didn't feel much," Phoenix said, his voice shaking. "I was telling the truth. I'm sorry that I hit you, all right?"

"This wasn't to punish you," Lucy said as she studied the wound. "I don't care if you lie to me." Not after you lied about saving my brothers, he could hear her sneer. "This is just... practice."

"Practice?" Phoenix asked.

For an answer, she dug her fingernails into the cut and slowly lifted his skin like a bandaid coming off. Phoenix cried out and she let the skin fall back, satisfied. "That should work," Lucy said with delight. Most of the remaining alcohol was poured on his bleeding finger; even through the damage to his hand, that felt like boiling water hitting his wound. Phoenix shuddered. "When he's here," Lucy purred, "I'll do that to your index finger. But I won't stop. I'll peel all the skin right off. How do you think he'll like seeing that?"

Phoenix wanted his delirium back. If he was going to snap—and he felt very close to it—falling into never-ending laughter seemed like his best ticket out of that shack. Had he ever thought that he was actually going to walk free? How could he have been so foolish? He'd be leaving in a body bag. Wouldn't it be better to enjoy his last hours, even if the man laughing with his face wasn't really Phoenix Wright?

My body will be enough evidence on its own. I don't need to be awake inside it. He could give up and flee from all the pain, all the fear. He just had to give up. Give up. Give up.

He couldn't. The same damned stubbornness that never let him give up on a client wouldn't give up on himself, either. Even as Phoenix tried, really tried to lose his grip on the world, his subconscious rebelled just as strongly. Failure was not an option. He simply couldn't do it.

Tears of frustration leaked free as Lucy bandaged his finger against infection. Every movement she made mocked him; he was like a cow being cared for just long enough to stumble into the slaughterhouse. He hissed in pain as she pressed on his palm hard enough to expel bloody pus from the swollen curves, then again as she applied alcohol to that cut with the same efficiency. It wasn't even a matter of having faith in himself like he had in his clients; there was nothing Phoenix could do and he damned well knew it. He was simply too willful to quit.

His faith would have to rest in others, then.

I'm somewhere isolated. Maybe in a park. There's water nearby. Isolated. Park. Water. Isolated. Park. Water.

He didn't even know who he was talking to.