Chapter 23 #2
As I finally neared the end, the color and health had returned to his face, transforming him from pallid and fragile to a healthy child.
He’d probably always be small for his age, and he’d have to pack on some fat and muscle, but I had no doubt he would.
Zeke let out a choked sound, tears flowing down his face.
“Dad?” Roe asked, looking worried.
“It’s workin’, son.” Zeke beamed. “I think it’s workin’.”
I knew without a doubt that this cancer would have killed him before summer’s end. Gratitude flooded me that we’d come here, and that Zeke let me use the kitchen. When I finished and released him, I tucked my hands into my pockets to hide their trembling.
For a while, no one spoke. Zeke gently touched Roe’s face where his cheeks glowed a rosy pink as though afraid that what he saw wasn’t real.
“Nothin’ hurts anymore,” Roe whispered, his expression a mix of shock and wonder. “Dad, am I better?”
Zeke folded his son in his arms, silent sobs shaking his shoulders. Trey moved next to me, slipping an arm around my ribs and pressing a kiss to my head.
“How is this possible?” Zeke managed to ask.
“Sara has an incredible gift,” Trey explained. “But we are gonna have to ask you to keep this quiet.”
“You’re on the run,” Zeke said. It wasn’t a question, but both Trey and I nodded. “What do I owe you—”
I cut him off. “You don’t owe us anything. You showed us so much kindness, an’ I’m glad there was somethin’ I could do to repay it.”
Zeke stayed quiet for a moment before he nodded, wiping his wet face. “At least let me send you with some more provisions.”
When we relented, he began to move around the kitchen, gathering food and wrapping it for us to take.
“How did you do that?” Roe asked, tugging on my jacket to get my attention.
I hesitated, unsure how much I should tell a child who might accidentally give away my secret. “You were right,” I said finally. “I do make magic, just not potions.”
His eyes widened. “You fixed me with magic?”
“Yes, but you gotta keep it a secret, okay?”
He nodded, and I smiled.
“You feel better?”
“Yeah!” he said. “I feel great!”
Zeke sniffled from where he stuffed several apples into a bag. “Your secret is safe with us, right, buddy?”
“Right!” Roe agreed.
Zeke pressed the bag of food into Trey’s hands and then startled me by enveloping me in a giant hug. “He’s the last piece of Wren I have, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you did,” he whispered.
“It’s alright,” I whispered back, my throat tight with emotion. “I’m glad I could help.”
Zeke pulled away and shook Trey’s hand. We exited into the frigid air, heading toward where a white horse speckled with brown spots stood saddled and ready, our meager possessions already strapped on.
I didn’t mind that we only had one horse.
Trey and I had been riding together on one horse for so long that riding alone would feel, well, lonely.
As we began to ride away, I twisted back. I could barely make out Zeke and Roe standing in the window watching. I raised my hand and waved, a soft happiness rising in my chest when they both returned it.
“You’re incredible,” Trey murmured into my hair.
My cheeks warmed. “Thank you for lettin’ me make the decision.”
“Bones, you can always make your own decisions about healing people.” Trey’s voice was firm. “It’s not my power, and I have no right to try and dictate what you do with it.”
A soft, strong emotion swept through me. I laced my gloved fingers through his resting on my thigh. “This is all I want to do. I want to heal people like Roe.”
“We’ll find a way for you to do that, then.”
“I didn’t know it was possible for people to live like Zeke…outside walls, answering to nobody,” I admitted.
“It’s not easy, but yes, it is possible, darlin’.”
“Do you think Zeke will keep our secret?”
I expected him to answer right away, and when he didn’t, I glanced at him.
He sighed. “I think he will unless someone threatens Roe.”
A chill walked down my spine. I knew he was right, but I couldn’t judge Zeke. I already knew I’d sell out the whole rebellion to save Trey. It unsettled me that I hadn’t thought of that possibility, because normally I would. Wolf’s voice rose from the depths of my mind, growling warnings.
“We can’t control what other people do,” Trey said, squeezing my hand, “only our own actions.”
I grimaced. I knew he meant it to be comforting, but it made me feel sick to my stomach. “Doesn’t that scare you?” I asked.
