Bones, p.41
Bones, page 41
“You ready?” he asked after I didn’t say anything.
I nodded, but my anxiety followed me the entire way to Nemo's house. Nemo lived in one of the nicer homes built close to the tower. I'd been there once before to heal Nemo during the sickness, but it looked completely different. Some of the walls had been removed, opening up the room. People stood around tables, pouring over maps, talking about crops, and discussing the best material to use for new roofs.
“Nemo’s turning his house into his headquarters. Less intimidatin’ than the watchtower,” Mac explained quietly.
We went up to the second floor and Mac rapped on one of the doors in the long hallway, entering when Nemo beckoned us inside. Nemo sat behind a desk. He looked up and smiled, and I studied him out of habit. His face had filled out a little and his color was back. Shame cut through me as I realized he never came for healing after his imprisonment. I couldn't blame him if he didn't want anything to do with my healing powers anymore.
“Howdy, Bones, Mac,” he said, gesturing at the chairs in front of his desk. “Please, both of you, take a seat.” He eyed me as I sat, making me uncomfortable. “How are you doing, Bones?”
“I’m fine,” I said, ignoring the annoyed huff Mac gave next to me.
“I’m not gonna beat around the bush. I’m sorry for what Madame did to you.” He leaned forward on the desk, his gaze earnest. “I know that might not seem like much, but I am terribly sorry for all of it. We’ve been working on taking over for a long time, but I hate that so many innocent people got hurt before we could stop her.”
I fidgeted with my hands under the table, unsure of what to say.
“I wanted to let you in on what’s been going on. This uprising has been brewing for years, but Madame took out the initial wave so brutally that people were scared.” Nemo glanced at Mac, and I realized he was talking about Mac’s dad. “She wanted to intimidate the people, and it worked. The hold offered them security, and they were terrified of losing that. It took a long time to rebuild the resistance, and as you know all too well, Madame got wind of it somehow.”
I swallowed hard, unsure if I should apologize to him for helping Madame torture him. “I’m sorry—”
He held up a hand, stopping me. “You don’t need to apologize. I know you didn’t have a choice.”
I did though. I’d just made it far too late.
“You’ve been an important figure in the resistance, Bones.”
I had to fight to keep my expression even, nausea swirling in my stomach.
“You won the people over. You didn’t hesitate to heal the rusters after that fire. You saved everyone’s life during the sickness, regardless of where they lived. Jumpin’ in the pit to save Sky was another demonstration of how far you were willing to go to save people Madame saw as lesser. When Madame had you whipped for it, it was the final big push we needed to turn people to our side.” He sighed and rubbed his chest where I knew a long pink scar ran up his torso from Madame cutting him open like a dead fish. “Course I didn’t plan on getting caught by Madame. That threw a wrench in things. I had to rely on the people to riot, which they did after Madame killed Trey.”
My entire body stiffened.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he continued, his voice softening. “Everybody loved Trey, including myself. He was a good man, a kind man. He was also a member of the resistance. When Madame killed him, it was the spark that lit the fire. Those who were a part of the resistance were compelled to act, and the few people who were still afraid were convinced to join them.”
Nausea rose, and I swallowed down the urge to puke again. So me and Trey had both been pawns.
“I know this might not be much comfort, but Trey wanted to make this place different. I think his soul will rest in peace knowing he had a hand in it.”
I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming that I didn’t care, that Trey’s life had been too high a price to pay.
“I’d like for you to stay here, Bones,” Nemo added. “You’re a valuable member of this hold. If you need anything, please let me know.”
I nodded and that seemed to satisfy him. I knew what it meant to be valuable.
“Alright, I’ll let you go. Thanks for taking the time to see me. Oh, and we found these. Thought you might want them back.”
I reached for my pack and Trey’s pack as he pulled them out from behind his desk. I automatically shrugged mine on, the familiar weight settling on my back.
“Have a good night, Bones,” Nemo said, and when I glanced at him, his smile looked sad.
