Chapter 59
I felt so sick of sleeping, so sick of being awake. I wanted to scratch off my skin, worse than the fire had done, that's how boring it was and how much it was getting to me. They had a tiny TV in the room but it only got two or three channels, all of which had nothing on them worth watching, even in a state of desperate boredom. It got to a point where I faked being in pain just so that I would get drugs to knock me out.
In the morning they came to me with actual food. Actually, I would call it a disturbing imitation of food but I wasn't ungrateful for it. After that they said I could shower…which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because they let me go alone and didn't have to watch and all that shit. My left arm was working enough that I could do everything by myself, and they wrapped the bandages on both arms with plastic so that they wouldn't get wet.
Washing my hair felt fabulous, everything did. It made me feel a lot better, being clean, allowed me to get out of the room and clear my head a little bit. I tried to piece together all the lies that I could tell that would get me out of the hospital quicker, all the deals I could try to pull with Mark to see if he could help me out with that, too, but knowing him I wasn't sure if he'd be willing to help me. I knew that he'd want me to get help.
Mark…he just wanted me to be happy. He took what happened to Amber really hard, too, and didn't want me being so upset. It was a lot easier for him to get over things.
When I thought about it, and calmly as I showered, not crying or anything, it wasn't really what was in the past that bothered me, what I'd seen, that she was dead. It was really the thought of the future, imagining a life without her, knowing that I'd never see her again…
I remembered the night that Raven had tried to kill himself. I wanted to talk to him, really talk to him, and know how he felt about me doing that. The day after he'd done that to himself he was fine, given, he hadn't set himself on fire, so it was quicker for him. And we sat down and talked for serious, not all fooling around or about non-important things. I wanted to talk to him about how he felt about me, about Amber, about Saphrin. It hurt me that when we'd talked that time, I told him that I'd die without Amber. I recalled the conversation.
"If I lose her I'm nothing. And last night I thought I'd lost her. I'd rather have died last night than lived years without knowing her," he'd said to me.
And I'd replied, "Yes…I know how you feel."
"Do you?"
"Yes I do. And you're right. I'd die if I didn't have Amber."
It was so true. I wanted to die, honestly. Sure, a part of me didn't. A part of me still wanted to hang out with Mark and Raven and Saphrin, hell even Evan and their frog. But such a bigger part of my heart wanted to be gone, wanted to stop all the pain and be with Amber again, if that was even feasible. Even if it wasn't, I wanted to know that it wasn't, didn't want to be in life all clueless and not knowing where she was. I would've rather been in pain, knowing that we couldn't be together than being in pain, knowing nothing.
But I remembered what that dream had said, and didn't know if it meant anything. The woman who looked like Amber, smoking cigarettes, so playful and sexy and teasing. Who said "It's not your time yet, Kane." I could only imagine what it meant. The doctors had mentioned to me that I was lucky to be alive, to which, I silently retorted "Lucky? Who the hell are you kidding?" But I understood what they meant. It was unheard of. I'd lost a lot of blood, cut my arm on a major vein, had severe burn trauma. It was one of those miracle things. I should've been dead.
There was just…something else that kept me inside my body. Something that they didn't know about, nor did I. Mark knew, I knew that he knew. He just wouldn't admit it.
That woman had something to do with me being alive. Maybe it wasn't Amber, maybe it was. Maybe she'd shape-shifted herself to look like Amber just so that I'd pay attention. Or maybe it was all in my imagination and it was just some weird one in a hundred coincidence that I hadn't been killed.
The thoughts stayed in my head even when I returned to my room, when I sat cross-legged on my bed and stared down at my left arm. The right one I could still barely move. It didn't hurt quite as much but was still painful.
When I thought of it I couldn't even visualize what I'd done to the left.
I think that's why I started peeling away the bandage. Actually, I know if that's why, and because I was trying to figure out the mystery of this woman, of my existence. I wanted to see exactly how "lucky" I was, or if they were just saying that to make me feel better, if they were just scratches.
"Jesus Kane," I muttered aloud when I got the gauze pulled away. Tiny black stitches held the skin of my forearm together. There were four cuts, one horizontal right up near the inside of my elbow, another deep and vertical. One was diagonal, crossing over both of the others, and the last one was parallel to the smaller horizontal one and went directly over the veins right at my wrist. They were right. I should've been dead.
All the stitches were dark and sinister looking, like little teeth. Some of them were tangled over each other, mainly where the few lines had intersected. Some kind of ointment had been spread over all of it, too, so it was all shiny. I flexed the muscles in my arm, kind of ashamed at how much I'd been neglecting them, how thin I was getting. The pain was more like thin heat, radiating all through my body.
