Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(84)

Marty winces.

Kayla swallows.

Her words strike a blow to his gut, and the pain that radiates outward, while phantom and fleeting, fills him with a bewildering urge. It feels almost like a craving, this acute desire to return to that moment in his Jeep when he reached for her because he thought she was about to lose it, the moment when his hand made it no farther than the gearshift before she rested hers atop it.

Why would he think of that moment now, when her words have slugged him this hard? It’s like his brain’s convinced there’s something he can squeeze from the memory and apply to his wounds like a balm.

Oh, shit, dude, he thinks. Oh, shit. He’s familiar with this voice in his head, the voice that warns him away from serious risks. The voice that sounds just like his freshman-year roommate, Reggie, who had a particular, steady way of pointing out when things were about to go seriously off the rails. Like when he realized the hot girl visiting their room was about to turn psycho, or the coffee they’d been drinking out of the bottom of the pot had been sitting there for days. Oh, shit, dude. You are totally falling for—

The words fly from him before Reggie’s voice can finish his sentence.

“Well, shit. You didn’t just rent Dylan a space in your head. You bought him a house there. Good luck with your treatment, Burning Girl.”

“Get out.”

“Works for me,” he answers. But there’s a tremor in his voice. Kayla cocks her head to one side, sympathy flashing in her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep all your crazy secrets. And if Bailey doesn’t find a way to get in touch with you himself, I’ll let you know. If, you know, you’re not off hunting terrorists by then because it’s what you want.”

He’s moving so fast he’s startled by the sound of his own footsteps punching the wooden steps out front. Startled to suddenly be speeding downhill toward the valley, holding the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.

He keeps swallowing, but nothing gets rid of the lump in his throat. And that look Kayla gave him, the one that seemed surprised by the level of emotion in his voice, replays on a loop inside his mind.

He can feel the cold, analytical parts brushing off their spectacles and preparing to lecture him the way he just tried to lecture Charlotte. Preparing to explain away his bewildering mixture of hurt and embarrassment, his acute sense of rejection.

On the one hand, it’s probably shock. Some people—most people—would have full-on lost their minds once they saw what that drug can do. So all things considered, maybe he’s doing pretty well, thank you. And who’d be surprised to learn that one afternoon of friendly conversation and criminal conspiracy wasn’t enough to put all the years of ill will between him and Charlotte at bay?

But there’d been a moment back there on the porch, after he’d managed to steady his hands, around the time he and Marty had started to shoot the shit, when he’d felt more settled inside his own skin than he’d been for weeks. Months, even. When he’d felt like a part of something. Included.

Well, that’s gone now, isn’t it?

Get out, she’d said to him.

Can’t get any clearer than that.

Yeah, and she said it because you jumped down her throat, lectured her, and then, when she disagreed, you told her how to think.

And those final words. God, they hurt.

They hurt because she is right.

He doesn’t have any friends, and he’s not sure how to make any. This only became clear to him once he was separated from his ambitions. Scratch that. This only became a problem once he was separated from his ambitions.

There’ve been times since he returned to Altamira when his loneliness has felt like a weight on his chest. He knows it’s too heavy to remove on his own, but on most days, he’s too proud to ask for help. So he lies to himself and says tomorrow will be the day. Tomorrow will be the day he’ll go someplace and just sit and see who talks to him first and hope that the first stirrings of chitchat with a stranger might reveal the seeds of a new life. A new life with new friends, and a new vision for his future he can be proud of.

And she could see all this, of course.

Maybe because he’d told her things about himself.

Or maybe because he wore this truth about himself like clothes.

Or maybe because she’d always been able to see these types of things about people.

Isn’t that part of why he’d been such a dick to her back in high school? Why he’d fixated on her? Because what she’d been through had taught her things about the world most teenagers didn’t know. Or if they did know them, the knowledge had put them in a mental hospital. The fact is, even at sixteen, Trina Pierce Burning Girl Charlotte Rowe had been the type of person who could see through your bullshit, your poses. And that had made her scary and threatening. And also special. Remarkable.

Back then he’d chosen fear. Fear and cruelty.

But ever since then, he’d felt himself tilting in the other direction.

Now he’s wobbling back and forth between the two like a metronome, and all he wants is his own shitty sofa in his own shitty house with a less than shitty beer.

He’s turning into his driveway when his old roommate’s warning voice speaks up again.

Uh-oh, dude. You’re totally into her, and you probably always have been.





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