Chapter 113.
Lin Zhi is petrified of needles.
Not pain. Not heights. Not the moment in midair when the world spins and you have to find the floor again.
Needles.
The fear has humiliated him his whole life, because he can’t reason his way out of it. He can be brave in a thousand ways and still go cold at the sight of a syringe.
He had nearly blacked out at the little hospital in Tuscany where he’d been taken after being shot by Wyatt. But it wasn’t because of the pain from the gunshot wound.
It was because of the needles. First the injection he’d been given for the pain, and then being conscious when the Italian doctor had gone in to remove the bullet from his upper arm.
When Zhi had been competing in gymnastics for his country, he’d never been afraid when he’d become disoriented in midair, a condition known as the “twisties” in his sport.
No, the loss of control, the chance that he could land on his back, had never panicked him the way needles did. Trypanophobia. The fear of needles.
The one time he’d had knee surgery, early in his gymnastics career, he’d had a panic attack as he was being wheeled into the operating room, before finally being sedated.
As he had walked into this room on the 146th floor, the guard had quickly reached over and pressed a cloth over his mouth before Zhi could resist.
It carried a sweet, chemical smell.
“Just let it happen,” the guard murmured.
Now Zhi wakes strapped to an operating table.
A doctor and nurse, both wearing surgical masks, are standing over him. Bright lights glare down. The room is so white it feels unreal.
The doctor speaks calmly, like this is a routine appointment.
“Tissue damage,” he says. “Infection risk. We need to do a repair.”
The nurse steps closer. In her gloved hand is a syringe.
“Nerve and vascular repair,” the doctor says, making it sound so pedestrian.
“We need to put you back under,” the nurse says.
The needle in her hand looks as big to Zhi as a carving knife. He struggles in vain to get loose. But both his hands and feet are secured.
The nurse leans forward and swabs alcohol on his bare upper arm.
“Stop,” Zhi says, too sharply, voice cracking.
He knows this is a form of madness he’s dealt with his whole life, but he can’t do anything to combat it in the moment. Or stop it himself.
Zhi is convinced these people aren’t here to help him. They’re here to inject him with something and kill him.
Do what the bullet hadn’t done.
The nurse has the needle touching Zhi’s arm now.
“We know this is torture for you, Mr. Zhi,” she says in a soothing voice. “But all of us in this room know there’s a way to end it, don’t we?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Zhi’s eyes dart to the syringe. Then the scalpel on the tray. Then back to the syringe.
“Don’t we?” she repeats.
Zhi forces air into his lungs. “Yes,” he whispers.
“Would you like for us to help you off this table, so you can walk out of this chamber?” the doctor says. “And walk out of your nightmare?”
Zhi focuses on the nurse’s needle again, then on the scalpel in the doctor’s hand. But then he tells himself—hears his own voice screaming at him inside his head—how close he is to winning.
Despite the full-blown terror he is feeling.
“No,” he says, louder now—like he can scare the fear away with volume. “No!”
He squeezes his eyes shut just as he feels the tip of the needle puncture his arm.
Zhi keeps screaming—through the panic, through the humiliation, through the flooding terror—until the room tilts and the lights smear and his mind finally lets go.
Patrick Arrasmith