Bone Deep(4)

Julio moved, breaking her line of sight to Minton. And so it began, Ninka’s death walk. If she could remember her people’s death prayer she would speak it now but the verses were as leaves tossed in the wind of her memory, brittle and scattered.

They were only words anyway. They meant nothing. But she could give the weakest of them all something as she left this world. Bone could be a witness to her passing and later give a testament to the girl’s walk. Ninka had broken last night though she’d been splintered all along. The cracks miniscule then widening under the force of the black-eyed man’s will.

He had known what he was doing as he destroyed her. It was in every glance, every word he wrote in his little red book. He watched them all, always. Bone felt his attention in her sleep. But today he would shape the rest of them and little Ninka would be his tool.

Ninka would be their Hell and the fires of her death would forge them. She wondered if the man realized what he was setting into motion. She shook her head as much as her tied hair would allow. He did not. If he did, he wouldn’t do this thing here today.

Ninka cried out and Bone’s gaze narrowed on Julio. She couldn’t watch the broken one—it would make her mad. As twisted and crazy as Julio perhaps. His black eyes were bright with pleasure. Bone’s stomach heaved, the ropes digging deep as her body tightened in primal fear and the need to act, to move and help Ninka.

Her stare remained on Julio but Ninka’s wheat-colored hair flailed, catching on his rough clothes as her cries turned to grunts of pain.

“You’re such a stupid child! Why can’t you learn to be quiet?” he yelled at her, his words stuttered and deep.

He was shaking Ninka, breaking her body to match her mind. The hate rose, coloring Bone’s world, outlining Julio in the shade of her parents’ blood. He threw Ninka to the ground, stepped back, his breathing harsh but a smile on his face.

He kicked her. The tiny child’s indrawn breath reverberated through her mind, sinking into her heart and ripping a hole. She couldn’t force air into her lungs but it was Ninka who coughed, blood flying from her mouth.

“Help me, Bullet,” Ninka cried out and reached for the one she clung to in the night.

More than any other Ninka had relied on Bullet, climbing into bed with her while Bullet held her close. They all provided rations but Bullet had provided more. Bullet’s pain at this loss would be great, maybe greater than all of theirs combined.

Bone didn’t look at Bullet, there was no reason. Bone had already decided Minton and the black-eyed man were going to die—it was only a matter of when. Besides, Bullet would do what she would and if the gun was in her hands no one could stop her.

So she did not glance at Bullet. Right now she would witness for Ninka so when the darkness fell again she could remember how the smallest of them all suffered the most.

Julio kicked her again, over and over and as the blue completely consumed the pink of the morning, he turned to Minton who simply nodded. Julio grabbed Ninka’s head, her frail body dangling like a wilted vine.

Bone met Ninka’s eyes then and in them she saw peace. A breath, a turn, a hawk’s wicked scream, and it was done. Ninka’s body fell but so did Julio’s. A single, smoking hole, dead-center of his forehead. His death had been too quick, painless. That made Bone sad. He deserved torture and agony, his body writhing in the fires of their hatred.

She watched as his limbs twitched but Ninka’s never moved. She heard the black-eyed man murmuring to Bullet, praising her and then demanding she untie them all and get back to camp.

Bullet did as she was told, untying them all. Bone fell to the ground, her legs unable to bear her weight. It took a few minutes to push her own pain aside but she made it to her feet slowly, drawing in air and feeling her strength return with every breath. She joined her sisters and they pulled Julio’s body to the edge of the clearing for the buzzards to feast on.

Bone gazed up at the bird of prey who still held a winged vigil in the sky above them—a portent maybe of more evil to come.

Slowly, Bone sat down beside Ninka’s body wondering if the tiny girl’s soul had already fled or if she’d remained to watch them all gathering around her. “She’s dead. Why wouldn’t she shut up?” she asked.

Her question had been directed at the God who abandoned her but it was Arrow who answered. “She was breaking.”

“We can’t break,” Bullet said and wiped tears from her cheek.

Bone wished for the desire to cry. Where were her tears now?

“She was a stupid girl and we are already broken,” she responded. Her body was tired, her skin raw and her heart bleeding.

She hated them all in that moment—the black-eyed man, Minton, Julio, Ninka. Hated them with a violent ferocity because they’d each taken something from her she knew she’d never get back.

She was only six and she knew what it was to yearn for revenge.

Blade bent over Ninka’s head, lifted it and placed it in her lap. “We can bend. Like the steel that is used to make my long blades, we can bend,” she whispered.

Bone considered Blade’s words—took them in and processed them but quickly came to the conclusion that bending was nothing more than the beginning of a break. She would never bend. Ever.

“We have to hide her so nothing can hurt her anymore,” Arrow said as she stroked Ninka’s long, mud-stained yellow hair.