Chapter 10 Kit #2
“I swore when I left that I would find a way to take them down, and instead, I hid. But I’m done hiding now,” I said.
“It’s been thirteen years, and even though the militia killed my father, they’ve done nothing to cripple the Bone Men.
It can’t be done from the outside, so I’ll find a way to do it from the inside. ”
She cupped my face in both hands. “That isn’t your responsibility, boy.”
My smile felt tired and worn, but it was the best I could manage. “Someone has to do it, and I won’t wait until they destroy more lives. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”
“What about him?” Nora nodded toward Penny, who clung to the edge of the bed, looking dazed.
I chuckled and shrugged. “He’s like a weed. I try to pull him up, but he keeps coming back. Couldn’t convince him to stay home and let me do this on my own.”
She shook her head again, then turned to Penny. “How recently did you take a dose?”
“Last night at supper,” he replied.
“Then it’s too late to give you anything to offset it. What you need is rest and fluids.” She pointed at me. “Same for you.”
“I’m fine. Just a little nauseous.”
She scowled. “At the very least, he should stay here overnight. I’ll send one of the nurses in with something for you both to wash up.
” She rested her hand on Penny’s right shoulder.
“And I’ll have them administer some fluids.
It will help flush the poison from your system, but you’ll still feel wretched for a few days.
And no more hemlock. You seem to be more sensitive to it than Kit is. ”
“That might not be an option,” I said. “We don’t have long before the third Oath for him to build a tolerance to it.”
“If you keep giving it to him,” an edge of irritation crept into Nora’s voice, “all you’ll do is make him less likely to survive a larger dose.”
Penny turned wide eyes on me.
Nora spoke before I could. “I’ll see about getting you both something to help keep that from happening. Until then, absolutely no more hemlock.” She looked at me. “Kit, may I speak with you outside?”
I rose to follow her out the door, but Penny caught my hand and squeezed it hard enough to hurt.
“Don’t leave me.” His eyes were frantic, and he was panting again. “I don’t want to be alone.”
He’d said as much in the graveyard. In all the time we’d spent together, I hadn’t considered how new this was to him.
I’d grown up crisscrossing the province and spending little time anywhere that could be remotely considered a home.
I was used to caring for myself and being able to find my way back to Ashpoint no matter where I ended up. I hadn’t had a choice.
Penny had chosen to follow me, and he did so without complaint or question.
I was so accustomed to doing everything alone that I forgot how it felt to follow someone who never gave you details about where you were going or what you’d be doing when you got there, to be at the mercy of someone else and reliant on them to get you home safely.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d trusted anyone that much.
“I’m not going far, Pen.” I cupped his face in my free hand and brushed my thumb across his cheek, leaving a smudge of dirt in its wake.
He calmed slightly, and his eyes flicked between Nora and me. “I don’t want you to go anywhere,” he whispered.
I touched my forehead to his. “Just outside the door. You’ll still be able to see me. Promise.”
When he reluctantly nodded, I kissed the top of his head. His fingers lingered in mine for another moment before he released me, and I followed Nora to the doorway.
In the hall, I was careful to stay in Penny’s line of sight. Nora crowded in, poking at the puffiness around my eyes and tilting my chin back and forth while giving a scrutinizing assessment.
“You two seem close,” she said after completing her examination.
I blinked in surprise. I had anticipated a lecture about wasting my hard-won freedom and stepping right back into my shackles, or a scolding for bringing Penny into the Bone Men, but there was still time for her to bring those things up.
“We are,” I said, feeling a bit of thrill at the admission.
She hummed and reached up to brush an errant curl off my forehead. “Though, he’s not the one I expected to see you with.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes narrowed as they met mine. “Half a year after you left here with Delmer, another young man stopped in, just like you said he might. Tall, red hair, fresh brand, worried about you. Said you told him about this place.”
My mouth went dry. It had to be Levitt. No one else in Ashpoint knew which mission I’d been to, much less would have cared enough to follow me there except to drag me back. But, in all the times we’d spoken since I returned to the cult, he had never mentioned anything about it.
“I was still hesitant to tell him where you’d gone,” Nora continued, “because I didn’t want to chance setting your father after you if the boy went back and shared that information.
But you’d seemed so sure your friend would follow you and escape, too…
And when I refused to reveal your location, he was distraught.
