Chapter 20 #2
Clarity muttered a curse, and I gave her a sharp look, but Sam’s head popped over the loft.
“Fuck,” he gasped, clearly winded. Then he glanced at my face and grimaced at my furious expression. “Fuck .”
“Sam, move,” someone said.
He climbed the rest of the way up into the loft, edging around Wolf and Lee, and Sky’s head appeared from the ladder.
Her hair was growing back after being crudely shaved before they threw her in the Pit, covering her head in tight black curls.
She froze when she realized Wolf and Lee were upstairs, her eyes widening.
“Sky, it’s ok,” I said, trying to temper my anger. “Come over here.”
Wolf and Lee stepped backward, pressing themselves against the eaves to give her more room.
Sky hesitated a moment longer, but then she scurried up the ladder and darted to where I sat on the mattress.
I hadn’t seen her since before Wolf stole me away, and I took a second to scan her.
Like all the kids, she’d put on some much-needed weight, and her brown skin was glowing with health.
If only her mental and emotional wounds were that easy to heal.
She wedged herself behind me and eaves like she was trying to hide, but then she shuffled forward enough to grab Clarity’s hands.
“Clare, are you ok?” she whispered.
Jax followed her up, his eyes wide and nervous. Sam sank on the mattress beside me, and I turned to him.
“What the fuck—” I started angrily, but Clarity gripped my wrist and stopped me.
“No, wait, don’t be mad at them,” she whispered, her brown eyes—Trey’s eyes—still swimming with tears. “It’s my fault.”
I stared at her, hurt and guilt filling my chest. “Why didn’t you come to get healed?”
“I couldn’t bear to face you,” she whispered.
The pain in my chest squeezed my lungs. I was right. She blamed me for Trey’s death and?—
“It’s my fault Trey’s dead,” she continued, and then her eyes overflowed again.
I blinked, my brow furrowing. Sky wrapped her arms around Clarity, holding her tightly.
“What?” I finally managed to get out, my head aching with confusion.
“It’s my fault,” Clarity repeated through sobs.
“Clare, it’s not your fault,” Sam said, his voice gentle.
“No, it’s not,” Sky affirmed.
Jax crouched beside Sam. He didn’t say anything, but his face was so serious. I had no idea what was going on.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. I knew my voice was still too angry by how Clarity winced. “It’s not your fault, it’s mine. ”
Clarity’s eyes snapped to mine, a hint of matching anger flashing through them that surprised me. “No, Bones, I saw Trey’s death, and I failed to stop it from happening.”
“Saw? You mean you were there?” Did she see me just standing there like a fool when Madame killed her brother?
“No, I mean, I saw it weeks before it happened,” she bit out through sobs. “I saw Madame kill him, and I thought if he left with you, maybe he’d escape that fate, but it did nothing ? —”
Her voice broke, and she covered her face with her hands. I turned to Sam, anger and confusion making me nauseous.
“Ok, we don’t know what’s happening,” he said quickly, his blue eyes full of regret. “Clarity’s been… seeing things. And a lot of those things seem to come true. Like… like she’s seein’ the future.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” I couldn’t let this go.
“Emmy,” he said quietly, his face uncharacteristically serious, “you were barely able to get out of bed.”
“So?” I demanded. Did they think I was too weak? That I wouldn’t be able to heal Clarity? How many more seriously ill people did they turn away because I was so pathetic?—
“You needed time, and we weren’t even sure you’d be able to heal her.”
“I asked them not to, Bones,” Clarity choked out. “It’s not their fault.”
“I don’t need you to screen my patients, Sam,” I said through my teeth. “I’m the only one who would know for sure?—”
“You were a fucking ghost ,” Sam interrupted me. “You weren’t sleepin’, you barely ate, you didn’t say a word to anybody, you?—”
“What if she’d died?” My voice shook with the force of holding back all the emotion in my throat.
“I knew I wasn’t gonna die,” Clarity tried to interject.
“That is bullshit,” I snapped. “You can’t?—”
“Bones, please don’t be mad,” Jax said in a low voice, and when I glanced at him, the pleading look in his eyes made me feel worse.
“Alright, hold up.” Wolf startled all of us. He pushed himself off the wall and beckoned at me. “Em, come outside a minute.”
I debated refusing, but Clarity was sobbing again, and the other three were either glaring or looking close to tears. I let out a sharp sigh and got to my feet, following him down the ladder. Lee came after me, walking outside with the two of us.
Wolf halted under the apple tree, hands on his hips as he surveyed the hold.
