“Depends. But stay put, to be on the safe side. Did you hit your head? Either from the bookcase hitting it, or your head bouncing off the floor?”

Even without the deception, these are valid questions: the injury is real.

Ness is pinned under the bookcase, the entire thing having landed squarely on her right arm. Just as planned. It’ll be a bad compound fracture, he suspects; the type that won’t heal cleanly, just a mess of crushed and pulverised bone, and they don’t have an Isaac.

Stephen starts flinging books out of the bookcase, making it lighter. Shouts out into the hallway: “Anyone there? We could use some help!”