second pair of handcuffs, he snaps it around my free wrist and attaches it to the metal backrest of my bar stool. After repeating the same procedure on Smith, he returns to his place behind the bar.
“Is this really necessary?” I ask, realizing we are now literally chained up inside my father’s bar and that W2 and Dyl won’t be able to save us this time with a tennis ball machine and hair spray flamethrower.
Rabbit wipes the sweat from his brow and then gives me a sad smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll be released the moment the separation is complete.”
“I’ll bet,” Smith says, sounding belligerent and looking bored. If my hands weren’t locked down, I’d punch him.
After tugging at our handcuffs a few times to make sure they’re secure, Rabbit looks up at Smith. “Last call. Sure you don’t want that drink?”
Smith rolls his eyes. “All I want is to get this over with and have my hand and my life back. Let’s get on with it.”
A lump fills my throat and tears suddenly threaten. Smith and I are still connected, but I can already feel him pulling away. Funny how lonely it feels, how in such a short time I’ve come to count on him being here beside me.
“Okay, then. You ready, Lennie?” Rabbit places both of his hands over mine while his red and watery eyes stare at me in this disconcerting way. “I’m really sorry.”
Trying to be cool like Smith, I shrug. “It’s fine, Rabbit. Just do what you gotta do.”
“Such a sweet girl,” he says, while pulling a lighter from his pocket.
With one more muttered apology, Rabbit clicks the lighter, producing a flickering flame that he brings toward me until it’s licking at the thin skin stretched over my knuckles.
I stare in disbelief, and then, as the pain hits, I begin to scream.
FEEL THE PAIN
I blubber and scream and cry, but it doesn’t stop.
A mixture of tears and snot streams down my face. It still doesn’t end.
I writhe in pain, trying to escape my own skin, certain I can’t take any more. Yet somehow I do.
Clenching my eyes closed against the sight of my bubbling and blistering skin, I try to focus on something—anything—else.
There’s Rabbit’s trembling hand, holding the burning lighter.
Not that. Don’t look at that.
Beside me Smith thrashes, looking even more crazed than me. I actually check to make sure that Rabbit isn’t burning him too, but no, only my half of our conjoined hands is being used for kindling. Still Smith screams, his voice ragged and raw, threatening Rabbit, promising he’s gonna kill him if he doesn’t stop. And then when it becomes clear that Rabbit isn’t going to stop, Smith reverts to repeating, his voice growing higher pitched and nearly frothing with each iteration, “You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re fucking dead.”
I’ve never heard him so unhinged and out of control. All his earlier cool isn’t just gone, it’s like it never existed at all. I’d almost think he’s in more pain than me, except that’s impossible. The terrible agony guts me and I swallow, trying to keep from spewing out the churning bile in my stomach. I am still in the midst of this battle when the hurt surges upward, filling my head with a bright white light. Smith’s curses grow distant. I am floating away. Consciousness is fleeting, but I have one last thought. This is hell. I am in hell.
A horrible sound, guttural and pained, brings me back down to earth. My eyes flicker open.
“Lennie, forgive me.” Rabbit sprays a stream of cold water over my blackened hand, which is no longer connected with Smith’s.
It comes together then. I held his hand all the way to hell and when I reached it . . . he released me.
Beside me Smith’s limp hand is still held by his handcuff. I follow the line of his arm. He’s slumped over, unconscious, falling off the bar stool and only held there by his handcuffed wrists.
“Uncuff him,” I snap at Rabbit.
He stares at me and then stammers, “But, but your b-b-burn.”
“Get the cuffs off!” I roar, hardly even recognizing myself.
Without another word, Rabbit scurries around the bar. Despite my objections, he frees me first. I grab Smith, holding his body, so that when his hands are released he doesn’t fall to the ground. With my cooked nerve endings still screaming for relief it’s impossible to hold his weight, and I end up quickly lowering him to the filthy floor.