In a daze, I returned to the clinic alone since Mac needed to speak privately to Nemo about something. When I got back inside, I set both packs down on my bed and stared at them for a long moment. I did not have the strength to go through Trey's things, so I opened mine instead. Of course, the little wooden dandelion he'd made for me sat on top. I struggled to breathe through the pain in my chest as I took it out and set it aside, but the next thing wasn't much better.
It was his quilt.
I pulled it out, bundling it close to me and pressing my nose to the soft fabric. Tears rolled down my face. It still smelled like him. I clung to it, desperate to breathe him in, knowing the scent would soon fade and then the last little piece of Trey left in the world would be gone.
I curled up on my mattress, my arms wrapped around the quilt, and sobbed until I couldn’t breathe.
Hours later, a soft knock sounded at the door and Mac poked his head in.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
I was scrubbing the floor, despite it being nearly midnight, trying to lose myself in mindless work. I shrugged and avoided eye contact, knowing my eyes were still red and swollen. Gods, I hoped he wasn’t staying long.
“You want a drink?”
I looked up, surprised. He had a dark expression on his face, but he held up a bottle of liquor.
“Sure.”
I put my cleaning supplies away while he poured us two glasses. When I came back over, he handed me one and then downed his drink in one shot. I watched him as I drank mine slower. It burned the whole way down and tasted like ass, but I didn't care. He poured himself a second glass and then leaned on the table, dropping his head down so I couldn't see his face.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Doesn’t it piss you off? he asked darkly without looking up.
“What?”
“Bein’ used like that? For somebody else’s cause?”
I paused, feeling a tiny flicker of rage come to life in my chest. “I’m always bein’ used for somebody else’s cause.”
He glanced up at that, his eyes stormy with rage and pain and guilt. He downed his second drink, setting it on the table with a hard thud. “Fuck,” he said again.
I tipped my drink back, downing the rest of it like he had. I had a feeling I would need it.
“I did that,” Mac said. “I used you for my own cause by bringin’ you here.” He brought a hand up and rubbed his eyes hard. “I’m so sorry, Bones.”
I tried to feel something, but even the anger had been snuffed out by the crushing numbness.
“You already apologized,” I said, pouring myself a second drink.
“When?” He dropped his hand down, staring at me with an intensity I wasn’t drunk enough to handle.
I shot back my second drink. “When you were sick.”
He looked wary. “I apologized to you?” When I nodded, he frowned. “I don’t remember doin’ that.”
“You had a real high fever.” I shrugged.
“Did I say anythin’ else?” he asked.
I thought back to that moment, grateful to the alcohol for making this easier. “You apologized and said you couldn’t let Trey d-die.” My voice shook. “I told you I knew you didn’t have a choice. You asked if I hated you, and I told you I didn’t.”
He stared at me for a moment longer, that muscle in his jaw jumping, then poured himself a third drink and downed it. “Was that it?”
I hesitated a moment and his eyes sharpened.
“What else?”
"You just wanted to make sure I knew I was a part of your crew," I said, making a snap decision to not tell him how he'd promised not to let anyone hurt me again. I wasn't sure if he'd feel guilty, but I didn't want to risk it. It wasn't a promise anybody could keep.
He looked uneasy, and I couldn’t blame him. I remembered when Trey revealed I said things during my burnout fevers that I didn’t remember afterward. Maybe I should have kept that whole conversation to myself.
“Why weren’t you a part of the rebels?” I blurted out.
He met my eyes for a moment, looking startled, before turning away. “Madame watched me closer than most people. Plus, I didn’t know who was in charge, and I wasn’t willin’ to jeopardize the safety of my crew on the hope that whoever it was would be a better person than Madame.”
I couldn't fault him for that.
"After—" His voice broke. "After Trey died, I joined ’cause I knew I'd at the very least be able to get rid of Madame and Vulture."