I stopped an arm’s distance from him, but of course, Lee halted directly beside me, throwing his arm over my shoulders.
I shoved him away and stepped out from under his arm, glaring, but he just grinned and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
Gods, and I thought Trey had no concept of personal space.
“Seems like a lot is goin’ on here,” Wolf said, turning to study me.
I didn’t answer.
“If that girl is seein’ the future, I assume that’s a new development?” he asked.
I nodded, but then a surge of panic went through me as I remembered that moment in Madame’s old house when Mac heard what Wolf wasn’t saying aloud.
“Have you ever met anyone else with powers?”
I didn’t answer.
“Does anyone else here have powers?”
I knew what he was fishing for, and he knew I knew, but I pressed my lips tightly together.
“Ember,” he sounded irritated, “I’m tryin’ to understand what’s happenin’ here so I can help you.”
“Why?”
His eyebrows raised. “Why what?”
“Why bother? Aren’t you still plannin’ on dragging me back to Carth?” I tried to keep my voice even, but it shook.
He studied me silently, and I couldn’t read his expression. “I’m reservin’ that decision for the end of the two months.”
“And I’m just supposed to fuckin’ wait and trust you?” I demanded.
“Yes.”
I stared at him, my temper boiling.
His eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I’m just tryin’ to decide if you think I’m stupid or if you’re a hell of a lot dumber than I remember.”
Lee let out a noise suspiciously like a laugh, but Wolf’s temper rose to meet mine.
“Ember—”
“I don’t trust you, for the record. Or your crew.” I snapped.
Maybe I imagined the hurt that flashed through his eyes because he just sounded angry when he spoke. “You trust these people more than your own brother?”
“ These people believe me.”
“What do you think these two months are for?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, Wolf!” I threw my arms up in the air. “To torture me?”
“We made a deal, remember? You said you’d talk to me, Ember.”
“I might have to tell you everythin’ about me, but I am not draggin’ anybody else into this.”
“So there are others, then,” Wolf raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard to keep from swearing. Godsdamnit, I hated that he could still back me into a corner so fucking easily.
“Mac has some sort of power, doesn’t he?”
I glared at him and didn’t answer.
“What doesn’t make much sense is that no one else seems to know,” Wolf continued like I was participating. “Like you and Mac are keepin’ it a secret.”
“I’m not talking to you about Mac,” I said through my teeth.
“Em, all I’m tryin’ to get at is if you and Mac are keepin’ somethin’ a secret from the others, I would guess you have a pretty good reason for it. And if you have a good reason for keepin’ it secret, don’t you think your crew had a good reason for keepin’ that girl’s powers a secret from you?”
I felt my cheeks heat up, and a familiar stubbornness filled me. “It’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s Clarity.”
“Why does that make it different?”
I wrapped my arms around my torso, trying to physically hold myself together. My voice came out wobbly. “Because she’s Trey’s sister.”
Realization flashed through his eyes, and he studied me quietly for a few breaths. “I would guess if her health started going downhill, they would have immediately told you.”
He was right, and I hated it. I wished he would stop making so much sense and just let me be mad.
“Ember, I’m not tryin’ to dig up information on your friends for whatever horrible reason you’ve got in your head. I’ve got no beef with any of them.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t trust the person who snuck in here in the middle of the night and abducted me at gunpoint.”
Lee wasn’t even trying to hide his grin now. Wolf noticed and shot a dirty look at him.
“Look, man, I’m not gonna lie; it feels good to see you have to deal with this mini version of you.”
Wolf and I glared at him, but he just shook his head, chuckling. Wolf heaved a sigh and turned back to me.
“All I’m sayin’ is that if more people are developing powers, this is much bigger than you and me.”
Developing powers.
How was this happening?
My stomach suddenly dropped, and all the blood rushed out of my face with it.
What would the other powered person do when he found out about Clarity?
About Mac? Clarity was possibly seeing the future.
People would kill for that kind of power.
No, people would do much worse than kill for that kind of power.
I tried to swallow the urge to be sick. What if he put out a bounty for them? Would Wolf go for it?
“What’s wrong?” Wolf asked.
My brother would never traffick people with powers, right? He’d been so angry about what happened to Sable. It was a risk, but I needed to know for sure.
“I just know what kinda bounty someone would pay to own a person with powers.”
Wolf’s brow furrowed, but then I watched the realization dawn on his horrified face. “Is that what you think I’d do? Traffick people with powers? Ember! What the fuck?”