Chapter 16
I opened my eyes and immediately bolted to the door, barely making it off the small steps before I was sick. The smells, sounds, and sensations of that day would haunt me forever. I heard the door open behind me, Mac’s footsteps slowly approaching.
“You didn’t have to show me,” he said, irritation coloring his voice.
“I dunno.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “ I think it’s easier than saying it out loud.”
“Sure, but we could have taken a break or something.” He hovered at my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I thought miserably.
“Are you seriously apologizing for being sick?” I knew he was glaring at me without even looking.
“I should have told you sooner. I should’ve told you right away. I’m so sorry.” I was afraid to look at him, terrified to see what was on his face. If he hated me now, I wasn’t sure I could bear it.
“Em,” he sounded exasperated as he took my arm, but his hands were gentle, “look at me.”
I reluctantly lifted my eyes to his face. He was staring solemnly at me, golden sparks almost glowing in his eyes.
“I don’t hate you,” he said steadily. “Do I wish you would’ve told me sooner? Yeah. But I don’t hate you. I’m just tryin’ to… process all this, I guess.”
“I tried to draw him away. That’s why I left. He saw the Vault. When you drugged me. He said he was coming,” the words spilled out of me. Was I even making sense?
He held my gaze for what felt like a long time, and I didn’t know how to read his expression. Something was lurking in his eyes that made me uneasy, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
“I know,” he finally said quietly.
I faltered, my mind tripping over those two simple words.
I know.
Know what? He couldn’t know about this. What the fuck was he talking about?
“You know? ” I finally got out.
“Trey radioed us.”
I stared at him.
“When you were at the trading post.”
My mind frantically ran through our entire time at the trading post. Trey must have done it while I was making my infusion with Roe in Zeke’s kitchen. He’d told them, and he hid it from me.
“We have a small radio hidden in the bunkhouse,” Mac added when I didn’t say anything.
Part of me wasn’t surprised. Of course, Trey would want to warn his family that they might be in danger, but a much more selfish and broken part of me felt betrayed, and not just by Trey.
I’d been trying to figure out how to tell Mac and the crew this, terrified it would ruin everything, and they already knew .
I’d just been more vulnerable than I’d ever been, showing all this shit to Mac, but he already fucking knew.
“Em?” Mac asked, gently squeezing my arm, which he still held.
“So, what? You were just waiting for me to tell you so you could act like it was new information?” I knew I wasn’t disguising the hurt and anger in my voice, but I didn’t care.
“No!” he retorted, his voice sharpening. “I was waitin’ until you felt comfortable enough to tell me.”
“You waited until I felt comfortable enough to show you some of the worst fucking moments of my life, relive all of that shit, and you already knew?”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting you to show me.” His eyes flashed with angry sparks.
“Do you seriously think talking about it would have been any easier?”
My voice was rising, and I could see people glancing curiously at us. A couple of Nemo’s guards were whispering to each other and gesturing at us, and my stomach suddenly dropped.
“Everyone knows,” I realized with horror.
“No,” he said immediately. “Not everyone, just Nemo and his top people and our crew.”
Of course, Nemo knew. No wonder he used up so many resources to rescue me from my brother.
No wonder Nemo wanted me to stay here. No wonder he was so willing to make a deal with Wolf.
When the other powered person showed up looking for me, Nemo could just hand me over like the perfect little bargaining chip I was.
I felt so stupid.
“Em—”
“Did Nemo tell you to keep it a secret from me?” I demanded, my voice shaking.
“He didn’t say to keep it a secret; he just didn’t want to overwhelm you with everything?—”
I yanked my arm free, staring horrified at him with furious tears filling my eyes.
Em, please, just— His voice in my head sounded far more desperate.
I slammed down my mental shield as hard as I could, turned, and fled.
“Em!” he shouted, and I heard him following. “Em, wait, you?—”
“Mac!”
I threw a glance over my shoulder to see one of Nemo’s top men flagging Mac down. Mac had stopped chasing me, but he stayed in the path, watching me flee as Nemo’s guard rushed toward him. I could feel him trying to get through my mental shield, but I just turned back around and kept running.
I hid out by the wall in a small space I’d discovered between several apple trees, waiting until I heard the rovers leave.
It felt childish, but I did not want to see Mac right now.
After they left, I stormed back to the clinic.
Wolf’s entire crew was inside, and it did not improve my mood.
The clinic felt so crowded, and people kept fucking trying to talk to me.
I eventually just quit responding, and finally, they went quiet, but they still watched me, tracking me around the clinic until I wanted to scream.
To make matters worse, it was a slow day with few people coming in for healing, and whoever had cleaned up the blood and Madame’s scent had done a meticulous job, leaving little cleaning for me.
After an hour, I couldn’t take it any longer and retreated to the loft to scrub the floor just to escape the constant eyes on my skin.
I debated pulling the ladder up with me, but that would probably be a step too far.
I could feel the questions they were all holding back.