The pain that stabbed through me at the mention of Trey’s name took my breath away for a moment. Would that ever go away? Or would it hurt for the rest of my life?
“I didn’t know Vulture found you or that he was bringin’ you back. Madame kept it quiet,” Mac said, low and pained. “If I’d known I would’ve done something. I hope you know that.”
I nodded, hoping he could see the honesty in my face because I did know that, but knowing it wouldn’t bring back the dead.
We stood in silence for a few moments. Finally, he let out a sigh.
"I better go. Griz is the night guard so let him know if you need anything."
I nodded again, pain and grief still holding my lungs in a vise. After he left, I went to my bed, wrapped myself in Trey’s quilt, and tried to ignore how the quiet of the clinic slowly crushed me.
Time kept moving and I kept dragging myself forward with it. Nights were the worst. Griz or Sam usually took night guard duty, but they stayed outside, leaving me alone in the clinic like they thought I wanted privacy. I was somewhat relieved because I could let myself cry into Trey’s quilt without worrying about anybody seeing me, but if I was honest with myself, I was so fucking lonely. As the sun set every day, I just wanted Trey. I started doing rounds in the evening like I had during the fever, checking in on injured or sick people. Anything just to get out of the fucking clinic. I hated how my eyes constantly strayed to the empty place by the door where his mattress had been. I hated waking up and reaching for someone who wasn't there.
Every night I watched him die in my nightmares. Sometimes I dreamt of other horrible things, but most often it was Trey’s death. I watched the light fade from his eyes over and over again until sleeping began to feel like torture. So I stopped sleeping. At night I stayed awake and worked. I re-labeled all the tinctures. I deep cleaned everything. I mended all the tears in my clothes. I caught up on my medical notes. On really bad nights, I went outside and walked alone along the wall of the Vault until my body was too exhausted to keep going. Griz or Sam always asked if I wanted company on those walks, but I always declined.
I pretended not to see Trey’s pack sitting in the corner of the room.
In the daytime, I dozed between patients which usually kept me from having a full-fledged nightmare. People got used to shaking me awake when they needed healing. A knot of guilt lodged itself in my stomach as people kept trying to talk to me and kept making an effort, and I couldn't be anything but this empty shell of a person. I kept waiting for people to snap at me or tell me to get over it, but they didn't. They were kind, and that was almost worse.
"Nemo approved the plan to start a school for the kids," Leda told me one day as Jet toddled around the clinic. "We're looking at a few buildings, but they're all gonna need some renovations before we can do anything. I'm hoping we can spend the spring and summer working on it and the kids can start in the fall."
“That’s great,” I murmured.
It took me a bit to realize she’d gone silent, and I looked away from Jet to see Leda studying me.
“Bones, you know you can talk to me anytime, right?” The earnest kindness in her hazel eyes reminded me painfully of Trey. “I’m here for you.”
I nodded.
“The grief never goes away,” she added after a moment, her voice slightly shaky. “I lost my partner before I even knew I was pregnant. Having Jet helped a little, but the only thing that really dulled the pain was time.” She covered my hand on the exam table with her dark one. “Just know it’s ok to feel.”
After she left, I stood at the exam table for a long time. I had to be broken because most of the time I felt nothing. Besides the moments where the grief and pain suddenly came pouring out of my eyes, the emptiness consumed me. I remembered sitting in Madame’s cell watching the blood spurting from her neck and feeling nothing at all. Maybe time couldn’t fix me. Maybe I was more like Madame than I was like Leda. How much pain could a person take before they went mad? I wasn’t sure how much more I could bear.
Mac's crew started going out on missions to get supplies for all the new projects as the snow melted. I wasn't sure if Mac asked people to check in on me, but in the crew's absence, the clinic stayed full of people. Apple and Sky came every day. The two girls had bonded, and I was grateful for that. At least they had each other. Leda and Jet stopped by most days. Even Nemo came by once.
Then one day, the door opened, and Mist walked in.
