Page 72 of Bones
“What do you mean?” he pushed, and I didn’t have to fake my temper surging through me.
“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I fuckin’ mean.” I gestured at my bruised face.
Something that looked an awful lot like regret flashed across his face. Behind him, the door opened, and a man limped in with a bloody bandage around his leg. He paused in the doorway when he spotted us, me standing with my back to the sink and Mac looming over me.
“This a bad time?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Mac said at the same time.
I gave Mac an annoyed glare and stepped around him. “No. It’s fine. You hurt your leg?”
The man eyed Mac nervously. “You sure?—”
“It’s fine,” I repeated. “Mac was just leaving.”
The man's eyes widened and he glanced at Mac again. I refused to turn around to see Mac’s expression, but I imagined he looked less than pleased that I was throwing him out of the clinic.
"See you later, Bones," Mac said smoothly, surprising me. He stepped around me and strode to the door, disappearing through it without a look back as though we'd been discussing the weather.
I took a deep breath and turned back to the injured man. “Let me take a look.”
* * *
In the weeks that followed, Trey didn't speak to me unless necessary, though he still guarded the clinic. Every day he went outside at dawn and stayed there until dark when he came in and went to bed. Sometimes Griz or Sam would take the day shift as they traded off helping rebuild the homes that'd been lost in the slums. I continued to find dandelions on the shelf under the mirror, but I never acknowledged them. My face healed and people finally stopped staring. I hardly saw Mac at all except for the couple of times he came and summoned me back to the dungeon to help Madame torture people. Neither of them was Mist, and I couldn't find the courage to ask if she still lived. Mac and I didn't talk at all on those walks to and from the watchtower, and I managed to resist the urge to look at him when the torture sessions ripped more of my soul to shreds. The man who'd escaped had apparently vanished into thin air.
In the mornings I went to the canteen with Zip and the loggers and at night I went out drinking with them. When I got home, I always found a mug of broth and my dinner ration on the exam table, but I didn’t see any of Mac’s crew at Mootzie’s again. Most of those nights ended with me waking up in Zip’s shack. If he ever noticed the brand on my chest, he didn’t mention it, though I doubted he noticed much due to how drunk he got. Not that I had any room to judge because I got shitfaced every night so I wouldn’t freak out about Zip’s hands on my body. I lost any weight I’d managed to put on my bones from throwing up in the mornings. It was a shit routine, and I knew it, but it was better than staying and seeing that hurt on Trey’s face.
Raven started coming by more often. Unlike the others, she didn’t even try to hide her anger at what I’d done to Trey. I attempted to ignore her, but her words often stuck in my heart like barbs.
“Don’t know what you see in that hulking beast,” she said by way of greeting as she stepped through the door one afternoon.
I assumed she meant Zip, but I pressed my lips together and continued doing laundry in the sink.
“But I don’t know what the fuck Trey sees inyoueither,” she continued.
I scrubbed my dirty clothes with more force than necessary.
“You know you’re lucky you havemagic healing powers,” her words dripped with scorn, “otherwise you’d be completely worthless.”
“Do you need something?” I snapped, turning to face her, soapy water dripping off my hands.
Raven widened her eyes. “I’m just doing my job, Boney.”
“Which is what exactly?” I glared at her, refusing to comment on the nickname. “I don’t need help. So go do something else.”
“Can’t.” She smiled, showing all her teeth. “I’m on guard duty.”
“Then go guardoutside.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.” She picked up a pair of forceps near the sink and clapped them together at me.
I forced myself to clench my jaw shut and turned back to the sink, scrubbing the blood and vomit from my clothes.
“He must bereallygood in the sack, is that it?”
“What?”
