Chapter 20
S am left a few hours later. I almost asked him if he wanted to stay, but I hesitated, unsure of the boundaries in this new relationship we’d defined.
For a moment, he paused, too, almost as though he wanted to ask something, but then he just smiled and wished me a good night.
I heard him say goodnight to Wolf and his crew downstairs and head out.
I sat upstairs on my mattress, trying to ignore the crushing weight of being alone pressing in on me again.
I could hear Wolf and his crew talking downstairs but couldn’t find the courage to join them.
They all still felt… like strangers. They were loyal to my brother, and I didn’t know what my brother thought of me now.
I remembered him saying his terms were that I talk to him, and my skin prickled with dread.
No one else seemed to find talking as difficult as I did.
Maybe no one else was quite as broken as I was.
I changed into my sleep shorts and shirt, nervously keeping an eye on the ladder, and climbed into bed. Usually, I would go downstairs and wash my face and teeth, but like a coward, I just burrowed under Trey’s quilt.
I hoped I didn’t dream about Trey again.
I swallowed hard.
I hoped I did.
I woke up mid-scream to someone shaking me and yelling my name.
I tried to scramble away, still seeing Juck’s face, still sobbing broken pleas.
“Ember!”
I blinked, abruptly registering Wolf gripping my upper arm, his eyes flashing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out in a panic.
“Em, it’s just a dream,” he said, but his voice was angry, and I cringed.
“Wolf, you’re scaring her,” I heard someone say, and as my eyes darted around the room, I realized Scar was standing on the ladder, watching us.
Wolf was crouched on the floor by my mattress, still gripping my arm. One of my candles sat on the floor beside him, illuminating the small dark loft. My chest was heaving with sobs, and I attempted to get a hold of myself.
Wolf turned back toward me, his eyes sharp, and I dropped mine to the floor. As I woke up more, I wished I could disappear. Wolf released my arm, and I thudded into the wall behind me. I quickly righted myself, my face burning. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been trying to pull away from him.
“Emmy.” His voice had gentled, and it only made me feel shakier. “It’s alright. It was just a dream.”
I wrapped my arms around my torso, trembling. In the silence, we listened to the ladder squeak as Scar returned downstairs.
“Sorry,” I finally managed to get out. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t respond, and I couldn’t help thinking of all the times in the past twelve years I’d woken up from nightmares and wished for him so badly that it hurt. Now he was here, but everything was all wrong, all fucked up.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said finally, shifting to sit beside me on the mattress. “I shouldn’t have yelled. You were just—” he faltered for a moment, “—just beggin’ Juck to stop.”
It felt like all the blood rushed out of my face, and I clapped a hand to my mouth, sucking in deep breaths through my nose.
The two of us sat stiffly side-by-side for a while as I slowly moved past the urge to be sick.
I was about to tell Wolf he could go back downstairs if he wanted, but then he began to hum.
I’d tried to remember the song he used to hum many times in the past years, but it was like a forgotten word that taunted me from the shadows of my memory.
The longer I went without hearing it, the less I could remember how it went.
As soon as he started humming it, it flooded back to me, and all that bottled-up emotion escaped.
Wolf had always been there for me at night when I had nightmares, no matter how awful I’d treated him during the day.
I couldn’t remember Pa ever comforting me, and Dune slept like the dead.
Wolf was the one who always woke up and rubbed my back or held me and hummed.
He said it was a song Mom sang when he had nightmares.
I didn’t know my mom, though, and her memory didn’t comfort me. For me, it had only ever been Wolf.
I tried to cry quietly, angling my face away from the candle, but a sob choked me, and he stopped humming. I tensed, but then a warm arm wrapped around my shoulders as Wolf shifted closer, and that was all it took for me to unravel completely.
I covered my face with my hands as huge sobs shook me, but I leaned into him.
His arm tightened around me, tucking me against his side, and I felt his cheek rest on the top of my head.
He started humming again, and I knew no matter what happened between us, I’d at least have this moment with the brother I remembered.
I woke up at dawn all by myself.
I was tucked into my bed, so I assumed Wolf must’ve untangled himself after I fell back asleep.
I lay there momentarily, watching the early morning sunbeams play on the rafters.
My heart felt… raw, but I felt it. It didn’t feel like I had an empty hole in my chest. The grief was still there, an ever-present ache, but this felt a tiny bit like… new growth.
