RATH SAT SLUMPED in a recliner in one of the Spine Center’s inner sanctums, recovering from the procedure, his stomach oily, his skin hot and sticky. What an embarrassing display he’d made, vomiting at the tail end of the procedure. The nurse had told him all would be fine in a few days, he’d never even know his back had hurt. But that needle. Fuck. It had jammed in there so deep inside him, he had felt it piercing what he could only be marrow. Or raw nerve. It killed. Rankin had been right. Pain could always get worse.