get out now while most of me is still intact

This was a goddamn nightmare. Harrowing thoughts whispered at the edges of her ears, as if there was someone conspiring just behind her. She'd gotten used to her current predicament, if it was something you could even "get used" to. At the sound of Corvus coming up astride, Theory reflexively shrunk away from him. The horrid, fluorescent ooze forced her to avert her gaze. He couldn't see her like this. He would tell Rhyme, Rhyme would rightfully take over control of the pack and banish her, Thalia would turn away from her - she'd be forced from the pack lands, the only place she'd ever felt at home. And then she'd crawl back to this beach, right here, where she would curl up and die. Theo's thoughts continued in this numb death spiral, no common sense to be found. "Hello Corvus," she said, her voice thick. It felt like the ooze was dripping down her throat, making her voice clumsy and terrible. Even her tone betrayed her. Nothing was safe. She couldn't even talk right. "I'm f-fine." Completely, totally fine. Theory chanced a look at him from out of the corner of her eye. His worry was a physical wound, worse than the dull throbbing of the putrid ooze. It cut straight through her chest and pierced her heart completely. She couldn't worry him. "I'm just admiring the sunset-rise," she said lamely, a dribble of bright liquid splatting from the corner of her lips on to the sand. The dim, watery brightness on the horizon - so far away, as if light had decided to take a permanent leave of Boreas - could have been either early morning or the close of a day. Time had been rendered inert. Nothing matters, nothing matters, nothing matters.