Page 182 of Bones
The anger howled freely through me now. I put both palms flat on his chest andshoved.
“Stop it.” I shouted. “Youknowit’s my fault, so don’t you dare fuckin’ lie to me to try and make me feel better!” I might as well have tried to shove the watchtower over. He didn’t move an inch.
"I'm not lying, Bones." His voice sounded rough with emotion but frighteningly honest. "It's not your fault."
“Stop!” I shoved him again, putting more weight into it.
He still didn’t move, but he grabbed my shoulders again, squeezing. “I’m angry too,” he snapped. “I’m angry at myself for not joinin’ the rebellion earlier, for not helpin’ Trey make this place better before it killed him. I’m angry at Madame. I’m angry at Nemo, but you wanna know why I’m angry atyou? It’s cause you’re closing yourself off to everyone, pushin’ all of us away like you’re the only one who loved him!”
“I’m not tryin’ to push you away!” I said furiously as tears started rolling down my face. “I just don’t have anythin’ left!”
He stared at me for a few breaths, something softening in the angry lines of his face. “What do you mean?”
“I’m just—” Gods, now that the tears had started I could not get them to stop. “I’m justempty. I can’t…I can’t bend this time. Madame won. She didn’t just break me, she d-destroyed me, and there’snothin’left.”
He stood there holding my shoulders and studying my face as I tried to rein in my hiccupy gasps.
“He was p-puttin’ me back together.” I whispered. “And now I’m broken just like Madame.
“What do you mean broken like Madame?” he asked.
“Trey said she wasn’t as bad before Viper died,” I choked out. “He said when Viper died it was like it broke somethin’ in her. And that’s how I feel,broken.Half the time I don’t feel anything at all.”
Mac let out a heavy sigh and released my shoulders to scrub his hands over his face. "Trey didn't know Madame like I did," he said quietly. "She was always cruel. She always liked hurtin' people, and I've got the scars to prove it. I just never told Trey all of it ’cause I thought keepin' it to myself was all I could do to protect him." Pain sharpened in his voice. "And now I can't help wonderin' if I told him everything from the beginning, maybe he would still be alive."
The pain in his voice broke me. I tried to bring my hands up to cover my face, but before I could, he pulled me into his arms. My face pressed against the hard body armor he wore, and his arms tightened around me, holding me as I sobbed. He breathed raggedly and tears dropped into my hair. I could feel his grief hitting me like a physical force, and gods, he was right. I hadn’t thought of anyone else. I was so fucking selfish.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed.
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “You hear me, Bones? It’s not your fault.”
We stood there for a long time. My arms wrapped around his waist at some point, and even though the body armor wasn’t a terribly comfortable thing to be pressed against, I didn’t move.
“You should hate me,” I mumbled, drunk with exhaustion.“Why don’t you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” he murmured, and I realized we were having a strange mirror conversation of the one we’d had during the fever.
“Youdid.”
“Yeah, well, I’m an asshole,” he said. “That was never aboutyouthough.”
I scoffed, but I still didn’t move.
“I was angry at myself for fuckin up the mission, for letting my crew put everything on the line for me and Trey. I wasn’t sure if Madame would think finding you was worth everything we lost.”
The memory of Madame’s knife slicing open his gut flickered across my mind and I shuddered.
“You still cold?” he asked, turning us so the heat of the wood stove warmed my back without letting me go.
“I was just remembering when she cut you open.” With the stove at my back and his chest at my front, a little warmth crept through me.
Nowheshuddered. “Gods, I thought for sure I was gonna die.”
I mulled over his words for a minute, surprised. “Did you think I wouldn’t heal you?”
“Honestly, I still wasn’t fully sure I believed you had powers.” He hesitated. “But yeah, a part of me thought you might just let me die for dragging you here.”
I tried to imagine what would have happened if I’d refused. Madame probably would have killed both of us. Would it have been better to die then?
