The Bones Beneath My Skin Read online

  “What?” He looked down. He was holding a couple of pieces of bread. “No. You put it in the toaster.”

  “Oh. Because you’re just standing there holding the bread in your hands.”

  He glared at the bread as he shoved it in the toaster, slamming down the switch.

  “Hey, partner?”

  “My name is Nate.”

  “I thought it was Nathaniel.”

  “It is. It’s short for—your name is Artemis, right?”

  She nodded. “Artemis Darth Vader.”

  He wasn’t even going to touch that. Because that would mean her father was Alex Darth Vader and his fever must really be bad. “Art is short for Artemis.”

  “That’s what Alex says.”

  “Nate is short for Nathaniel.”

  She frowned. “Oh.” Then, “Why is Dick short for Richard?”

  The air smelled of toast and soup. “What?”

  “If Art is short for Artemis, and Nate is short for Nathaniel, why is Dick short for Richard? It’s not even the same!”

  “I don’t… know?”

  “Oh. That’s okay. You know how to make toast. That’s good enough for me.”

  Nate didn’t think he’d ever received such simple validation in his life.

  The toast popped up.

  “Whoa,” Art said, squinting over at him. “So that’s how that works, huh? Okay. I’m impressed. Can you do it again, or do you have to wait twenty-four hours for it to recharge?”

  “I can do it again.”

  “Nice. Good job. Please do it again. Two for Alex. Two for you. And six for me.”

  “You can’t eat six pieces of toast.”

  “Why not?”

  “No one eats six pieces of toast.”

  “Says who?”

  “The same people who say vegetable beef can be used instead of chicken.”

  “Oh. So, scientists.”

  “Yes.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Sometimes scientists can be wrong.”

  “I know. But not this time. Two pieces of toast.”

  “Four.”

  “Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Two.”

  “You’re really good at that. Two it is.”

  He made more toast.

  She switched off the stove before ladling the soup into the bowls carefully, steam wafting up toward her face. She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. The chair wobbled slightly. And before he could stop her, she brought a hand down onto the stove to steady herself, right next to the heating coil.

  She hissed, dropping the ladle into the pot, bringing her hand up quickly.

  He was moving before he could think. He’d burned his hand on this very stove once, the first summer they’d come here. It’d been an accident, but the blister had been swift. His mother had told him to put his hand under cold water. It’d helped. A little.

  She squawked as he grabbed her and carried her to the sink. He intended on putting her hand under a stream of water, but nothing came out when he flipped the handle.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “The water’s not turned on yet. It won’t be until—”

  “Let her go.”

  He paused.

  She stopped moving.

  He looked slowly over his shoulder.

  The gun was pointed at him for the third time in less than two hours. Alex’s face was pale, but he was stock-still, finger on the trigger.

  “She burned herself on the stove,” Nate said, trying to keep his voice from wavering. “All I wanted to do was put her hand under the water.”

  “Art.”

  “It was hot,” Art said with a sigh. “A mistake.”

  “Put her down.”

  Nate did.

  “Art, come over here.”

  She grumbled under her breath, words Nate couldn’t make out, but did as Alex asked. Alex didn’t lower the gun as she held her hand up for inspection.

  “All right?” he asked, glancing down at her hand.

  “I’m fine. Look, see? There’s nothing there.”

  Nate frowned. “What do you mean there’s nothing there? I saw you—”

  “It must have been fast,” Alex said, dropping the gun back to his side. “Barely had a chance. Just a little red.”

  “Can I finish now?” she asked, sounding irritated. “You shouldn’t be up. I’m making soup. Nate had some. There were no chickens, but he said vegetable beef is the same and that toast will help too and will help you heal.”

  And he saw it again there, briefly. Alex’s expression softened just a little, the sharp lines in his face relaxing to the point he looked almost normal. If he didn’t have an oversized gun in his hand, Nate would have thought he wasn’t brutish at all. Alex grunted at her and leaned against the counter. Art looked as if she were going to say something but decided against it.

  Nate understood. He wasn’t going to be left alone with Art again. Not when he could grab her so easily.

  He wondered if he could do that. If it came down to it. He wouldn’t hurt her, just…

  His stomach twisted at the thought.

  Art came back to the stove and climbed onto the chair again.

  More toast popped up.

  She ladled soup into the last bowl.

  Nate wondered what the fuck was going on.

  There was whiskey in the cabinet above the fridge.

  He wanted it desperately.

  Instead, he stayed in the corner in the kitchen, struggling against the urge to run screaming with his hands over his head.

  Art looked rather proud of herself, setting the bowl of soup on the table in front of Alex. She ran back into the kitchen and grabbed a spoon and put two pieces of toast on a paper towel before coming back to him.

  She left her own bowl on the counter next to Nate’s, instead choosing to drag her chair from the stove back until it was right next to Alex’s. She climbed onto it, set her elbows on the table, chin in her hands, and watched Alex.

  Nate wanted to ask. Somehow, he kept his mouth shut.

