Page 175 of Bones
I didn’t bother answering. He swore under his breath and marched me back to the clinic. When he towed me inside, we found Griz and Raven waiting.
“Did you really just kill Madame?” Raven asked, her entire face alight with surprise and something like pride.
“Raven,” Griz warned.
“She did,” Mac answered for me, his voice still tight with anger.
“Damn.” Raven actually grinned. “Good.”
“Raven,” Mac snapped at her as he tugged me over to the sink.
I looked in the mirror to see blood smeared across my cheek.
“You should clean yourself up,” Mac muttered.
I glanced at his reflection in the mirror and caught his dark eyes watching me, anger still tight in the lines of his jaw.
I turned the water on, washing my hands and my face as he turned away to reply to Griz and Raven’s questions with short one or two word answers. My sunken eyes stared back at me in the mirror, dull and empty. Someone came in with a sprained wrist, giving me something to do, but none of Mac's crew left. They spent the rest of the day casually hanging around the clinic and trying to pretend like they weren't watching me like they feared I would snap and kill someone else.
If I had the energy, I would have reassured them that I was done. That was it, the whole of my plan for vengeance.
Now there was just nothing.
29
Life continued as normal after I killed Madame.
No one even really spoke to me about it. A few people muttered to themselves when I walked past and even more stared at me with a new wariness, but nothing more. It was so anticlimactic that sometimes I wondered if I’d actually done it or if it’d all been a dream. I’d been prepared to be locked up for murder, and to have nothing happen made what I’d done feel less like vengeance and more like just fresh, pointless blood on my hands.
Apple showed up the very next day. When I turned to see her step through the door, I froze. For a long moment, we just stood there, staring at each other. She deserved so many explanations and apologies, but none of them made it past my lips. Finally, she walked toward me and wrapped her arms around my legs. My eyes burned and my hand dropped to rest on her blonde head. After a minute, she let go and went straight to the sink and washed her hands like I'd taught her. Numbly I went back to what I'd been doing, moving around the clinic like a silent ghost as I worked, but she didn't seem to mind. She just hovered near me the entire day, quiet and watching, helping with small tasks and bringing me a glass of water every so often.
She watches you. Everything you do. You’re teaching her what to think about herself by how you think about you.Trey’s words stabbed through my head.
I'd planned on being a better person for Apple and all the kids, but mostly I wanted to be better for Trey. What was the fucking point? Why try to be a good person when all the best people I knew just ended up dead?
“I don’t think anythin’ bad can come from being a good person.”
I should’ve known that was bullshit.
I’d been afraid, terrified, that this would happen, but I hadn’t realized until now that I’d also been in denial that itcouldhappen. Trey had just seemed so different, like he was somehow exempt from the awful reality I’d seen, like he couldn’t end up dead like everyone else because he was so full of life.There couldn’t be a timeafterTrey just like there couldn’t be a timeafterthe sun.
Yet here I found myself, lost in that after with no idea how to keep going.
I looked up from my miserable thoughts to see Apple talking happily to Griz as she leaned against the wall, one foot up and resting on the wall behind her just like how Trey used to stand, and it struck me like a fucking bullet. The glasses of water, the company, the help, they were all her attempts to fill Trey's shoes for me.
My lungs stopped working. I dropped the bandage I’d been wrapping around a young man’s arm and darted toward the door.
“Bones?” Griz’s voice sharpened with alarm as he caught up to me by the door.
“Can you finish?” I managed to gasp, gesturing to the patient who stared wide-eyed at me, before fleeing outside.
My feet took me to the stables. Violet nickered at me when I slipped inside her stall. I stroked her, trying to get myself under control, but I lost that battle. I sank into the straw, my arms wrapped around myself as I sobbed. Violet sniffed my hair and nudged me with her nose. When I didn't respond, she stood beside me like a silent sentry as the pain swallowed me whole.
* * *
By the time I managed to get control over myself, the sun had set. I pulled my hood over my head and shoved my hands in my pockets, hoping nobody would notice me as I trudged back to the clinic. When I pushed the door open, I froze on the threshold.
Sam stood in the middle of the room.
