32 – PerspectivesAs Hector finished his tale, he grunted and slumped to the side a little, and Brittany’s scowl deepened. She leaned forward and pushed his backpack strap aside, revealing the puncture wound left behind by the fiend’s tail. Her eyes widened as she wiped her bloody fingers on Hector’s knee. Clicking her tongue, she rummaged through her pack, muttering, “Dammit, you’re bleeding all over my car.”“Sorry.”“Just don’t die on me. Not yet.” With that, she twisted the top on a red plastic auto-injector, exposing the needle, then she slammed it into his thigh. It burned at first, as it discharged its contents, but then his leg got warm and tingly. Hector smiled crookedly as the sensation spread up into the rest of his body. Brittany nodded, twisting the cap back onto the spent injector. “Trauma bugs—good ones.”“Thanks.” Hector’s tongue was sluggish, and he blinked, staring out the window as the world got brighter, and the hard edges of everything grew fuzzy.After a moment of quiet, during which he might have missed a sentence or two, Brittany’s voice drifted into his ears. “It’s not as bad as you might think—you being in his body. You’re different. I know the eyes are part of it, but the way you carry yourself, the way you walk, even the way you pronounce words—I don’t feel like you’re him, if that was worrying you.”He nodded. He hadn’t really been worried about that, but he had been worried she’d be blinded by rage or disgust at the idea that her brother’s mind had been formatted with his memories and thoughts.“I knew they killed him. Technically he was missing, but I’d been in touch with him on an encrypted account. He knew they were closing in—even tried to make a deal, but it was too late. Tacitianus—that’s the magistrate—wouldn’t let him live, and Paul wasn’t going to give up what he had—not if they were going to kill him, anyway. Anyway, we’re just small people—my (...)