It was almost dinner when the door opened, and Sam walked in. I heard Lee greet him, but I didn’t come down the ladder.
“Where’s Shortcake?” I heard him ask.
“Upstairs,” Lee answered, “in a mood.”
I barely resisted the urge to pour my bucket of dirty water on top of his head.
Sam appeared on the ladder, looking slightly concerned. “Hey,” he said cautiously.
I didn’t answer, continuing to scrub the floor with more force than necessary.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he climbed up into the loft.
“You don’t have to pretend you don’t know everything anymore,” I said without looking at him.
He was quiet for a few breaths. “Mac told you about the radio?”
I didn’t answer, and eventually, he let out a sigh.
“Do you blame him?” he asked quietly, and I knew he was talking about Trey.
“No,” I snapped, which was the truth, and finally looked up at him. “I blame all the rest of you.”
He held my gaze, crossing his thin arms over his chest. “You really think you would’ve reacted well to us sittin’ you down and tellin’ you what we know?”
“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing lately?” I knew my voice was too loud, and everyone downstairs was probably listening, but I couldn’t stop. “I’ve been makin’ myself sick tryin’ to figure out how to tell you, and you already fuckin’ knew.”
“Why does that matter?” he argued. “It’s not like we treated you any different.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know that?” I cried. “How the fuck am I supposed to know Nemo didn’t send a fuckin’ army to rescue me just so he didn’t lose his bargaining chip?”
“What? That’s not why we came for you!”
“And how am I supposed to know that’s not another lie?”
“We never lied to you! We just didn’t bring it up ’cause you didn’t, either!”
“ I was trying to! I was tryin’ to convince myself it wouldn’t change anything if you all knew!”
“And it didn’t!”
“And that’s exactly what you’d want me to think! Keep me feelin’ like I’m not a prisoner! Make me believe I chose to stay here.”
“For fuck’s sake, Shortcake, that’s not?—”
“For once. For once in my godsdamned life, I thought maybe I could just be a fuckin’ person and not a fuckin’ thing for other people to use ? — ”
“No one thinks you’re a thing! ” Sam’s voice rose angrily. “That’s a pretty far leap to make there?—”
“It’s not a leap , Sam. It’s been my whole fuckin’ life! ” I shouted. “Do you not remember how we met? Cause I sure as hell do! Are you just pretendin’ I came here of my own free will?”
He winced.
“I have always been a thing, a weapon, a pawn, a bounty .” I hoped the eavesdroppers downstairs heard that one. “Do you have any idea how it feels always being used by people to get whatever they want?”
His face contorted as though he was in physical pain.
“And the only person I knew for sure didn’t see me that way is fuckin’ dead.” Angry tears rolled down my face. “And for some stupid fuckin’ reason, I still haven’t learned that nothin’ is ever gonna change.”
“Shortcake,” he said quietly, taking a step toward me, but I threw my hand up, halting him.
“Don’t,” I choked out. “Go away. I don’t want to see you.”
“Emmy,” he tried.
“Do not call me that,” I hissed, pointing at the ladder with a shaky hand. “Get the fuck out.”
He stood still for a moment, staring at me, but I went back to violently scrubbing the floor, pretending I wasn’t still angrily crying.
“Alright. Well. If you need anythin’, I’ll be at the bunkhouse,” he finally said.
I listened to him going down the ladder. There were a few mumbled farewells from Wolf’s crew, and then the door shut, leaving behind an awkward silence.
I continued to scrub the floor, eventually managing to stuff the anger and the hurt back down to a simmering emptiness.
I was dreading someone coming up the ladder and trying to talk to me, but to my relief, no one did.
It wasn’t until the dinner bell rang about an hour later that Lee’s head cautiously appeared.
“You want to go to dinner?” he asked.
“No.”
“Alright,” he hesitated. “We’ll bring you something back.”
I didn’t answer, and eventually, I heard him go back down the ladder.
It sounded like Wolf’s whole pack had left, and I waited for several minutes before venturing down the ladder.
The clinic was indeed empty, so I used the outhouse and drank some water before pulling the ladder up with the new pulley system.
Once I was safely curled up on my mattress under Trey’s quilt, I let myself cry.
I longed for Trey so much it hurt. It stung that he hid this from me, but at the same time, I knew he would have told me on our way back if I hadn’t been drugged the whole time.
He wouldn’t have made me stew about it. He would have been honest because that’s who he was —maybe the only honest person left in the world, and because of me, he was dead.
I knew I was spiraling down a dark hole, but learning Dune lied to me was awful enough, and now this?
About an hour later, I heard Wolf’s crew come back.
Someone quietly called my name from downstairs, but I pretended to be asleep, and eventually, they seemed to give up.
I could hear them talking for a long time, but they kept their voices carefully quiet.
It didn’t matter. I knew they were talking about me, probably making their own plans for what they wanted to do with me because it didn’t fucking matter what I wanted. It never did.