I took a deep breath and sat up. My braids from Scar were falling out, and I knew my hair probably resembled a bird’s nest. I had to?—
The door below crashed open, making me jump.
I heard Wolf say something in a sharp voice along with someone else, but then a body scrambled up the ladder at an inhuman speed and crashed into me, knocking me back onto my mattress.
My brain struggled to register the chaos as I stared wide-eyed in horror at the person leaning over me.
It was Clarity. Tears spilled down her gaunt and ashen face, and her entire body was shaking.
“—tangled in shadows. They hunger. I see her path. They hunger for marrow and bone?—”
I could barely understand the frantic words that were spilling out of her mouth. Behind her, Wolf and Lee appeared, grabbing her and trying to pry her off me, but she let out a blood-curdling scream.
“It’s ok!” I shouted, waving them away. “It’s ok!”
They released Clarity but didn’t step back, looming over the two of us with matching dangerous expressions.
I managed to push her off enough to sit up. Clarity huddled beside me, babbling words that didn’t make sense and shaking like a leaf.
“Clarity?” When she didn’t respond, I gently took her face, holding it still until her wild eyes finally met mine. “Clare? Clare, can you hear me?”
Her body went so abruptly still that my heart stopped, sure she’d just had some sort of stroke, but then her hands gripped my wrists with an unnatural strength.
She blinked, and I couldn’t contain my gasp as her brown eyes vanished, swallowed in black.
There was no white, no iris, just like when my eyes had glowed golden, but Clarity’s eyes were full of a deep, empty darkness.
It leaked from her eyes in thin black tendrils.
“She is the ember that ignites the pitch, and the loom is weaving the strands of the flux.”
It was still Clarity’s voice, but something about it made all the hair rise on the back of my neck. Before I could react, she blinked again, and her brown eyes focused on me, her brow drawing together.
“Bones?” she asked, like she was confused about me.
I gaped at her, speechless. She had her back to Wolf and Lee, so they hadn’t seen her eyes change. Had I imagined it?
“I did it again, didn’t I?” Clarity whispered before I could remember how to form words, and she burst into tears.
I reacted instinctively, pulling her into a hug and holding her. She was still trembling, and my mind was spinning through every possible disease and disorder I’d ever read about. I could feel all her bones protruding through her skin. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
My fingers rested on the bare skin of her shoulder, and I tentatively let my healing power flow into her.
It felt different from all the times I’d healed her before, but I couldn’t figure out why.
Still, her body responded positively to my power.
I couldn’t pinpoint any injury or infection, but I felt her strength returning.
She let out a shuddering gasp, and I pulled back enough to look at her face.
Her eyes were wide, shock written all over her face, and I watched her color return, and her cheeks fill out again.
It reminded me of when I healed Zeke’s little boy, Roe, from that terminal disease, but it wasn’t quite the same.
For one, there was no sign of a disease at all.
The way her body absorbed my power was…
I frowned. It almost felt like what I would imagine healing an elderly person and making them young again would feel like, but I couldn’t reverse the body aging. I couldn’t make skin more elastic or stop muscles from shrinking, just like I couldn’t make amputated limbs grow back.
Wolf muttered a curse, and I remembered he was in the room. I stole a glance at him and Lee. They were watching us closely with similar expressions of astonishment.
“Did you heal me?” Clarity whispered, her eyes still huge.
“I…I don’t know,” I admitted, frowning. “Clarity, how long?—”
“I’m so sorry,” she interrupted, her eyes filling with tears again.
“Why are you sorry?”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she continued as though I hadn’t spoken, glancing nervously at Wolf and Lee. “Raven is going to kill me.”
Fury immediately filled my veins. “What?”
She met my gaze, looking alarmed, then shrank back at whatever expression was on my face.
“Raven knew you were sick?” I demanded, my voice too loud for the small space.
“It’s not their fault,” Clarity whispered.
“They all knew?”
My fists clenched in my lap, trembling with rage. My crew knew Clarity was like this, was obviously ill, and they hid it ?
“Bones,” Clarity’s voice trembled, and the plea cut through my anger. “Let me explain.”
The door opened, and running footsteps entered the clinic. Lee glanced below.
“It’s Sam and Jax and that girl who’s scared of us,” he said.