Maria woke to the sound of William moving around the kitchen.
At first, she thought the Spine had passed early. The walls were still trembling, and a faint metallic groan travelled through the apartment, but the familiar rush of air had not followed. She sat up and listened. Something scraped across the kitchen table, followed by a soft knock, then another. William had been making those noises every night lately. Sometimes he checked the door. Sometimes he stood in the hallway with his head tilted, listening to the pipes. Once, she had found him crouched beside the boys' mattress, watching them sleep.
He always said he was making sure they were safe.
Maria pulled on her clothes and stepped into the kitchen.
William stood beside the table, shirt open, one hand pressed against the dark veins that spread across his abdomen. A few scraps of paper lay scattered before him. His notebook was open beside an empty pill bottle, and the kitchen knife rested near his wrist.
"William?"
He looked up quickly. For a moment, his expression was so startled that she thought he had not recognised her.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
She glanced at the papers. Most were covered in numbers, some crossed out so heavily that the metal beneath had been scratched. There were marks beside the times the Spine passed, notes about his breathing, and a list of things he had noticed around the apartment. She could not make sense of most of it.
"Have you taken more?"
"No."
"Then why are you awake?"
William rubbed his face. He looked exhausted. His eyes were red, and there were dark hollows beneath them. The veins under his skin had spread higher than she remembered, disappearing beneath his ribs. He looked down when he noticed her staring and pulled his shirt closed.
"I couldn't sleep."
"You haven't slept properly for days."
"I said I'm fine."
Maria moved closer. "Let me see your leg."
He stepped back.
The movement was small, but it stopped her. William had never pulled away from her before, not even when she had to clean his wounds after an extraction. He had always complained about the pain, sometimes cursed, sometimes gripped her wrist too hard, but he had never looked at her as though she might hurt him.
"William," she said softly, "I'm worried about you."
"I know."
"Then let me help."
He looked at her for a long time. She could see him trying to decide something, though she did not know what. His gaze shifted towards the bedroom where the boys slept, then back to her. His fingers tightened against the edge of the table.
"You need to take the boys somewhere," he said.
Maria stared at him. "What?"
"Somewhere safe."
"Why?"
He shook his head as though the answer should have been obvious. "I don't know yet. But something's wrong."
The words frightened her more than anything else he had said. William had always been a man who worried about practical things: the next extraction, the next meal, the next bill. When he was afraid, he usually became quiet and worked harder. He did not speak of things being wrong without being able to point to something broken.
She reached for his hand. "Then we'll go to the clinic. There are people who know about Azo. We can ask them what to do."
"No."
"William—"
"No clinics. No VigilNet."
"Why not?"
"Because they'll take me."
Maria stopped. She had heard that fear in his voice before, back when the extraction crews first started demanding more flesh for the same payment. The VigilNet could take a Dweller's ration, their home, their children, or their life. William had spent years avoiding their attention. But this was different. He was looking at her as though she had suggested handing him over.
"They can help you," she said.
"They'll see the veins. They'll know what I took."
"Then they might be able to stop it."
"Stop what?" He raised his voice, then lowered it immediately, glancing towards the bedroom. "Look at me. I'm standing. I'm walking. I can hear things before they happen. I saved Crowe. I saved him, Maria."
"I know you did."
"Then why do you keep looking at me like that?"
"Because I'm afraid."
The admission hung between them.
William's face changed. For a moment, she saw the hurt beneath his anger, the exhausted man who had sold his own flesh for years and still returned home ashamed of how little he could provide. She wanted to take him in her arms. She wanted to tell him that she was not afraid of him, not really, that she was afraid of losing him.
But the truth was that she had begun to fear what he might do next.
"I'm afraid of what the Azo is doing to you," she said. "Not of you. You have to understand that."
William looked away.
He wanted to believe her. She could see that. But something in him had already begun to twist her words into something else. She watched his eyes move towards the notebook, then towards the bedroom, as though he were trying to fit her fear into the same pattern as the noises he heard in the walls.
"What if I can't stop it?" he asked.
Maria stepped closer. "Then we face it together."
He gave a short, broken laugh. "Together? You don't even want me near the boys."
"That's not true."
"You watch me every time I touch them."
"Because I don't know what's happening!"
Her voice rose, and she immediately regretted it. Archie stirred in the next room. Both of them turned towards the sound. For a few seconds, they stood still, waiting to see whether he would wake.
When the apartment fell quiet again, Maria took William's hand.
