tear

Not knowing quite what’d happened, Caroline instinctively went into
action, seeking life instead of death. The colossal arm flipped over, leaving
the two of them to drop through thin air. Still, D managed a spectacular
landing before one of his knees buckled again. The colossal arm fell toward
him. There wasn’t enough time to get out of the way.

D’s right hand blurred. It looked like it smoldered. There was a flash of
silver that intersected the fingers crushing down on him like an avalanche
of digits. With a tremendous crash, the foot-and-a-half-thick middle finger
fell behind D, and everything else from the wrist forward twisted back.
Black streams of machine oil poured down from the wound-like rent in the
metal.

At the same time, Caroline landed on the opposite side of the road. She
pressed down on the fingers of her right hand and grew pale. There was a
thin vermilion line around the base of them.

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