It made me really want to talk to Mark.
Which, in turn, made me anxious and impatient. So to quench that, I got up and paced the room a little, went into the little bathroom that I had for myself, looked at my reflection for a little, fondly remembering my dream. For whatever reason, maybe after all the shit I'd been through, my reflection didn't bother me, didn't upset me. So I just stared.
When I heard someone humming it caught me off guard. I hadn't even noticed her coming in. I stepped back into the room to see a girl looking out the window, her back to me, waves of dark curls cascading down her back. The humming kept on. She made no sign of knowing that I was there, yet wasn't startled by the sounds I made in closing the bathroom door, walking into the room, clearing my throat. Finally she stopped, and said:
"A Murder of One," very softly. The voice felt like a bullet tearing through me. Then she started humming again, singing as she turned around to look at me. "Blue morning, blue morning, wrapped in strands of fist and bone…curiosity, kitten…"
"Kitten," I said. I felt like I was going to get all emotional, like my whole morning of being calm and not getting upset meant nothing. She smiled weakly, then walked over and hugged me, arms reaching all the way around my midsection. I patted her on the back with my left hand, afraid to for a moment because the stitches were exposed and kind of gruesome, but I thought it would've been mean not to return it.
"I should've warned you," she said, and started crying. I remembered what Becky had told me about the fire.
"You knew this would happen," I said coldly. I pulled away from her and stared down. I couldn't help the rush of anger that filled me.
She looked miserable, just like the last time I'd seen her. "I-"
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked her. I wasn't really angry with her, I knew I wasn't, but I couldn't help it. She backed away, like she was afraid of me. It hurt my heart. I sighed, shaking and lowering my head, telling myself to cool it. "Sorry…it's not your fault. Just uhh…what are you doing here?"
"I heard what happened," she said softly. "I just wanted to come see if you were okay…"
"How'd you hear?" I asked, looking back up. She had wiped her eyes and had lost a lot of color in her face, looking at my cautiously.
"I dreamed it…" she trailed off, waited to make sure I wasn't going to yell at her or something before she went on. "Don't worry though, it hasn't been in the newspapers or anything. Or on the internet. No one knows. I swear."
I nodded. "I believe you," I winced at the tightness I felt when I ran my hand through my hair, then crossed the room and sat down in one of the chairs. I was so tired of the damn bed. I gestured for her to sit down. "So how long have you known?"
"For like a week…they just weren't letting you have visitors until now, only Mark I guess."
"Saphrin was there," I said. "I think Raven, too. I never really saw him though."
She nodded. "Oh."
We were really awkward around each other. I didn't really know what to say. Neither did she, I supposed. I wondered how she'd been holding up since Amber had died but I didn't have the nerve to ask her.
"It's been hard," she said, which startled me. I felt kind of uncomfortable with her doing that, and remembered how Mark could do it sometimes, too. I just looked at her. She looked like she was going to cry again. "I've been having a lot of nightmares. About what happened. I'm sorry that you had to see it, I saw it too…"
A thought came into my head. I stared at her for a moment, not knowing if I could ask her. I thought about it for a few minutes, discreetly, looking away and hoping that she wouldn't read my thoughts. When the silence came too much for me to bear I asked her anyway, just for the sake of hearing our voices.
"Do you know who did it?" I asked her. I think I snapped at her. She jumped a little, and her eyes widened, and then she stood up, backing away from me and towards the door. I stood up, I felt like strangling her. "Kitten I'm telling you right fucking now, if you know who did it…"
"I don't," she whispered quickly.
"Don't lie to me. If you know who did it, and you don't tell me, you're the one that's going to be dead," I hissed at her. Her hands were shaking as one of them reached up and covered her mouth.
"I can't tell you,"
I narrowed my eyes at her. "You are so fucked in the head!" I shouted. "WHY NOT?"
"It's not time for you to know," she spit out, and then turned and ran out of the room. I ran out of her, to the doorway, unable to bring myself further. My arm was absolutely killing me, I couldn't stand to move any of my body anymore. But I stood there for a while, glaring down the hallway, wondering where she'd gone off to, fucking pissed. I was thinking clearly, I wasn't sad, I wasn't about to kill myself. I was about to kill her. In that little stupid head of hers was a name (or names?) that I needed, and she wasn't telling me. I wanted to kill her. Really. She was a psycho, she couldn't handle the gifts she had the way Mark could.
