The cabin had not changed much. A broken spot in the landscape of the forest, it was a sad reminder of a past Bone could no longer run from. Warped, twisted boards hung haphazardly across the opening and moss clung to the rotting wood. The trees of the rainforest had formed a shroud of sorts above the roof, as if protecting the events that occurred there.
The light was falling and Bone lifted her gaze to the western sky, noting the deep oranges and brilliant reds of the setting sun. The blue of the day was being chased by the threat of the darkness and the darkness was winning as it always did.
Jungle cats screamed in the distance but the night birds were silent. She was here, close, but Bone was lost to the history they shared.
Bullet had stood guard fourteen years ago and Arrow had entered with Bone and Blade.
We must help her, sisters. Blade had been so persistent and the desperation in her voice brought chills to Bone’s skin in the present. They had gotten out of bed, dressed in tanks and shorts, no shoes, and run through the night to a cabin they’d not known existed. They’d followed their sister without question.
Who is she, Blade? Arrow had asked. Bone had been mute with terror. The scent of blood, urine, and feces had been strong. It was as if death stalked them all that night.
She is mine. Blade’s answer had been enough.
Bone had never had an easy time seeing in the dark. Arrow and Blade were the best with the darkness, but she’d walked in, drawn by the pain she heard in the girl’s mewls.
What is wrong with her? The question rang down through time and Bone remembered her fear at the unknown.
Blade had moaned, as if the pain was her own. I don’t know.
We should not be here. Death is here. Arrow warned them and in hindsight Bone realized it would have been better for them all if they’d simply left.
But they hadn’t.
You are the strongest, Bone. Help her.
Blade’s demands, combined with the girl’s keening cries had prompted Bone’s feet to move.
It is so dark in here. I cannot see, she had told Blade.
We cannot risk any light. He will know then.
Bone scraped her foot, hissed out a breath at the small hurt and walked to the girl. Bone placed her hands on the girl’s body then. The tiny thing was contorted in agony, her breathing shallow. Help me.
Her belly had been huge and distended. Wetness coated the floor at Bone’s feet and the copper stench of blood was vicious.
I must push.
The snap of a twig broke the silence of the mountains around her and Bone found herself wholly in the present, standing inside the cabin, staring at the corner where she’d both taken and saved life.
“I do not remember much about that night, but I remember the pain,” her voice pressed on Bone’s eardrums, filled with ghosts and hate.
“I remember it all,” Bone said, turning to confront the woman who had been on First Team’s heels for well over a year, maybe longer.
The falling sun highlighted her tall form. Willowy and rail thin, she didn’t present much of a threat. Her long, wavy, wheat-blond hair reminded her of another time. Like the yellow crayon in my crayon box, that’s what Ninka’s hair reminds me of, Bullet had always said.
Bone blinked her eyes, the transposition of the past on the present throwing her for a second.
She inhaled slowly, deeply, letting the orchid-scented air soothe the wildness in her soul. “You were much smaller then, though your face and form remained in darkness. You smelled of blood and death. It was abhorrent to me.”
The setting sun haloed her, keeping her features in darkness but giving Bone an impression of frailty.
“And now, Bone Breaker, what do I smell of?”
The woman’s husky tones rang through the forest, ricocheting off the trees and seeking to stoke Bone’s rage.
“I do not know, Nameless,” Bone said softly. “Why don’t you step closer so I can be sure?”
The woman threw her head back and laughed. “I will not dance with you, killer.”
“‘We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once,’” Bone mused aloud.
“Nietzsche. Impressive. I wondered if you were all nothing more than brute force and a need to kill,” the woman responded.
Bone shrugged. “I am what I have always had to be. But in this you have no choice,” Bone told her. “We will dance. I didn’t come here to chat. I didn’t come here to discuss the monsters of our past. I came to here to put you down should there be need.”
The woman sighed and nodded. “It is something you excel at. ‘He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’”
Bone’s skin rippled with awareness. Someone else was headed their way. “Nietzsche becomes you as well, Nameless.”