“I find it more liberating than anythin’. I don’t have to be responsible for other people’s actions, only mine.” He paused. “Does it scare you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d guess that might be, ’cause you’re always tryin’ to control what people are gonna do.”
“I am not.”
“Bones.” He sounded exasperated. “You pushed everybody away, and when you finally let me in a little bit, you ran straight to Zip to get rid of me. That’s control.”
“No.” My voice grew sharper. “That was survival.”
“Survival for who?”
“Me. You. Everybody.”
“You don’t get to make those decisions for other people, though, darlin’.”
“Trey, people who get close to me end up dead,” I snapped, fear churning.
“So it’s better to refuse to let anyone ever get close to you again? What’s the point, then?” he asked. “What are you surviving for?”
I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t want to admit that I asked myself that same question constantly.
That I’d spent the last twelve years only thinking about one day at a time, trying to survive from dawn to dusk, and I had no idea how to see further than that.
I didn’t want to tell him I survived because Wolf’s voice in my head demanded I keep going or that I still clung to a tiny, delusional shred of hope that maybe I could atone for Dune’s death.
And I didn’t dare give voice to the new, impossible dreams he was coaxing to life inside me. I’d already said too much. Wanting things was how you lost them.
So instead I shot back at him, “What are you surviving for?”
“Well,” he said, “I want to make my mom proud. I want to help make this world a better place. And maybe you don’t know this, but there’s this beautiful healer that I’ve kinda fallen in love with, and I want to start a life with her.”
I tried to stay mad, but my entire body softened against him.
He leaned forward, his cold nose pressing against my ear. “That’s you.”
I let my head thud back against his chest, huffing out a heavy breath. “Even if that life is always on the run?” I asked, my voice low.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Even if you never get to go back to the Vault?”
He hesitated for a split second. “Yes.”
“Trey,” I said, my stomach sinking at that tiny hesitation, “you deserve better—”
“No,” he interrupted with conviction, “Bones, you don’t get to decide what’s best for me. There’s that control again. I’ve made my decisions. I’m where I want to be.”
I wasn’t trying to control him. I wanted him to be safe.
My hands went numb as I tried to push Rally’s screams from my head.
I hadn’t loved Rally in a romantic way, but I’d loved him as a friend, and it broke me to see him tortured to death.
I’d had no idea how long a person could go before they took their last breath, how much pain they’d be forced to endure in the meantime.
“You did this to him, Angel,” Juck had said in my ear. “So don’t you dare close your eyes.”
We rode in silence for a long time. When we stopped for a break, the space between us felt stiff. I hated it. Trey still gave me a smile when I glanced at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I went to relieve my bladder, and on my way back, I noticed he was staring into space with a frown.
Gods, I didn’t want to spend this time fighting with him.
I crouched and grabbed a handful of wet snow, packing it into a ball shape.
When I chucked it at him, I expected to miss.
Instead, my snowball smacked into the side of his head.
I covered my mouth with my gloved hands, trying not to laugh.
He leapt to his feet, his eyes narrowing at me as he wiped snow from his face.
“You did not,” he said, but his eyes sparkled, “throw a snowball at my head.”
“I would never.”
“ ’Cause I’ll have you know”—he crouched, scooping up a handful of snow—“I always win snowball fights.”
I couldn’t resist the grin on my face any longer. “Those are some big words.”
“You don’t believe me?” he asked as he packed the snow into a tight ball.
I scooped up another handful. “I’m just sayin’ that’s a lot of talk with little to back it up.”
“I can’t believe—” he started, but then he charged mid-sentence.
I shrieked and chucked my snowball at him, missing by a mile, and turned and ran. His snowball hit me in the back of the head, and a second later he tackled me into the snow. I got a face full of cold wet snow, and when he flipped me over, he laughed at the snow coating my face.
“You believe me now?” he asked, full of smug confidence that he’d won, but he didn’t know my brother taught me to fight dirty.
I smashed two handfuls of snow into his face.
He sputtered, and I dissolved into laughter.
Most of the snow dripped off his face right away, but some stayed stuck to his eyebrows and stubble, making him look like an old man.
He glared down at me for a moment as I laughed at him, but then his lips crushed into mine, silencing me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back.
The earlier tension between us melted away as swiftly as the snow.