I froze at the sight of her, an ice-cold guilt filling the numbness. Her face had a little more color to it and she looked less skeletal. She wore her blonde hair down, hiding the awful holes where her ears had once been. Scars covered her arms, scars that I'd helped put there.
Mist smiled, looking nervous, but she came up to me and handed over a bar of soap. “I thought you might be getting low.”
I took it, my fingers trembling.
“And I just wanted to make sure you knew, I don’t blame you,” she added in a whispered rush. “It wasn’t your fault, Bones.”
I looked down at the soap in my hands. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness. Hawk at least agreed with me. I’d seen him a few times around the hold. He hadn’t said anything, but the simmering anger in his eyes when he looked at me spoke for him. Hawk hadn’t forgiven me for what I’d done, and it made me feel relieved. I would never forgive myself for the torture I’d helped Madame afflict, and it strangely comforted me to know at least one other person out there felt the same way.
“I’m sorry about Trey,” Mist added in a trembling whisper. ”He was a good man.”
My breath caught, and she squeezed my shoulder, her eyes glimmering with tears before she turned and left. I caught a glimpse of Apple and Sky watching, their faces solemn. I had to bite back the impulsive urge to snap at them to leave. They shouldn't be here with me. They should go help someone better, someone like Leda, where they could learn how to be good from people naturally that way. What could they learn from me? How grief could make a person wither away until they crumbled into dust?
I didn’t see Clarity at all.
I tried to convince myself it would be disrespectful to go to her. If she didn’t want to see me, I could at least honor that. She probably hated me, and I couldn’t blame her. Seeing me would probably just cause her more pain, and gods, hadn’t I done enough?
30
I thought the grief would eventually fade like Leda had said, but instead one day I woke up still heartbroken and burning with rage. I thought it would go away, but it didn’t. The anger crackled under my skin like lightning, burning me from the inside out, but even worse, I was angry at Trey. Suddenly the beautiful stories that people told me about Trey grated on my fragile sanity. I tried to avoid talking to anyone as much as possible because I didn’t want to hear about how Trey had stayed up all night helping somebody patch a leaking roof or how he’d taken on extra work to help people who were sick. Everyone had a story about Trey, and every single one just made me angrier. The guilt ate me alive. What kind of person did that make me? How could I be angry at the person who died because of me? If anybody knew I felt this way, they’d probably be horrified.
Somehow a couple of months passed. The snow began to melt during the day but still froze at night. Mud coated everything, the kind of mud that sucked at my boots and reminded me far too much of when I'd jumped in the pit to fight Brimstone. I wished I could fight someone like that again. Maybe it would release some of the anger that crackled in the back of my mind like radio static.
I headed back to the clinic alone one night, covered in no small amount of blood from helping a woman give birth to twins. The babies seemed to be strong and healthy, both of them letting out an ear-piercing wail after I patted their backs. Still, coming back a storm grew heavier and heavier in my chest. I couldn't shake the horrible, selfish thought that seeing new life brought into the world just reminded me of the life I'd had ripped away from me. I swore under my breath. What kind of person hated innocent babies just for being alive?
You’re a good person, Bones.
If Trey could see me right now, I doubted he’d still say that with such certainty.
I came to an abrupt halt, staring at the little path that led toward the cemetery. I passed it every night, pretending not to see it, but for some reason, I couldn't walk past it now. My feet slowly took me down the path, that empty hole in my chest aching worse with every step. It took me a while to find Trey's grave as I squinted in the moonlight at the names carved in the simple wooden markers. When I finally found it, reading his name hurt a lot worse than I expected. I sank to my knees at the side of his grave, the cold damp mud seeping into my pants.
Despite watching a bullet go through his head, despite being painfully aware of his absence every second, apparently a stupid part of my mind still hadn’t actually believed it until now. Now seeing him reduced to a simple, plain grave marker reading “Trey Mason,” that last tiny shred of delusional hope shriveled away. Trey was never coming back.