  Alex picked up the spoon and dipped it into the soup.

  “You have to blow on it,” she said. “That’s how you eat soup. You blow on it before you put it in your mouth.”

  He did just that.

  She never looked away.

  Alex chewed.

  Art was enraptured, leaning forward.

  Alex swallowed.

  “Well?” Art demanded.

  “’S’good,” Alex said.

  Art sighed, slumping down in the chair. “That’s just swell.” She turned to look back at Nate, still standing in the kitchen. “You were right. Vegetable beef is just like chicken.”

  Nate nodded, unsure of what to do next.

  She turned back around. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you don’t try and be stupid again. You’re very lucky you have me.”

  Alex ate another bite of soup.

  Nate looked at the bowls still sitting on the counter next to toast that was growing cold.

  Then back at the table.

  Art watched every bite Alex took.

  He shouldn’t be doing this. He should be leaving. He should be getting the fuck out of there before whatever they were running from caught up with them. He should be demanding answers. He should be shouting at them, telling them again to get the fuck out of his house. His parents were on the walls, frozen smiles from years long past, and he wondered if this is what it felt like to slowly lose your mind.

  He had so many things he should be doing. To save himself. To ensure his safety. There was a crazy injured man with a gun and a girl who sometimes spoke like she was trapped in a bad spaghetti Western and loved sunglasses and didn’t get burns when she put her hands on a hot stove.

  He picked up a bowl of soup.

  Two slices of bread.

  He carr
ied it over to the table.

  Set it down in front of her.

  Alex watched his every move, spoon stopped halfway to his mouth, broth dripping down to his bowl.

  Art tilted her head back at him.

  Her teeth were little, trapped in a wide upside-down smile.

  “Thanks, Cook,” she said, that long, slow drawl coming out again. “I reckon it’s time to dig in myself.”

  He nodded and retreated back to the kitchen.

  He watched them eat.

  Art spoke every now and then, saying strange things like, “This doesn’t taste like the vegetable paste on the mountain” and “I tried to have six pieces of toast, but Nate said two, and I think I like bread better when it’s toast.”

  Alex slowed partway through his meal. His eyelids looked a little heavier.

  She made him eat every last bite.

  He did so without complaint.

  He finished just before she did.

  She peered into his bowl to make sure it was all gone.

  It was.

  She looked pleased at that. “Maybe vegetable beef is better than chicken after all.”

  She took both their bowls to the sink. Nate flinched at the clatter. She looked at him, then at the full bowl of soup and toast still sitting on the counter. “Were you not hungry?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “Why didn’t you say so? Isn’t that a waste? You can make bread toast, but you can’t make toast bread. Sometimes things can be made into one thing, but it’s impossible to turn them back, no matter how hard you try.”

  He said, “Why are you named Artemis Darth Vader?”

  “Because I like it,” she said. “Why are you named Nathaniel Cartwright?”

  “Because that’s what my parents named me.”

  “Are your parents those people on the walls?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you like your name?”

  “It’s the only one I have.”

  “You’re not toast.”

  He felt off-kilter. “What?”

  “You’re not toast,” she said. “You can be Nathaniel Cartwright. Then you can be someone else. And then if you don’t like it, you can be Nathaniel Cartwright again. You’re not toast. Bread doesn’t have a choice. You do.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  “Exactly,” she said, sounding pleased. “I’m sure your parents wouldn’t mind if you became someone you liked instead of the person you are. It’s better to be happy a little bit than to not be happy at all.”

  “Who are you people?” he asked, voice hoarse.

  “I am Artemis Darth Vader,” she said, enunciating each word slowly. “And that is my Alex Delgado.”

  Artemis Darth Vader Delgado. Nate didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know what to do with any of this.

  “Art,” Alex said, voice deep. “That’s enough.”

  “I’m just trying to—”

  “No more.”

  She sighed. “You heard the boss,” she said to Nate. “Back on the trail, partner.”

  Maybe she was mentally… ill. Deficient? Nate didn’t know the proper terminology. Maybe she was sick somehow. In the head. And her father had stolen her from a hospital or wherever, and someone had shot him, and now they were here. They were fugitives on the run from a mental hospital, and they just ate his soup. He made them toast. That made him complicit in… whatever this was. He was harboring fugitives and making them toast. He would go to jail.

  “I don’t want to go to jail,” he said.

  Alex looked at him sharply. “Why would you go to jail?”

  “Because you stole your daughter from the mental hospital and they shot you and I made you toast.”

  Alex and Art both stared at him.

  Nate didn’t know what else to say. It was out there now.

  “You’re so bread,” Art finally said. “I can’t wait to see you toasted.”

  Nate swallowed thickly. “Was that… was that a threat?”

  She shook her head. “Did that sound like a threat?” She looked back at Alex. “Is that one of those things that sounds like one thing, but also could mean another?”

  “I think he’s overreacting,” Alex told her. He pushed up from the table, grimacing as he moved. The muscles in his arms strained against the flannel he wore, something Nate really should not have been noticing. He had other things to worry about. Like a little girl threatening him with… maybe being murdered. Somehow.