When I noticed the people who were staring at me as I stood there I groaned and went back into my room, curled up in the bed. My brain was throbbing, I though it was going to start leaking out of my ears at any moment. I should've been dead right then. There was no reason for me to be alive. I wanted to be dead. But I wanted whoever killed my whole reason for existence to die with me. I wasn't going to just give up like that.
Fucking bitch, Kitten. I kept thinking.
Everything that hurt on my body, my arms, my heart, my head…it was all because of Amber, all for Amber. The reason I was alive was for her, so that I could kill whoever did this. And here was this fucking girl who knew the answer to what I wanted to know and couldn't even tell me. There were so many violent things I wanted to do to her…
I told myself to calm down, to get it out of my head. It "wasn't time" for me to know yet, just like I wasn't supposed to die. I'd known her in the past, she'd been a sweet girl. I trusted her to some extent, had faith that when the time was right she'd tell me, or I'd find out. Maybe she was right. Maybe if she'd told me I would've rushed out to kill the bastard without thinking, without considering that he'd put up a fight and with my handicap maybe I'd be the one who lost. The more I thought about it the more it made sense, though I couldn't really help how angry I was.
"Kane," the voice startled me out of my thoughts and I turned my head to see Mark. He smiled and came into the room, sitting down. He looked at me for a moment before his expression softened. "What's wrong?"
How could I answer that? Everything was wrong.
"I was just…thinking," I told him. I sat up and looked at him, looking away from him and down at all the stitches. "Mark, why am I alive? I should be dead right now, there's no reason why someone should survive this."
His face was so solemn, vaguely hurt, like he didn't know what to say to me. Finally he just sighed. "You're lucky to be alive, Kane."
"Lucky?" I glared at him. "What is lucky about me being alive? Okay, for you, maybe. For Raven and Saphrin, whatever. But what in the world is lucky about me being alive right now, Mark? Honestly? Why don't you tell me?"
"Kane," he said softly. Our eyes were locked on each other.
"Seriously, Mark. There is no reason for me to be alive and someone is keeping me here and you know it and you don't want to admit it. And that's not fair to me because I don't like it. What part of it don't you understand?" My eyes started to sting. "What's so hard for you to grasp? I. Don't. Want. To. Be. Alive."
He didn't say anything.
"And I can't go on like this," I continued. "I can't. Really. It's too hard. I'm alone, and don't have her with me, I keep seeing things…I swear to Christ, Mark, I'll be at the house and she'll be there, and she'll be doing the most ordinary things and I think she's…" my voice started to leave me, cracking. I paused and swayed a little, my head feeling light, the tears falling silently. "And I think she's actually there," I said quietly. "But she's not. It's like having to lose her all over again."
"I'm really sorry," he said, rubbing his temples. "I'm really sorry you have to go through all of this."
"You know what?" I wiped the tears with my left hand, ignoring the strain it caused. "I'm really fucking tired of everyone telling me how sorry they are. You're fuckin' sorry, Saph is sorry, Raven is sorry, everyone's fucking sorry. You know what? None of you know what it feels like. I am the one that's sorry that I have to put up with all of this. Do you know what happened to me, Mark? Really know what happened?" I demanded of him. He looked like I was killing him, I probably was, but I couldn't help myself. I was tired of keeping my mouth shut. "You don't know shit, Mark. You don't know who did this to her, you don't know what I've been going through, you didn't love her, you didn't even create a life! I had a daughter, Mark, don't you understand? And do you even know what it feels like to be burned? You set the fucking house on fire, you could cause all of it and not deal with it. How do you think I fucking felt? How do you think I felt watching our parents burn to death, being set on fire, not being able to protect myself? How do you think that felt?
"Why don't you go find out and then tell me that you're fuckin' sorry, okay?"
It surprised me that I'd actually said it. Almost thirty years holding all of that inside…
"Alright. You're right, Kane, I don't know what you're going through," he said, and then leaned forward. "But I can feel it coming off of you like heat. I don't like seeing you like this, Kane. Forget about whatever happened between us in the past, we both know that we can get on each other's nerves…but now. Right now. Just hold on. For me?"
"Mark!" I said, exasperated. I felt the frustration building in my chest, felt like I was going to explode. "Why won't you understand, Mark?" I was so angry at myself for crying, I wanted all the drama to stop. "What don't you understand about me wanting to be dead? Dead! Gone! Not-alive! I want to be with her, Mark, I don't want to get over her!"