"Please," she whispered. "Let me take them away for a few days. Just until we know what this is. You can come with us. We can find somewhere to stay."
William looked down at their joined hands. Her fingers were warm against his, and he remembered other nights when she had held him through the pain of extraction, when he had been too weak to stand and she had cleaned the blood from his skin. She had never asked him to be brave. She had only asked him to come home.
He wanted to go with her. He wanted to leave the Spine, the Limb Market, the whole rotten world behind. But he had no money for a place to stay, no guarantee that the Azo would keep working, and no way of knowing whether the VigilNet would let them disappear. If he stopped now, everything he had gained might be lost.
And if the Azo was the only thing keeping him together, what would happen when it was gone?
"No," he said.
Maria's fingers loosened around his.
"William, listen to me."
"I am listening."
"Then listen properly. You can't keep doing this. You're not eating. You're not sleeping. You're staring at the walls and talking to yourself. The boys are frightened, and I don't know how to help you anymore."
William flinched as though she had struck him.
He looked at the notebook again. The numbers, the marks, the little notes he had written to keep track of his body. He had tried to be careful. He had tried to understand what was happening. He had done everything he could to make sure he did not become like the man in the alley.
But Maria was still afraid.
Perhaps she could not see the changes because she was too frightened. Perhaps she was so worried about what he might become that she could no longer see what he was doing to keep them alive. He had brought home food. He had saved Crowe. He had given them a chance to live beyond the next extraction. And still she wanted to take the boys away from him.
He could not let that happen.
"You're going to leave," he said.
Maria stared at him. "What?"
"You're going to take them and leave me here."
"No. I said we could go together."
"But you'll go."
"William, please."
He heard the tremor in her voice. He noticed the way her eyes moved towards the door, then towards the bedroom. She was frightened, and he knew why. She thought he was becoming corrupted. She thought he would hurt them.
The thought was unbearable.
He had done all of this for them. He had taken the vial because they were starving. He had endured the pain, the strange sensations, the sleepless nights, because he wanted to give them something better. He had not asked for any of this. He had only wanted to stop being helpless.
Now Maria was looking at him as though he were the thing they needed to escape.
"Don't," he said.
She tried to take her hand away. "I need to get the boys."
William caught her wrist.
It happened so quickly that neither of them seemed to understand it at first. Maria looked down at his hand, then up at his face. His grip was too tight. She tried to pull free, and he tightened it further.
"William. Let go."
He heard the pipes behind the wall begin to rattle. The Spine was approaching. He could feel the vibration through the floor, through his feet, through the hand that held Maria's wrist. Everything seemed to gather around that one point of contact. Her pulse beat beneath his fingers, quick and uneven. He could feel her trying to pull away, the muscles in her arm tightening, the little shifts in her weight as she searched for a way out of his grasp.
He had never felt another person so clearly.
"Stop moving," he said.
Maria's face went pale. "You're hurting me."
He loosened his grip for an instant. Shame rose in him, sudden and familiar. He had hurt her. He was supposed to protect her. He looked at the red marks appearing around her wrist and felt a terrible rush of guilt.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Maria tried to step back.
William caught her again.
He did not know why he did it. He only knew that if she reached the bedroom, she would wake the boys. If she woke them, she would take them away. If she took them away, they would be exposed to a world he could no longer predict. The thought moved through him with the force of a certainty, leaving no room for the possibility that she might be right, that leaving might be the safest thing they could do.
"Please," Maria whispered. "You're scaring me."
"I can fix this."
"No, William. You can't."
Something inside him gave way.
It was not a grand revelation. There was no voice from the Azo, no sudden understanding of some hidden law. There was only the pain in his chest, the sight of his wife's frightened face, and the unbearable conviction that he was about to lose everything he had sacrificed himself to protect.
He reached for her with his other hand.
Maria fought him. She struck his shoulder and tried to wrench herself free, calling his name in a voice that was no longer pleading but desperate. William stumbled against the table. The knife clattered to the floor. He barely heard it. His attention had narrowed to her hands, her face, the frantic beat beneath her skin.
"Stop," he begged. "Please, just stop."
She shoved him away.
William lost his balance, struck the edge of the table, and felt a flash of pain across his hip. For an instant, the room returned to him. He saw Maria backing towards the bedroom, saw the door behind her, saw the fear in her eyes.
Then she turned to run.
William caught her from behind.