  She was at Alex’s side in an instant, hovering as he stepped away from the table. He took a step. And then another. And then another before he stumbled a little. He caught himself before he fell, but she was there too, tiny arms around his waist as if that would help a man five times her size if he was going down.

  Nate didn’t move at all.

  Alex stopped, breathing deeply. He let it out through his teeth and then made his way to the couch. He sat without further incident before lying down on his back, one foot hanging off the side, the other on the cushion. Nate stared at the hole in the sock near the big toe. It wasn’t big, but it was there.

  “I need to see it,” he heard Art say.

  “Not now.”

  “Alex.”

  “Art.” She glanced back at Nate. He didn’t know if she was asking him for help. He didn’t know how he could help.

  She turned back toward Alex. She leaned forward and whispered something to him. Nate couldn’t hear what was said.

  Alex sighed. “A little.”

  The gun was on the table. Just sitting there.

  Art unbuttoned his shirt, fumbling a bit.

  It fell open.

  The bandage was white, taped against skin. There wasn’t even a hint of blood. Alex breathed shallowly, the muscles in his stomach flexing under a mat of dark hair. Art tugged at the tape gently. “Careful,” he said, wincing as it pulled against hair.

  “Maybe if you weren’t a hairy monster, this would be easier.”

  Alex huffed out a sharp breath, almost like he was laughing.

  The tape pulled back.

  Nate could go for the gun. Right now. He could get the gun and maintain enough distance between himself and Alex so he wouldn’t be surprised again. So Alex couldn’t do his quick ninja moves again. He was built like a linebacker, but Nate had never seen someone move like that before. He wondered just how close he’d come to a bullet to the head when he’d grabbed Art to try to put her hand in water.

  He took a step toward the table.

  Art pulled back the gauze.

  He passed the table, leaving the gun where it was.

  Once when he’d been covering a protest in Columbia Heights, there’d been anger over the death of a black homeless man at the hands of a police officer. Los Angeles was still burning after Rodney King, and Nate was in the middle of it on the other side of the country, wide-eyed and breathless. He’d been taking the scene in, people shouting, looks of pure fury on their faces, when there’d been a loud crack that echoed around them. People ducked and began to scream, shoving each other as they tried to get away. Nate had stood there, getting knocked from side to side. In the crowd, he saw a hand rise, a black pistol held high, firing into the air. People screamed again. There came a third shot. The gunman (later found to be a white guy named Keith Blair who needed to put himself in the middle of it all, needed to cause as much pain as he could) was tackled a moment later.

  But there was another man on the ground, a man writhing, shoes scraping along pavement as he gasped for air. His hands were on his stomach, and the blood that had been welling between his fingers was so dark it was almost shocking.

  Nate hadn’t moved. It was a story. He couldn’t get involved with a story.

  He hated himself, after.

  For a very long time.

  But others did. They came and shoved the man’s hands away. Before they could cover the wound with a shi
rt that had been handed over, Nate had seen the wound, the ragged hole in the man’s stomach, the skin torn, blood gushing.

  The man had died at the hospital two days later.

  One of his colleagues had written the story on it.

  He knew what bullet wounds looked like.

  The bandage was lifted almost all the way off, and there was—

  The smallest amount of blood on the underside. Just the barest amount, a splash of red against white.

  But there was no open wound.

  No stitches.

  Oh, the skin was red and inflamed, yes. And there was bruising. There was even a circular indentation that could have been an entry wound. But it looked as if it’d had time to heal. As if Alex hadn’t been shot recently, as had been implied. Maybe Nate had heard it wrong. Maybe he’d misunderstood.

  But then why was Alex moving as if it was a recent thing? Yes, there’d been those shocking ninja moments, but…

  “Looks better,” Art said quietly. She glanced back at Nate. “Thank you.”

  He stood at the edge of the couch, staring down at Alex’s bare skin. “For?”

  “Vegetable beef. You were right. It helped. And for the toast.”

  “When did you say you were shot again?”

  Alex stared at him coldly. “I didn’t.”

  “When were you shot?”

  Alex said nothing.

  Art sighed.

  “Uh-huh. Right. Okay.” Nate took a step back. “I’m… going to just—”

  He turned and moved down the hall to the bedroom.

  The cabin shuddered as he slammed the door behind him.

  chapter four

  He didn’t sleep.

  Not much, anyway.

  When he wasn’t pacing the length of the bedroom that had once belonged to his parents, he was lying on top of the musty comforter, dozing fitfully.

  His phone had no bars no matter where he stood in the room or what furniture he climbed on top of. He wasn’t surprised.

  For almost a full hour, he stood at the door, ear pressed against it, listening. He heard the brief, low mumble of sporadic conversation, but nothing more.

  His duffel bag was still in the truck.

  He didn’t undress. He had to be ready. For whatever. Just in case. It wouldn’t do to be caught unawares without pants on.