"Use it," Alex insisted, lifting his head up so he could look Michael in the eye. "Use it to go to a doctor. At least get them to see you and see if they can do anything for your hand. I know how much music means to you and I don't want to be the one responsible for taking it away."

And sure, maybe he wasn't directly responsible, but it'd been his father, his inaction when his father pushed him against the wall, that led to Michael's hand.

"If I could just magic away what he did to you..." But life didn't work like that. And this was another harsh lesson in his life that the bad guys sometimes won.

"And if you don't give yourself a chance to see, then you'll always wonder. Maybe all you really need is a proper cast." And he was fooling himself, he knew. A hammer crushing the delicate bones of a hand required a lot more than just a cast. But. They had to try.