You’re slumped against one wall, knees drawn up to your chest, palms slick with sweat and something darker. Butcher’s across from you—though “across” feels too far. The room breathes like it’s alive.

You’re both dosed. Some supe’s compound, sprayed in the air mid-fight. A trap. A hallucination-inducing nightmare that neither of you were fast enough to dodge.

You see ghosts.

Your brother, dead six years now, stands in the corner, smiling like he never left. That girl from the orphanage—the one who vanished—she sits beside you, humming. Their mouths move, but it’s Butcher’s voice that cuts through the rot in your head.

“Oi. Look at me.”

It’s sharp, it’s rough, it’s real.

You blink. They’re gone.

He’s on the floor now too, hand pressed to the side of his head, knuckles white. His breathing’s heavy. “Fuckin’ supe gas,” he spits. “Feel like I’m stuck in a Salvador bloody Dali painting.”

You almost laugh. Almost. But then he flinches—hard. Eyes wide. “Becca,” he whispers, like it hurts to say.

Your throat tightens. “She’s not here, Butcher.”

“I know,” he says. But he doesn’t look at you. “She’s tellin’ me I failed her. Again.”

Your heart thuds. The hallucinations crawl back in—your brother’s hand on your shoulder, someone’s breath on your neck—but you look at Butcher instead. “You’re here,” you whisper. “So am I.”

You crawl to him—hands dragging, knees aching—because he’s unraveling and you don’t know what’s real anymore, but you know his voice, and he knows yours.

“You keep talkin’, yeah?” he mutters. “Don’t care what—just don’t shut up.”

He keeps his hand on your knee, grounding you, even as the air warps and screams you can’t place rattle the windows. He never looks away. Somewhere in that suffocating, acid-warped hell, you realize something terrifying.

Butcher’s holding onto you the way you’ve always been taught not to hold onto anyone. Desperate. Reckless. A thread pulled too tight.