"Kane, I'm not trying to be selfish, I understand that you want to die," he sounded so tired, so aged. I had the feeling that he was very quietly pissed off at me. "But I mean…since this has happened you've barely even made the effort of picking up your life. Look at me. Raven. Saphrin. We keep going. And it's hard, it is, but we keep going. And I hate seeing you like this. I want you to at least try, can't you?"
"Why am I still alive?" I asked him bluntly. The color ran from his face. "You know and you're not telling me and it's not fair. I'm supposed to be dead right now."
"No you're not, not if she doesn't want you to be…"
A surge of frustrated energy cracked through me, and I picked up a box of tissues that was on a table next to the bed and threw it at him. I couldn't help it, it was an impulse. It was also left-handed and sloppy, and hit his shoulder. The second I did it I realized how immature I'd been being, and looked away from him, trying to calm down. I breathed in slowly, looking down at the stitches, looking over to the wraps on my other arm. I felt stupid for throwing the tissues at him.
"Sorry," I mumbled. He groaned and stood up, walking over and very calmly putting them back. I hated him for doing that, it made me feel patronized. "Look, Mark," I said, hesitant. He leaned against the wall beside the window, only a few feet away from the bed, and looked at me. Slowly I lifted my head to meet his gaze. "Listen…they're making me stay here for observation, even if my arms are all healed…"
"…and?" he crossed his arms over his chest. Oh great, I'd pissed him off.
"And…" something occurred to me that I hadn't even thought of. "Wait a second…how the hell did I even get here?"
"I knew something was wrong. You were still conscious when I got there. You were setting things on fire."
"I was?" I felt a little alarmed. "What things?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, like the couch and a picture of Amber…"
My stomach felt like it had fallen to the floor. "What!? What picture of Amber?" my whole body felt light, and I was shaking.
"The…" he looked at me and sighed. "The one she gave you on Christmas a couple years ago, remember? The black and white one? With the flowers?"
I couldn't do anything but just stare at him in disbelief. "I…I…" the words would even form. I was stuttering, couldn't piece together what I even had to say. His eyebrows came together and he reached over to put his hand on my shoulder, then sat down next to me on the bed. "Mark, I don't know what's wrong with me…"
"Nothing wrong with you," he said quietly. It was hard to tell if he meant it or not.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I leaned against him, rested my head on his shoulder. "Why would I destroy that? What the hell is wrong with me?"
He hugged me very gently, not touching my right arm. I leaned against him, thought of that night when we were kids, when I fell down the stairs and just stared at him, helpless, unable to even shout out his name. I felt the burn run through my face, stinging my eyes. I tried so hard not to cry, but I couldn't control it. I was weeping.
"I want to go home," I said to him, holding a fistful of his shirt. "And I don't know where that is. I want to be with Amber and with Mom and with Claudette. Why did this have to happen to me? Why fucking me, of all people? What the hell did I do to deserve this?"
For the first time I realized what Kitten had meant when we'd talked that time. When she said I didn't deserve things. I wanted to tell Mark about her coming to see me but I couldn't bring up my nerve to do it. Mark didn't answer me, just held onto me, played with my hair a little. When I'd calmed down some time later I sat up and looked him straight in the eyes. I needed to know the truth, not caring about the masochism in my curiosity. I just needed to know. And he needed to know, too.
"Kitten came to see me today," I told him. He just stared at me, waiting for me to say something else. "She knew that it was going to happen," I said. Mark's face went deadly still, like he was afraid of what I was going to ask him. "Did you know, too, Mark? I really need to know. There's nothing that can change it now but I need to know."
It took him a while before he answered. "I wouldn't have been able to stop it."
My jaw dropped. "You…you knew?" I started to hyperventilate. Mark looked irreparably sad.
"There was nothing anyone could've done about it," he said, and looked away. "She wanted it that way."
"WHO?" I cried at him. I reached up and grabbed my hair, tugging on it in frustration.
He opened his mouth to answer, looking incredibly distressed, and the vaguest trace of a sound had come out of his mouth when a louder sound was heard and we both looked towards the door. Raven was trudging in, holding Evan. Saphrin was behind them, looking away from me.
"Oh, hey Kane!" Raven said brightly, and took a seat. Mark and I acted like nothing had been going on, just turned and talked to them.
I shifted and leaned against the propped up head of the bed, closing my left arm over my stomach and just watching, not saying anything. Mark stood and sat down in a chair, Raven sat down with Evan in the other. Saphrin sat on the end of my bed, looking at me quietly, knowing that something was wrong. I just ignored her, ignored all of them, said hello to Raven and told him that I was feeling okay, let them all talk to each other and leave me alone. I was too pissed off to deal with them, didn't want to.
