Bone Deep(77)

Bone would have thought her dealings with Nameless would have eased this somewhat but once again she was there, in that room, in that darkness. Dmitry squeezed her hand. He’d become her new anchor.

“Arrow took her head and held her. I felt my way to her legs. She was wet with blood and I remember her voice, so pure, so sweet. ‘I need to push,’ she told us. So I told her to push and she did—over and over and over, time after time until she said she couldn’t push any more. “You will die, child, if you do not push,” Arrow said to her. So she pushed some more and I pulled and then there was a child, so tiny, like a baby doll falling into my hands. I had never held a baby doll before.

“She yelled again that she needed to push so Arrow told her to push. The first baby wasn’t crying though—it was silent. It didn’t move, and it wasn’t breathing. I had—,” she almost could not contain the pain that overwhelmed her then. Finally, the past eased its hold on her throat and she continued. “I had broken its neck pulling it from her.”

“Goddamn it, Bone. Do not—”

She squeezed Dmitry’s hand but did not look at him. She had to finish. “I took my T-shirt off and wrapped the baby in it and put it on the floor. The girl kept pushing and then there was another baby and this one,” her voice broke. “This one cried and I wiped its face because it was gasping for breath. Arrow took her shirt off and I wrapped the second child in hers. The girl went silent.”

Nobody said anything for a long time. She didn’t look at her sisters. She didn’t look at the men. Her mind was wrapped in the horror of that night.

“’I am dying,’ the girl whispered and Blade was there then, telling her to hold on. The girl said nothing for a while and the baby continued to cry. I picked it up, held it against my chest, it was cold and needed my warmth. I sang Ninka’s lullaby and eventually the baby quieted. Then the girl demanded we save the first child. But it was dead. I remember thinking I was just as Joseph said I’d be—nothing more than a killer.

“I told her the child was gone and she cried, loud, harsh sobs and I knew then, this was her punishment. I asked who the father was and she said simply, ‘Joseph is the father of us all.’ She was shavur. I gave the baby I hadn’t killed to Blade and then I ran to where Grant was and begged his help. It was the first and only time Grant never questioned us. He knew we had someone to save.”

Arrow slammed her hands on the table but did not get up. “Grant took the child, Bone and I buried the other one beside Ninka in the boneyard, but we never saw the mother. Blade was left with her and when she returned that night to our barracks, all she said was, ‘She is gone from me.’”

“The boy you speak of…” Dmitry said in a dead voice.

“He is ours,” she and her sisters said as one.

“I saw her in Arequipa,” Dmitry said into the silence.

“And?” Rand asked.

“She looks like my father,” he said harshly. “She looks like me.”

“We do know her but we call her Nameless,” Bone bit out, her voice threatening to desert her. “In Arequipa she told me her given name was Ninka.”

Arrow and Bullet both stood, chairs slamming into the walls behind them. Bone searched their gazes and nodded.

“She is gone from us,” her sisters said at the same time.

Bone closed her eyes.

“There is something else I have not told you,” Dmitry murmured.

“Sisters,” Bone whispered, as insight swift and fierce pounded through her mind.

Each time Dmitry had spoken of his siblings he’d spoken of sisters, plural.

“What are you saying, Bone?” Arrow asked.

Bone looked at Rand, Adam, Bullet, Arrow, and then Dmitry. His face was lined with pain. “Tell them,” she urged.

Everything had grown exponentially more complicated. There had always been another child in play in Arequipa. It was at once unbelievable and all too easily acknowledged. That’s what Joseph did—he played games.

Dmitry ran a hand down his face and she stepped to him, turning into his body and holding him. He was shaking as if the truth could not be borne. His pain reached for her and she could do no more than meet it.

He inhaled deeply and glanced at every person in the room before his gaze settled on Bone. She gave him everything she was with a single look.

“I had two sisters,” he said gruffly. “Ninka was a twin.”





Epilogue


She woke to his mouth on her spine. He had not taken her since he had told the truth of his siblings. He had told her of his encounter in the forest the night he’d rescued Bone.

Dmitry was positive though it was Ninka. Only Ninka had ever called him nesti.

Bone wasn’t quite so sure. Ninka had died in a clearing in the mountains of Arequipa. He could not understand why his other sister would lie about her name. Bone reminded him they had all been trained by Joseph and the first lesson had been trust no one. It had taken time and mutual pain to grow the bond with her sisters. Everyone else had been subject to immediate suspicion.

She sighed and he bit her neck, licking over the tiny hurt and soothing it as quickly as he delivered it.

Bone had contacted Grant and not heard back. Rand, Adam, and Dmitry now hunted the hunter. And Blade was still out there, searching for the boy. The boy did not belong to Nameless. He belonged to First Team.