Chapter 26
BURNING HIMSELF ALIVE
I Like It Heavy - Halestorm
Bones
The first thing hunger does is make pain honest.
It strips away the buffering. The edge goes raw. Injuries that were tolerable an hour ago start to speak up, one by one, like they’ve been waiting for the right moment.
I feel everything.
The microfractures in my ribs complain when I breathe too deeply.
My hand – still wrapped, still swollen – throbs with a slow, deliberate insistence that tells me the inflammation cycle is accelerating without proper fuel.
The stress line along my spine sends a dull ache down my legs when I shift my weight.
None of this is surprising.
What is surprising is how fast my margins disappear.
I sit on the bench because standing costs calories and lying down feels like surrender. My posture is deliberate: spine straight enough to avoid compression, shoulders relaxed to save energy. I keep my breathing shallow but steady. Oxygen efficiency matters when intake doesn’t.
Across the room, Hatchet is burning himself alive.
Not literally. Yet. But every restrained movement costs him. Every pull against the cuffs, every pacing step, every clench of his jaw. He’s converting rage into heat and throwing it away. I know exactly how bad that is for him. I also know telling him would change nothing.
Honey keeps glancing at everyone like he’s trying to take attendance in a burning building. His body is already conserving – shoulders slumped, movements small – but his eyes won’t stop moving. He wants to do something. That impulse will kill him faster than hunger if he doesn’t rein it in.
Ghost is…unstable. Unsurprisingly. I don’t have a better clinical term for it. His rocking has stopped, which should be good, but the stillness that has replaced it isn’t calm. It’s brittle. Like glass under pressure. His gaze keeps slipping out of focus, then snapping back too sharp, too fast.
Snow stands with a discipline I recognise and respect. He’s conserving better than the rest of us. I’ll begrudgingly give him that. Asshole. Stillness. Controlled breathing. Minimal movement.
But when our eyes met earlier and he mouthed twelve, then corrected himself—
That bothered me.
Snow doesn’t miscount. Which means time is already unreliable. That changes everything.
Hunger math is precise only if time is stable. Dehydration curves, glycogen depletion, muscle catabolism – those models assume you know when the clock started.
If the clock is a lie, the body becomes the only reference point.
And bodies lie under stress.
I flex my injured hand carefully, testing range of motion. Pain spikes, then settles. Not worsening yet. That’s good. But without protein, collagen synthesis will slow. Without calories, healing diverts resources. What was reversible damage yesterday becomes permanent damage tomorrow.
I don’t know when tomorrow is.
The room remains unchanged. No sound. No voice. No new instructions. But that’s intentional. They want us to fill the silence.
Hatchet’s breathing gets louder. More ragged. His tremor is no longer confined to his hands; it’s travelling up his arms, into his shoulders. Hypoglycaemia, probably. Adrenaline masking it until it can’t.
Honey notices too. He shifts closer to Hatchet’s zone, cautious of the invisible lines they told us not to cross.
“Hey,” Honey murmurs, barely audible. “You good?”
Hatchet doesn’t answer. His jaw flexes. His eyes are fixed somewhere past Honey’s head, focused on nothing and everything. That’s not good.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and make a decision. This isn’t Snow’s arena. This isn’t Nightshade’s. This is mine.
“Hatchet,” I say, voice low, controlled.
Not commanding. Informational. “You’re burning through reserves.
” Hatchet’s eyes snap to me, sharp and furious.
If looks were force, I’d be on the floor.
I don’t flinch. “Hands shaking means your blood sugar’s crashing,” I continue.
“You keep fighting the cuffs, you’ll black out. ”
A beat.
Then a sharp exhale through his nose. He knows I’m right. That might be the most dangerous thing I could have given him – confirmation.
“Stop moving,” I add. “Not forever. Just now.” Silence stretches. Hatchet’s shoulders drop a fraction. Just enough. The chain goes still.
Good.
Honey looks at me like I’ve performed a magic trick. I don’t meet his eyes. Because now I have to look at Ghost.
Ghost is staring at Hatchet with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. His lips are moving again, silently. When his gaze flicks to me, I see something fracture behind his eyes.
“Ghost,” I say carefully. “You with us?” The question is a risk. If I pull the wrong thread, he unravels faster.
For a moment, nothing. Then: “Which one?” he whispers.
Honey stiffens. Snow’s posture changes subtly, attention sharpening. I keep my voice even. “Either. All. Up to you.”
Ghost laughs. It’s a thin, broken sound. “He doesn’t like this,” he says, and I don’t know who he is. “He’s getting quiet.”
That’s worse than screaming.
I glance at Snow. He’s watching Ghost now, very still, very alert.
“We need water,” Honey says suddenly, voice cracking. “We can’t – we can’t keep doing this without—”
He stops himself, but the thought hangs in the air. We need. Collective language. Unintentional. Dangerous.
The room feels tighter.
I know what they’re waiting for: a demand. A plea. An argument over allocation that doesn’t exist yet.
I won’t give it to them.
“Sit,” I tell Honey gently. “You’re wasting energy.”
He hesitates, then obeys, shame flashing across his face like he’s failed some moral test. That reaction tells me hunger is already chewing through his self-concept.
I don’t like how fast this is happening.
I reassess. Ribs: tolerable. Spine: manageable. Hand: worsening but functional. Cognitive clarity: slipping at the edges. Group stability: fragile.
If this continues another unknown number of hours, we lose Hatchet first – metabolic crash or restraint injury. Ghost could dissociate completely. Honey will sacrifice himself into dehydration. Snow will keep calculating until his numbers betray him again.
This is not a test of endurance. It’s a test of coordination under degradation. They want to see who we prioritise.
I exhale slowly and make another choice.
“We need to reduce variables,” I say quietly, pitching my voice so only the group hears. “No one moves unless they have to. No talking unless it’s necessary.”
Hatchet snorts softly. A humourless sound. Ghost tilts his head, listening. Snow’s eyes meet mine. He nods once. Honey bites his lip, then nods too.
That’s something. It’s not unity. But it’s alignment.
The room doesn’t respond. No punishment. No reward.
Which tells me we’re doing something right.
Minutes – or hours – later, pain spikes suddenly in my ribs, sharp enough to steal breath. I gasp despite myself, fingers digging into my thigh.
Snow’s head snaps toward me instantly. I shake my head once. Not yet.
The pain settles into a deep, grinding ache. I catalogue it automatically. Stress fracture worsening. Without fuel, bone resorption outpaces repair. I’m on borrowed time.
I feel a flicker of something I don’t like. Not fear of pain. Fear of becoming a liability.
That’s when I understand the real shape of this punishment. They’re not trying to break us. They’re trying to make us choose who to carry.
I lean back against the bench, breathing shallow, eyes on the floor.
If it comes to it – if food or water is offered in exchange for compliance, for violence, for betrayal—
I already know what my body can afford. And what it can’t. I just don’t know yet who I’d be costing.
And that uncertainty hurts more than any fracture ever has.