Mark kept staring at me, it made me feel very uncomfortable. Every time I would catch him I would glare for a moment until he turned away. Neither of us wanted to fight just then, or make a scene in front of our friends. We'd wait until we were alone before we were verbally at each other's throats.
After a while Mark excused himself and said there were some errands he needed to run, so stood up and left. I didn't say goodbye to him, just followed him out with my eyes. A few seconds passed before any of us said anything, at which point Raven and Saphrin both fell solemn, their plastic smiles vanishing. Evan was around six months old by then and Raven was clinging to him. I felt a twinge of jealousy watching them. Evan seemed to be a happy kid. The older he became, the more I could see Raven in his face.
"Kane…" Raven said to me. I looked away from his son and up to his eyes. We stared at each other for a moment. "You okay, man?"
I sighed. "You know…I don't even know how to answer that anymore…"
He frowned and stood, setting Evan down on the bed so that the child was sitting up against his mother. Raven walked over to me, the color running form his face as he threw himself against me in a hug, touching neither of my arms and just pressing out bodies together, wrapping his arms around my neck. I laughed a little.
"Sorry," he said when he pulled away. Saphrin was crying a little, Evan was oblivious as always. "I just…wanted to wait for Mark to leave before I talked to you…" his eyes clouded for a moment. He leaned against the wall a couple of feet away, just as Mark had. "But, holy shit, Kane," he spit out, touching his chest. "You scared the fuck outta me." He slapped me on the back of the head. "Never do that again, you fucker."
I cracked a half-smile. "You were scared? You should've seen the nightmare I was having."
He looked completely pissed off. "Kane."
"What?" I shifted nervously. I really didn't want him angry with me. I saw that his eyes were locked on my stitches. I shifted again, turning my arm so that he wouldn't see. He shook his head out of the trance he was in and his face fell. His hands were trembling.
"Fuck," he muttered, and let out a deep breath, tilting his head towards the ceiling, looking away, tears covering his eyes. "I know I probably…" his voice caught in his throat, "…seem pretty pissed off…I mean, I am a little. But…fuck, Kane. Jesus Christ, you almost died. What the fuck were you thinking?"
I rolled my eyes. "Raven, don't give me this shit. Tell me- what were you thinking that night? Remember? On the roof? You better remember, I mean, think about it. Who was the one that found you up there bleeding all over the place and saved your ass?"
Tears started to come from his eyes. As they were prone to do, they started shifting into gold. He bit his lip and a tremor went through his body. "Yeah…" he whispered. "Kane, I'm sorry. You just…scared me…"
"What happened?" I asked him.
"Huh?" he wiped the tears with his hands and looked at me.
"What happened? For you. These past few days?"
"Oh…" he looked at Saphrin, then sighed, then walked away and sat back down in one of the chairs. "Well, Mark called a few hours after it happened and told us what happened, so we rushed over here as soon as we could. And none of us could see you for a while but by that night when they were all done patching you up we just went in and kept you company. Like…you woke up a bunch of times but they kept drugging you for pain and it knocked you out. So then we were just chillin' out with you pretty much."
I frowned. "I woke up?"
Raven nodded.
"Did I say anything?"
Raven nodded.
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Well…?"
"Um…" he looked at Saphrin, then back to me. "This once you were asking for Amber, and saying her name and tripping out. It was really scary. This other time you asked for cookies," he couldn't stop laughing then, and I laughed a little, too. After a moment we all calmed down. I looked out the window. Raven and Saphrin looked at each other, Evan let out a squeal of happiness. I remembered the way Claudette had done that when she was a baby. Remembered changing her and holding her and what she smelled like. I remembered how warm and soft she was.
Now it was just a dull ache.
"Kane…" Raven said quietly. I looked at him. It seemed that he was translating everything that the two of them wanted to say to each other. "Listen…I understand why you did this. And I do remember that night, really clearly. I was upset because I thought I lost Saphrin, and I hadn't. I just want you to know that I-" he glanced at Saph "-we want you to know that if this is…what you want, or need to do…it's, umm…" he seemed at a loss for words. "We understand," he finally put together. I could only stare at him, at a loss for words myself.
"Thanks," I said softly.
"But…" he started to say. Saphrin finished for him, reaching over and touching my unburned hand, giving it a squeeze.
"We want revenge as much as you do. Kill the sonuvabitch, Kane. Kill him and then do whatever you want."