Chapter 11
Only one day passed before Mac returned.
I was in the middle of healing a child who’d broken out in red scabby spots and a fever.
When the door opened and he strode in, my stomach dropped.
He didn’t say anything and leaned against the wall by the door, waiting.
I finished my work, endured the tearful mother’s gratitude, and then washed my hands.
Mac stayed silent behind me, most likely still pissed, which was fine by me.
I turned around as I dried my hands, expecting to see him still brooding by the door, but flinched when I found him right behind me.
“What—”
“I’m gonna ask you one more time,” he said in a low voice that made a chill walk down my spine. “Did you know that man in the cells?”
“No!” We were back to this again? I couldn’t help yielding back a step, bumping into the sink, but he followed, towering over me. “I told you, Mac, I don’t know him.”
He stared down at me, his face expressionless and his eyes so dark they looked as black as his hair. Something must have happened. Something big.
“Why are you still asking me that?” I demanded. He stood inches away from me, trapping me against the sink.
“Because somehow, he escaped the watchtower last night, and nobody escapes the fucking watchtower without help.”
I glared up at him, but internally my heart pounded.
If he didn’t believe me, how would I prove that I had nothing to do with it?
Trey could back me up, but would he, after the horrible things I said to him?
Not to mention that I wasn’t happy to hear that the guy had escaped either.
I didn’t know who he was, and I didn’t want to find out.
Didn’t Mac know if I were to help anyone escape, it would be Mist?
“Madame is on a warpath, and maybe the guards didn’t notice how he looked at you, but I sure as hell did. He recognized you.”
“I know. I saw it too,” I said, deciding impulsively that honesty would be the best choice in this situation. “Maybe he saw me before with the Reapers. I don’t know. But I don’t know him.”
He stared me down for so long that I had to resist the urge to fidget. I caved to the urge to break the silence.
“If you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask Trey if I was here all night?”
“I already did,” he replied.
My heart sank. Of course, Trey would use this to his advantage. I’d hurt him and given him the perfect opportunity to hurt me back.
“He said you were here all night,” Mac added.
It took me a second to register what he said.
My brows knit together in confusion. “What—” I forced myself to push past my desperate need to understand why Trey hadn’t seized this opportunity, and focused on the other reason for my confusion.
“Then why are you in here using your scary asshole act on me?”
His eyes widened, surprise flashing through them before he narrowed them again. “Because I want some answers.”
“Well, I’ve got none,” I said.
“I want to know why you looked so scared when you saw him recognize you.”
My mouth went dry as my mind spun with how to answer him. He studied my face, and I had a terrible feeling that if I lied, he would know.
“I try not to be noticed. By anyone,” I managed to get out.
“Why?”
My mind raced with how to avoid giving him the real answer while also not lying. “It doesn’t usually end well.”
“What do you mean?” he pushed, and I didn’t have to fake my temper surging through me.
“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I fuckin’ mean.” I gestured at my bruised face.
Something that looked an awful lot like regret tightened his face. Behind him, the door opened, and a man limped in with a bloody bandage around his leg. He paused in the doorway when he spotted us, me standing with my back to the sink and Mac looming over me.
“This a bad time?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Mac said simultaneously.
I gave Mac an annoyed glare and stepped around him. “Come in. You hurt your leg?”
The man eyed Mac nervously. “You sure—”
“Mac was just leaving.”
The man’s eyes widened and he glanced at Mac again. I refused to turn around to see Mac’s expression, but I imagined he looked less than pleased that I was throwing him out of the clinic.
“See you later, Bones,” Mac said smoothly, surprising me. He stepped around me and strode to the door, disappearing through it without a look back, as though we’d been discussing the weather.
I took a deep breath and turned back to the injured man. “Let me take a look.”
—
In the weeks that followed, Trey didn’t speak to me unless necessary, though he still guarded the clinic.
Every day he went outside at dawn and stayed there until dark, when he came in and went to bed.
Sometimes Griz or Sam would take the day shift as they traded off helping rebuild the ruster homes that’d been lost in the fire.
I continued to find dandelions on the shelf under the mirror, but I never acknowledged them.
My face healed and people finally stopped staring.
