Chapter 16 #2
Who. Is. This? He ripped into my head again, pulling up every memory I had of Trey’s face. His rage felt like a scorching iron against my flesh.
Please, I sobbed. He’s nothing to me!
You’re right. His amusement was sharp and cruel. He will be nothing soon.
Please! I almost opened my eyes in desperation, barely keeping myself under control. I swear, he’s—
When will you learn? he interrupted, his voice dangerous. You belong to me.
—
I stared at a beetle crawling its way across the floor. My brain felt like it’d been packed full of cotton. I lay on my stomach on my mattress, and slowly I became aware of people talking.
“We think this might be the spark—”
“—don’t risk it. We can’t until they—”
“—could have killed her, Mac!”
“I can’t. You don’t have the numbers—”
“Fuck the numbers!”
The last words were yelled so loudly I flinched, and a pained cry escaped my lips. Chairs scraped across the wooden floor.
“Bones?”
The beetle disappeared beneath a worn boot, and a body crouched next to me.
“Hey,” Trey said, a strained smile on his face. “Good morning.”
Panic roared through me, and his expression grew alarmed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Gods, what had I done?
“Bones, talk to me.” He stroked my cheek.
Mac crouched next to him, his expression steadier.
“You promised,” I rasped.
Trey’s expression shuttered. “You were in so much pain, what—”
“Go away.” I was borderline hysterical. “Go away, Trey. Get away from me.”
He stared at me like I’d stabbed him through the heart.
When he didn’t move, I started trying to push myself up, away from his gentle touch, but the pain that roared to life in my back made me cry out and freeze, panting.
Mac hauled Trey away as I tried to convince myself I could get up without passing out.
I started trying to move again, but then Mac reappeared, gripping my arm.
“Bones, no,” he snapped. “You can’t get up. Your back is still a mess.”
“I—”
“You try to get up, and I will give you another fucking narc.” His eyes glittered.
I froze in terror, then lowered myself back onto the mattress. He released my arm.
“Trey didn’t give you a narc. I did,” Mac continued. “He tried to stop me.”
It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter who did it. I wanted to scream and rage, but my strength was vanishing.
“For the record, this is exactly what doing something fucking stupid looks like.” I hadn’t seen Mac this angry since the first moment I met him after our rooftop chase. “What were you thinking? Ten fucking lashes! You could have healed me, and I would have been fine. Why the fuck did you—”
“Wasn’t your fault,” I interrupted, my eyes welling up.
“I made that deal with Madame. I knew what I was fucking signing up for.”
Pain was taking over. My thoughts fragmented under the strain. I’d thought nothing could hurt worse than when Juck had pressed a red-hot piece of metal against my chest, letting it sizzle and burn into my skin, but I’d been wrong.
“You wouldn’t heal yourself. So we gave you pain meds,” Mac continued, gesturing in a sharp motion. “What the fuck else were we supposed to do?”
“Nothing,” I choked out.
He crouched lower so he could meet my gaze. His eyes were full of angry sparks. “If you think any of us would sit here and watch you suffer without doing somethin’ about it, you don’t know us at all. You want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. Not Trey.”
I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see the intensity in his expression. I wanted to tell him we were all fucked, but I couldn’t. Not without making everything into a bigger mess.
I heard the cruel voice echoing in my head. When will you learn?
You know better, Wolf snarled.
Shut up, I begged. Just shut up.
“Bones, are you listenin’ to me?” Mac’s voice rang with impatient authority, but I refused to open my eyes again.
Eventually, Mac gave up and I managed to fall asleep again, although every tiny movement woke me with a pained gasp.
A few times I saw Mac checking on me, but most often it was Apple sitting at my side, her tiny hand resting on mine.
I could still see the faint remains of the bruise on her face from where Zip hit her.
When I met her eyes, I dreaded seeing that hurt and betrayal again, but she gave me a small smile.
I wanted to tell her I didn’t deserve her forgiveness.
He knew about Trey now, and where to find us both.
—
The days passed in a haze of pain. Sam had been moved to the bunkhouse with the kids, and the clinic felt so empty.
I didn’t speak to anyone unless necessary.
Maybe it was too late, but my mind kept spinning through frantic plans.
If I could escape as soon as I could move, maybe I could get far enough away that he wouldn’t bother with the Vault.