He meant to hold her. He meant to keep her there long enough to make her listen. He meant to stop her from taking the boys into a world that, without his protection, would swallow them whole.
But his grip was too strong, and his body moved with a force he did not understand. Maria struggled, and he held on. She cried out his name. He tried to tell her that he loved her, that he was only trying to help, but the words came out broken and useless. The Azo surged through his limbs, a hot pressure beneath his skin, and he could not tell whether he was holding her still or crushing her.
Then there was a small sound.
A sound he would remember long after he forgot everything else.
Maria went limp in his arms.
William stood frozen, holding her against his chest. The room was silent except for the pipes and the distant machinery of the Spine. He waited for her to move. He waited for her to draw another breath, to curse him, to push him away, to tell him he had frightened her and that they needed to talk.
She did none of those things.
"Maria?"
He lowered her carefully to the floor.
Her eyes were open. Her mouth was slightly parted. One of her hands rested against his sleeve, the fingers curled as though she had been reaching for him when she fell. William knelt beside her and pressed his palm against her chest.
Nothing.
He pressed harder.
"Maria?"
He shook her shoulder. He called her name again, louder this time, as though she had simply fallen asleep and he needed to wake her before the next extraction. When she did not respond, he began rubbing her arms, trying to warm her, trying to make her body remember what it was supposed to do.
He had seen bodies fail before. He had watched men collapse in the Limb Market, watched extraction crews carry away people who had given too much flesh and could not stand again. He knew what death looked like.
He could not accept it here.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no."
He pressed his ear to her chest. Beneath the silence, he thought he could hear something. A faint movement, perhaps, or the echo of his own heartbeat. He held still and listened harder.
The Spine passed beneath the apartment.
The walls trembled. The pipes groaned. The whole room seemed to breathe around him.
William lifted his head.
He could hear the machinery. He could hear the air moving through the vents. He could hear the boys stirring in the next room. He could hear his own ragged breathing.
But he could not hear Maria.
He looked down at her, and the truth began to approach him. He pushed it away. She had been frightened. She had been moving too quickly. He had only tried to stop her. He had not meant to hurt her. He had never wanted this.
He had done everything for them.
That had to mean something.
A small sound came from the bedroom.
"Dad?"
Crowe stood in the doorway, half-awake, his thin shirt hanging loose around his shoulders. Archie was behind him, clutching the edge of the doorframe. Both boys looked from William to their mother on the floor.
For a moment, William could not speak.
Crowe took one step forward.
"What happened to Mum?"
William looked at his son. He wanted to tell him the truth, but the truth was too large to fit into words. He wanted to tell him that he had tried to protect them, that he had been afraid, that something had gone wrong and he had not known how to stop it. He wanted Crowe to understand that he was still his father.
Instead, he said, "Stay back."
Crowe stared at him.
William saw the fear spreading across his son's face. It was the same expression Maria had worn. The same tightening around the eyes, the same instinctive movement away from him.
He could not bear it.
"Stay back," he repeated, louder.
Archie began to cry.
William looked at Maria again. He could not leave her on the floor. He could not let the boys see her like this. He could not let anyone come into the apartment and discover what he had done. The VigilNet would take him. They would take the boys too, and there would be no one left to feed them, no one left to protect them.
He had to get them out.
He had to move before anyone came.
William rose unsteadily. His regenerated leg held him without complaint. The dark veins beneath his skin pulsed once, then faded beneath his clothes. He looked at the body on the floor, at the woman who had stood beside him through eleven years of pain, and felt something inside him trying to break through the certainty that had carried him this far.
He pushed it down.
"Get your coats," he told the boys.
Crowe did not move.
"Dad—"
"Now."
His voice cracked across the room. Archie sobbed harder. Crowe stepped in front of his brother, staring at William with an expression that was no longer admiration, no longer trust.
William reached for them.
Both boys recoiled.
He stopped.
For the first time since the Azo had entered his body, William could not find a way to make what was happening fit the story he had been telling himself. He had wanted to keep his family safe. He had wanted to feed them, protect them, give them a life that did not revolve around the price of his flesh.
Maria was dead.
His sons were afraid of him.
And somewhere beyond the walls, the Spine continued its endless journey through the world, carrying oxygen to people who had no idea what had happened in the little apartment beside its tracks.
William swallowed. His hands were shaking.
"Please," he said, though he no longer knew which of them he was asking.
Then the warning sirens began to sound in the distance, and he understood that whatever remained of his family had to leave before the VigilNet arrived.