She lost track of the time it took to be carried. It hurt less to be set down again than it did with perpetual pressing into choice spots in her body that contained the... outside materials. Even the bed's mattress proved a mixed comfort.

It was not going to be better, she realized, until someone put their hands or tools inside of her and extracted the metal. The horror of that reality stopped the bloody flow of tears, and dread wrapped lovingly around her throat. Its favorite, most familiar place to be.

Paloma knotted each brutalized fist into the covers, staring first at the corpse and then at the dead man looming above. "I-I could use more, but I'll kill someone like this. Or I might. Doesn't have to be fresh-- ahhhhh! Brucolac, it's IN me, I didn't have time to take it out so the wounds closed over but-- their arrows got stuck. They're stuck in me, I dunno how many. Ahhh God." He'd damned her bloodline, so she was not sure what God would do to help now, but she prayed without meaning to.