Page 138 of Bones
"Tell me more about your mom?" I asked after an hour or so, fiddling with the ends of my hair. It'd been so long since I wanted to be close to someone and know everything about them that I'd half forgotten how to do it.
Trey’s eyebrows raised but he smiled. “Her name was Ana Mason, and she was the best person I’ve ever known. She worked as a seamstress, and we never had much, but she made everything seem magical. She loved everybody, saw the best in everybody. She made me and Mac and Clarity those quilts using leftover bits of fabric she saved for a whole year.”
I smiled.
“She died when I was twelve. She’d gotten pregnant again with Clarity’s dad, Reed. They were kinda on and off, but she wanted to make it work. I think she thought it’d give us all some more stability. She was getting older though and somethin’ went wrong. The baby got stuck I think.” He swallowed hard. “There was so much blood. I knew it was bad.”
My eyes prickled. “I’m sorry you lost her. She sounds like an amazing person.” I paused. “She sounds a lot like you.”
He smiled, his eyes wet. “What about your mom?”
“I never knew her.” I shrugged. “She died in childbirth with me, but I survived. Everybody always said I looked a lot like her. I know she was strong-willed and she loved collecting books, but that’s about it.”
“Sorry to hear that. What about your dad?”
I took a breath, resisting the urge to change the subject. “Please let me in.”He’d asked last night, and I was gonna try. Trey deserved that much.
"He was gone a lot and when he was around, he avoided me. Wolf," I swallowed past the lump in my throat, "used to say it was ’cause I looked so much like Mom, but I think he never forgave me for being the only one to survive."
Sam’s grey face flashed through my mind. Maybe Ihadkilled her, just like I’d almost killed Sam. A chill walked down my spine.
“So who took care of you?”
“Wolf. He practically raised me and D-Dune.”
“What happened after Dune died?” he asked.
I balled up my trembling hands. “They exiled me.”
Trey came to a sudden stop, startling me. “What? How old were you?” he asked, his eyes a storm again.
“Ten,” I whispered.
"They exiled a fuckin' ten-year-old child?"
He looked furious. It felt obvious now, but it struck me that I’d never really thought about it like I was achild. In my head, they exiled a murderer, which made perfect sense. But now I tried to picture one of the older kids being locked outside the Vault and told to leave and my stomach clenched. I would never let that happen.
And now that I thought about it, whydideveryone in my old hometown let it happen? Peoplewerestrict there, but I could think of quite a few people who I would’ve expected to protest. Or maybe they just stopped seeing me as a child as soon as I was covered in my brother’s blood.
“What about Wolf?” Trey asked. “He didn’t try to stop it?”
My breath caught, the memory flashing across my vision as clearly as if I relived it.
I woke up to someone shaking me, hard. I gasped at the sight of Pa leaning over me where I lay in the dirty straw. I had a brief moment of hope that he would take me out of the cells and tell me everything would be ok, but that died as soon as I saw the cold look on his face. He didn’t untie my hands, just gripped my arm in a bruising grip and dragged me out. The sun hadn’t even risen yet, the hold quiet and dark. When he brought me to one of the side gates of the hold, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Pa—” I started, my voice hoarse from crying.
“Shut up,” he snarled at me, and I flinched.
We’d never had a close relationship, me and Pa. As a busy member of the council, I didn’t see him much. Wolf always said I looked so much like Mom that Pa struggled to be around me. Wolf looked like Mom too, but being a girl made it worse. Despite all that, Pa had never been cruel or hateful toward me, not till now.
He unbolted the side gate and dragged me outside the hold. Goosebumps rose on my arms in the chilly morning air, and I shivered. He finally turned and looked down at me, his blue eyes, Dune’s eyes, glittering with fury.
“You’ve been exiled,” he said in a harsh voice.
I immediately started to cry. “Pa! I didn’t?—”
I stumbled backward when he slapped me hard across the face, my cheek stinging.
