Miracle's POV
Pain is a living, breathing beast. It claws at your soul, taking bites out of the person you used to be. It makes every breath feel like a shard of glass in your lungs and every thought a scream echoing in a hollow chest.
I blinked hard, forcing the hot tears back behind my eyes. I turned my face away from Hardy. I would not let him see me break. No one would ever see me break again.
I pushed myself up from the ground, ignoring the dull throb in my head. I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted blood, using the sharp, metallic pain to anchor myself against the wave of humiliation and hurt threatening to drown me.
"I'm okay!" I announced, my voice louder and brasher than I felt.
I couldn't fall apart. Not here. Not now. But for the first time, a dark, vicious wish coiled in my heart: I wished Steve Jackson a slow, horrible death.
"Are you hurt?" Hardy asked, his voice laced with a concern that felt like salt in my wounds.