I hardly saw Mac except for the couple of times he summoned me to the dungeon to help Madame torture people.
One was an assistant to the butcher, a young man who swore he hadn’t stolen any food and sobbed as she tortured him anyway.
The other was an older woman, blind in one eye, who refused to answer any questions about who was receiving the stolen food.
Madame killed both of them. I couldn’t find the courage to ask if Mist still lived.
Mac and I didn’t talk on those walks to and from the watchtower, and I managed to resist the urge to look at him when the torture sessions ripped more of my soul to shreds. The man who’d escaped had apparently vanished into thin air.
In the mornings, I went to the canteen with Zip and the loggers, and at night I went out drinking with them.
When I got home, I always found a mug of broth and my dinner ration on the exam table, but I didn’t see any of Mac’s crew at Mootzie’s again.
Most of those nights ended with me waking up in Zip’s shack.
If he ever noticed the brand on my chest, he didn’t mention it, though I doubted he noticed much due to how drunk he got.
Not that I had any room to judge, because I got shitfaced every night so I wouldn’t freak out about Zip’s hands on my body.
I lost any weight I’d managed to gain from throwing up in the mornings.
It was a shit routine, and I knew it, but it was better than staying and seeing the hurt on Trey’s face.
Raven started coming by more often. Unlike the others, she didn’t even try to hide her anger at what I’d done to Trey. I attempted to ignore her, but her words often stuck in my heart like barbs.
“Don’t know what you see in that hulking beast,” she said by way of greeting one afternoon.
I assumed she meant Zip, but I pressed my lips together and continued doing laundry in the sink.
“But I don’t know what the fuck Trey sees in you, either,” she continued.
I scrubbed my dirty clothes with more force than necessary.
“You know you’re lucky you have magic healing powers,” she said, her words dripping with scorn, “otherwise you’d be completely worthless.”
“Do you need something?” I swiftly turned to face her, soapy water dripping off my hands.
Raven widened her eyes. “I’m only doing my job, Boney.”
“Which is what exactly?” I glared at her, refusing to comment on the nickname. “I don’t need help. So go do something else.”
“Can’t.” She smiled, showing all her teeth. “I’m on guard duty.”
“Then go guard outside.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.” She picked up a pair of forceps near the sink and clapped them together at me.
I forced myself to clench my jaw shut and turned back to the sink, scrubbing the blood and vomit from my clothes.
“He must be really good in the sack, is that it?”
“What?”
She leaned on the counter, watching me with a sharp light in her blue eyes. “Zip,” she said like I was stupid.
“I’m not talking to you about Zip,” I said through my teeth.
“You know most people go to the brothel when they want to get laid,” she continued like I hadn’t said anything.
The fury that rushed through me broke through my self-control. “I don’t go to fucking brothels where most of the workers there don’t have any other choice.”
She scoffed. “Oh, I touched a nerve. Guess you would know since you were Juck’s whore.”
I flinched and hated that I showed that weakness in front of her. “Get out.”
“Make me,” she sneered.
I whipped around to face her, fury blinding me, but the door abruptly opened, and Sam entered. He scanned both of us, quickly reading the energy in the room, and then strode forward to grab Raven by the arm.
“Alright, I’m relieving you of guard duty,” he said firmly, pulling her toward the door.
Raven jerked free. “Fine. I have better things to do anyway.”
She slammed the door hard, making the windows rattle. I turned my back on Sam and went back to washing my clothes, my hands trembling. I heard him slowly approach.
“What’d she say?” he asked sharply.
“Doesn’t matter,” I muttered without turning around.
“Shortcake, that’s—”
“I’m not talkin’ about it,” I interrupted. “Leave me alone.”
“Bones—”
“Go away, Sam,” I tried to say fiercely, but my voice broke, which I hated.
After a brief silence, he let out a heavy sigh. “Alright. I’ll be outside.”
I waited until I heard him walk to the door and step outside, shutting it softly behind him.
In the silence, I gingerly touched the horrible brand hiding under my shirt.
The hot, angry tears escaped, and I let them fall.
I hated Raven, but she spoke the truth. I’d never be able to escape the things Juck had done to me.
Even if he hadn’t marked his cruelty into my skin, he’d left scars on my very soul.
—
“Angel!”