19 – 2
There's a change in Milo's dark eyes, a difference in his regard of me. It's not fear, nor is it disgust or disbelief. In this moment, the closest I can come to naming it is a kind of sorrow. Does he pity me, the harrowed girl on his sitting room floor? Is she such a pathetic sight, with her bruises and scabs and her new-born scars, that he can't bring himself to rightly condemn her murderous intent? Is that why he says nothing, why he just looks?
The tea he made me is down to the dregs. I swirl the bitter slurry around and study its sloshing spin. This way, I don't have to look back. I don't have to learn if I'm right, and it is pity; or if I'm wrong, and it's something worse.
“Alright,” his voice is soft, kind, and my eyes snap up. His eyes are kind, too, with that unknown breed of sorrow hidden away in the corners of his mouth and the slight furrow on his brow, “Let's just leave this for now, alright? We can talk more about this later, if you want.”
It's my turn to be quiet. He grunts to his feet, rolls his shoulder, and cracks his neck. I crane my head back to look up at him. He smiles and offers his hand, which I take, and let him pull me up. I don't understand what's happening. What's he doing? What's he thinking?
His eyes offer no answers, still unreadably kind, soft, and sad. “Get some rest,” is all he says, gently squeezing my elbow. The fatherly gesture is as baffling as everything else.
“But...” What? What do I say? Where do I start? “It's barely afternoon.”
“So?” he answers, “S'been a hell of a day. Nothin' wrong with a nap, not if it helps you.”
I follow him into the kitchen, handing over my mug when prompted. I watch him clean it, dry it, and set it away, mouth and mind failing me utterly. I told him that I want to kill someone, that I hated her, and this is how he responds?
Wasn't he a soldier? I should think he knows full well what my hatred will make of me; so why isn't he trying harder to dissuade me from this path?
Confusion spills from me, falling half-formed from my mouth, “Why aren't you...?”
Bent over the washbin, rag in hand, he pauses to look back over his shoulder, “Why aren't I what?”
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Frustration flares, a rush of words following, “I just told you I hate someone, that I want to – kill – her, and you're telling me to take a nap, like I'm a child?!”
Milo wipes his hands. Turns. “You are a child,” he says softly; in kindness, not rebuke. “and – what do you want me to do?”
I want him to make me a killer. I don't want him to talk me out of it. I want him to help me. I don't want him to stop me. “I...” I shake my head. I can't say any of that, “I don't know.”
It's the best I can do without starting another argument. He nods. “Get some rest,” he says again, “You'll feel better.”
Will I wake up from my childish nap to a world without Merigold, to a world where I am not wounded, in body and soul, and where Juliana is still alive? Will it be a place where Adelaide doesn't conspire to keep her daughter away from me, or where Clarke doesn't look at me like I've gone mad?
Will I not be haunted by the bramble-beast's eyes or the tunnel-leech's teeth? Will I see something other than dried, splintered wood soaking up the blood of a life?
No, I will not, nor will I feel better. I will go to sleep an aching, harrowed, hating girl and I will wake up an aching, harrowed, hating girl. Merigold will still be alive, Juliana will still be dead, and those I care for will still be wary of me.
I sigh. “Fine.”
He smiles at me, and it's just as soft, kind, and unreadably sad as his eyes still are. I turn away from it, from him, and drag myself down the quiet, empty hall to the quiet, empty room at the end.
- - -
I was half wrong.
The room is quiet.
It's not empty.
Clarke lay atop the bedsheets, curled into the smallest ball she can make of herself. Her ink-dark hair spills across her pillow, damp strands twining into stringy, clingy lines. A thin strip of sunlight, creeping in through a gap in the drawn curtains, brings into stark relief the toll she's paid for surviving: the knobs of her spine are too easily seen through her clothes, her jaw and cheekbones stand out harshly, and she holds on tight to the piece of ice she has never, not once, taken off.
It's the only way she can truly sleep. Without it, without the silver-wire trim digging into her palm, she'll startle awake every few minutes, searching with panicked eyes for danger that only probably isn't there. How long will it be, I wonder, before even that won't be enough? How long before nothing will make her safe enough to sleep? How long before she joins Milo and Adelaide in the gray-dawn hours, sat silent around a table, cups of bitter-brew tea steaming before them?
Maybe, when this is over, I'll join them. They'll pretend not to see the blood on my hands; and I'll pretend they never looked at me like I was the monster.
Clarke breaks the quiet, her voice hoarse. “Zira?”
She's been crying. “Mm-hm?”
She hesitates, then asks, “Are you alright?”
“Are you?”
“No,” she admits, rough and whisper-quiet.
I sit, drag my hand over the rumpled bedsheets. I remember making this mess, the tang of her sweat in the air, and the salt of it on my tongue. I remember the feeling of her hands, how she felt under mine. I remember feeling good, exulting in it, and now, “Neither am I.”
She hums, then lets the quiet settle back in. I fall onto my back, wiggle until I can pull my legs onto the bed and sigh up at the ceiling. She doesn't unfurl from her little ball, and I don't look at her back. There are only a few feet of empty bed between us.
“I wanna go home,” she confesses.
“I..." What do I say? "I have nowhere to go."
It feels like miles.