I could get his attention and hope he chased me instead.
It was a gamble, but one I would take without hesitation to keep the people of the Vault from getting caught in the crossfire.
I’d lied to all of them. I wasn’t the only powered person in the world.
He’d appeared the first time I’d been given a narc. I thought maybe he’d been a drug-induced nightmare, but the second time I took a narc, he was there again. What came after clung to me like evidence. Pretending he wasn’t real felt like daring him to prove it again.
The Shadow, I called him.
Mac’s crew did not react well to my sudden turn in behavior, and I couldn’t blame them. I struggled to bear their anger, confusion, and hurt.
But I had to. I couldn’t let the Vault become the Shadow’s next slaughterhouse.
—
“Hey, Boney.”
I opened my eyes to see Raven and someone else striding into the clinic. I tensed, then bit back a groan of pain. I didn’t want to deal with Raven and whoever—
My thoughts halted as I recognized the girl I’d saved from Brimstone.
Sky. Her hair had been buzzed short and even, fixing the crude way it had been cut, and dark bruises lingered on her face.
She stood there, her eyes wide and tears rolling down her cheeks as she stared at me.
I was still stuck lying on my stomach on my mattress.
I could get up and move around a little, but it hurt like hell and I needed help.
I’d had a few truly humiliating moments with Griz attempting to use the outhouse, but I preferred them over the humiliation of using a bedpan.
“Sky, don’t be a little bitch,” Raven snapped. “You wanted to help, so quit crying.”
I winced at her harsh tone, but to my surprise, Sky wiped her cheeks and raised her chin.
“Thank you, Bones.” Her voice quavered, but she pushed through. “You saved my life, and I can’t ever repay you, but I’d like to help you recover, if that’s okay.”
I stared at her, then flicked my eyes to Raven.
“Yeah, me too. Griz is tired of seeing your naked ass,” she grumbled, “so we get to play nursemaids.”
I bit back the “hell no” I longed to spit out, reminding myself it didn’t matter. So I gave a short nod and then winced at the movement.
“Gods, stop moving your head. They didn’t shred up your tongue.
Use that, dumbass!” Raven snapped open the blanket she’d been carrying.
It was a quilt, worn and faded, but much thicker than the pathetic blanket I had.
She laid it over me without a word, tucking it in around my body in a gentle, maternal move that surprised me.
I brushed my fingers over the soft material. It smelled good, like my lavender soap and something…something that reminded me of Trey.
Raven started cleaning the clinic, giving Sky orders as she went.
I was taken aback at the effort she put into making sure everything was spotless.
After about an hour, she and Sky managed to get me up and take me to the outhouse.
It wasn’t any less embarrassing to have Raven pulling down my pants and helping position me on the outhouse hole, but she surprised me again by not making any cruel comments about my vulnerable state.
“With Sam and the kids at the bunkhouse, it’s pretty crowded in there,” she said, like I wasn’t struggling to wipe my own ass. “So me, Sky, and Griz are moving into the clinic for now. Trey, Jax, and Mac are in charge of Sam and the kids.”
I didn’t miss the way her eyes cut to my face when she said Trey’s name.
“I’m sure Apple will be here most days. That child is obsessed with you. Trey had to promise she could come help during the day before she stopped sneaking out at night and coming over here.”
I remembered all the times I’d woken in a haze of pain to see Apple sitting with me and bit back a sigh of exasperation. I didn’t know she’d been sneaking out.
“We got the kids out before they brought you back, so they didn’t have to see your back hanging off your bones like bloody ribbons.”
I blanched and she laughed humorlessly.
“You think it’s bad hearing about it? I had to help piece you back together. Hard to stitch someone up when there’s not much left to stitch to.”
My stomach turned, but she helped me stand and pulled up my pants for me.
“We gotta get you a skirt,” she muttered. “ ’Course the boys never thought of that, the idiots.”
Once I lay down again, she sent Sky out to find a skirt for me and yelled at Griz to get his ass inside to help change the dressing on my back.
“Hey, Bones,” Griz said as he stepped into the clinic, “is Raven behavin’ herself?”
“Don’t you start,” Raven snapped. “I’m here, ain’t I?”
I stayed quiet, my cheek resting on my flat pillow. The short walk to the outhouse and back had left me exhausted. I needed to get my strength up.