Even got down on his knees to beg me to tell him where to find you. ”
She glanced at Penny, who sat stiffly on the edge of the bed. Her mouth twisted in thought a moment before she turned back to me.
“He was desperate to catch up to you and said the same thing you had: that the plan was always to escape together, and the fact that you were caught the first time the two of you tried was his greatest regret. He said that he loved you and never got the chance to tell you.”
A wave of dizziness washed over me. I staggered back to brace myself on the doorframe so I didn’t collapse. Nora’s words echoed in my head until they became deafening, and all I wanted was to press my hands against my ears to make it stop.
Penny called my name, and I barely had the presence of mind to wave him off to keep him from getting out of bed. I wasn’t sure I could handle trying to reassure him while my mind was a violent tangle of disbelief and grief. I couldn’t even quiet myself.
It made no sense. There was no way Levitt loved me.
We’d been best friends and told each other everything, but he never said a word about love.
Wasn’t that the sort of thing you told someone?
He knew almost every awful, vile thing my father had done and made me do, but he kept secret the one thing that might have made my life there less of a living torment.
“What?” I asked, my voice breaking. Maybe I’d misheard her. Maybe she’d misspoken. I would have preferred that be the case.
Nora’s eyes pinched with concern, and she rubbed her hands up and down my arms. The gesture was meant to be comforting, but it only fueled my agitation. My own breaths came in gasps as pressure closed around my chest like a vise.
“You didn’t know?” she asked softly. “I told him where to find you. Even gave him directions.”
For almost a year after I went to live with Delmer, I watched the road to Emberstead, desperate to see Levitt come over the hill.
The people in town weren’t nearly as welcoming as the old farmer had been, and I felt so alone.
All I’d wanted was someone who understood, who knew me, and who wouldn’t look at me like I was a monster.
I could have had that. Levitt knew where to find me, but he never did.
My life could have been so different. I could have had thirteen years of happiness, of closeness and care instead of isolation. If I’d had that, maybe I wouldn’t have always felt so broken.
But Levitt staying away gave me the chance to build something with Penny and, even under the crushing weight of mourning what never was, I wouldn’t trade what we had for anything. He told me I made him happy, and he did the same for me. He was the sun that managed to break through my clouds.
“No,” I told Nora. “He never came.”
She closed both of her hands around one of mine and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Kit. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
I straightened my shoulders and scrubbed my fingers over my eyes to clear the film of unshed tears. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me.”
“Best get back in there before your friend drags himself out of that bed.” She nodded toward Penny, then squeezed my hand again. “You should rest, too.”
My smile couldn’t have been convincing, but Nora didn’t press and retreated down the hall toward a small knot of gathered nurses.
Back in the room, Penny grabbed my wrist as soon as I was within arm’s reach and nearly toppled me into his lap in his haste to pull me close. I sank beside him on the edge of the bed and curled my arm around his shoulders to tuck him against my side. He was shaking.
“Are you okay?” He looked over at me. “Was it about me? Is something wrong?”
I shook my head and kissed his temple. “It wasn’t about you, and nothing’s wrong. And you’re okay, right? Tell me again.”
His brow furrowed. “I’m okay. But, Kit…”
The arrival of one of the nurses with a basin of water and a few rags spared me from having to dwell on how not okay I was. I extricated myself from Penny to take them from her along with a hunk of soap.
“Get cleaned up. We’ll be back in a bit with the fluids.” She spared Penny a gentle smile. “Then you need to get some sleep.”
I set the supplies on the small table across from the bed. “Thank you. I’ll look after him.”
Once the nurse was gone, I helped Penny out of his boots and tucked his sketchbook in the pocket of my trousers so it wouldn’t get lost. He didn’t want to lay back but, with some coaxing, I got him propped up against the pillows and under the covers.
He caught my hand again when I moved to retrieve the basin from the table.
“Will you sit with me?” he asked. “I don’t want to be alone.”
I gave his hand a squeeze, letting the contact settle my racing thoughts. “I’m not going anywhere, Pen.”
This was where I wanted to be, by his side, no matter where he was. In the end, Levitt made his choice, and it was the cult over me. He could have followed me, but he didn’t. Penny did.
Now, if only I could shake the worry that Penny might someday change his mind too.