Page 63 of The Same Backward as Forward

Hannah’s eyes flash,blueandgreenandgrayandbrown. “Do no harm,” she mutters.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to rattle off the list of Greek gods in the original Hippocratic Oath, from Apollo to Panacea—I’m apparently educated to a fault—but then she brings those pills to my mouth, and I forget about talking as my lips brush her palm.

Hannah, I think,the same backward as forward.

She pours water down my throat, her grip on my jaw anything but gentle. “Word to the wise, Harry. You might want to get used to being disappointed.”

Everything in me hears those words as the throwing of a gauntlet.I have no intention of being disappointed, I tell my lovely, vengeful opponent silently. I give in to the pain and the darkness knowing one last thing about myself.

Whoever I am, I like a challenge.

Chapter 3

Whenever I manage to stay conscious for more than just a few minutes, if I can fight back the pain long enough tothink, I play a game. It’s called One And One.One thing about her. One thing about me.Puzzle pieces.

One thing about H-A-N-N-A-H: She avoids eye contact, but if you manage to lock her in a staring contest, she doesn’t even blink.

One thing about me: I seem to have a higher tolerance for pain than boredom.

Thankfully,sheisn’t boring in the least.

One thing about Hannah: Wherever we are, this place isn’t hers. It looks like a bunker or a shack. Metal walls. No windows. Only one exit. When she’s not kneeling beside me or bent over me, she’s sitting at that wooden table, taking up as little space as possible.

One thing about me: The fact that there’s no windows here doesn’t bother mebecausethere’s an exit. I’m not claustrophobic as long as there’s a way out.

Shit.The pain is bad enough this time that I know I’m not going to last, but then I catch sight of Hannah at the table—of her hands. They’re moving, but she’s not folding paper this time.

One thing about Hannah…I force myself to think the words, force myself to hold on.She builds castles out of sugar.Half-conscious, I watch her do it again and again, erect the equivalent of a house of cards using cheap coffee shop packets.Three stories, four.

The castles always come tumbling down in the end. As steady as her hands are, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward really, truly does not know when to give up.

One thing about me, I remind myself. Gritting my teeth against the onslaught of a fresh wave of hell, I hold onto reality long enough to turn my attention to my own hands. A breath trapped in my throat, I rub the thumb on my right hand over my fingers and my palm.

Hurts. Hurts so—

One thing about me: I don’t have a single callus.

Hannah brings a metal cup of water to my lips. The cup has a military kind of feel to it, and she is every inch the general issuing orders. “Drink.”

One thing about General Hannah: She never uses three words where one will do.

One thing about me: I don’t like doing what I’m told. My tongue is dry. My lips are. My throat is. But I refuse the cup. “Maybe I like being thirsty.”

“You need to drink.” Four words this time. No more. No less.

“Tell me again,” I practically purr, “what I need.”

One thing about Hannah: When her eyes flash, it’s likelightning tearing open earth.There you are, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward, I think. Most of the time, she keeps her emotions buried deep, but…

One thing about me: You can’t keep anything hidden from a—

From a…My mind hits a wall, and I drink the damn water and feel it, cold and wet, all the way down my throat.

One thing about me: I’m dying—or I would be if she would just let me go. The pain—damn it to hell and back,the pain—

“Everything hurts.” I don’t even sound human. I sound like someone who would hurt her if he could, and for as many rounds of One And One as I’ve played, I still know so little about myself that I cannot say for sure that I do not have that kind of darkness in me.

One thing about her.I force myself to concentrate, to search her eyes for some kind of revelation.Blue. Brown. Gray. Green.And then I see it, beyond the rings of color in her eyes.