Page 154 of Bones
“I’ll try to stay uninjured, but please don’t ask me to promise anythin’ else,” I allowed.
He took a deep breath, and I watched him swallow the argument he wanted to have. “Ok,” he muttered. “Ok.”
In the silence, the fire crackled and the horse chewed her oats. We studied each other, and I wondered if he also wished we were still back in our warm, safe room at Zeke’s outpost like I did.
“Why wouldn’t you heal yourself after you were whipped?” he asked.
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, why? You saw what it did to Sam.”
“So, what, you’re never gonna do that again? Even if the alternative is dying?” His voice sounded even, but a strong emotion flickered in his eyes.
“Yes,” I said a little shortly. I didn’t know why the hell we were even having this conversation.
“Bones,” he pleaded, and I recognized the emotion in his eyes. It was fear.
“Trey, I’m not gonna drain the life out of someone to save my own skin.” I tried to soften my voice. “Sam almost died. He was still mostly bedridden even when we left.”
That muscle in his jaw flexed again.
“Would you honestly do it?” I pressed, and he didn’t respond, but we both knew what the answer would be.
"I just can’t watch you get hurt again," he finally confessed, "and be fuckin' helpless to do anything."
“Trey.” My eyes prickled at the emotion in his voice. I’d never seen him like this before. I stood from the log we were sitting on and moved to stand between his long legs, crouching to meet his gaze. “It’s gonna be ok.”
He stared at me, his jaw tight. I cradled his face with my bare hands. The stubble on his face had grown thick enough to be called a beard now. His eyes locked on mine.
“It’s gonna be ok,” I repeated.
He sucked in a deep breath, then turned his head to press a kiss into my palm. “Sorry. I just—” He cleared his throat. “I saw my dad’s body after he was killed by that bear, and I just keep picturing it happenin’ to you.”
I ran my fingers through his hair, and his long eyelashes fluttered closed. “I’ll be careful.”
He smirked, his eyes still closed. “S’not really reassurin’ comin’ from you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve never promised to be careful, so don’t go actin’ like that’s a promise I’ve broken.”
He cracked his eyes open, his grin widening. “Sorry. You’re right. But if you bein’ careful actually looks like bein’ careful, I will eat my damn hat.”
I glanced up at his knit hat, raising my eyebrows. “Hope you’re hungry.”
His arms snaked around me, pulling me tight against him. “Iamhungry,” he said in a low voice that made my blood heat, “but not for that.”
I grinned and pulled his head down so I could kiss him deeply, sucking his bottom lip into my mouth. He groaned and pulled me even tighter, but the eerie sound of a wolf howling made us both freeze again.
“Did that one sound closer?” I asked, dread spreading through me like ice.
“Yeah,” he muttered, staring out into the darkness as answering howls sounded.
“Do we wait or do we go?”
Trey hesitated. “Probably better to go. If we travel through the night, maybe we can put some distance between us without pushin’ the horse too much.”
I nodded, getting to my feet. Together we packed up the few things we’d set out. The horse shifted, staring out into the darkness. When we set out, she moved forward at a trot like she was eager to leave. Thick clouds swallowed the moon, and the darkness pressed in on us, our small lantern only illuminating a few feet in front of us. I could feel the tension in Trey’s body, and I wished I could do something to get his mind off animal attacks. I remembered him telling me that story about him and Mac when they were teenagers. I frowned, trying to think of a lighthearted story. I didn’t have very many, but then a memory surfaced.
"For a while when I was really little, Dune used to insist he had a friend named Ash. Any time he got in trouble for somethin' he'd try to say it was Ash who did it. Used to drive Wolf crazy, I guess. Then it kinda became a joke between the three of us. If somethin' unusual happened, we'd always say, 'Must've been Ash.'"
I hadn’t thought of that in a long, long time. It made my eyes prickle. I tried to avoid thinking about the good memories I had with my brothers because it hurt so bad it made it hard to breathe. For the first few months with the Reapers, I’d been haunted by those memories. I missed them so much that I started contemplating turning myself in so Wolf could kill me. They could bury me beside Dune, and I wouldn’t hurt anymore. That was about the time when Wolf’s lessons on survival started manifesting in his voice growling at me in my head. One night as I lay crying in my bedroll, I realized I couldn’t hold onto those memoriesandsurvive. So I forced myself to shove them all down and pretend they didn't exist. I got so good at it that sometimes I did forget.
