Jo took a deep breath, then another and another, trying to get enough air to slow her heart, still racing enough to make her chest hurt and head light. It was something of a struggle to think back- what happens when she's covered? Memories returned in waves and gasps, split-second sensory images of asylums and burns, of accusations of witchcraft and days spent alone. It had been so long. So long, and she was so tired.
Her face was screwed up in concentration and she still jerked occasionally from pain, hands fisting painfully in her hair as a perverse anchor. The burns were creeping slowly to her elbows, and some fevered part of her mind feared her hair catching fire from touching her arm. It hurt so badly, and all she wanted to do was go home- wherever that was.
"I don't remember, okay?" she said, wiping frustrated tears from her cheek with a blistered hand. "Normally I just get burns today, normally it doesn't hurt this bad, I never scream I'm never like this. This hasn't happened in so long."