Monster

Thirty-Four

The blood was gone–but I could still feel it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Like it seeped into the foundation of my home and ruined it. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my hands wrapped around a mug of tea. The liquid burned the cut on my lip and scalded my throat. Clara was sitting across the table from me. She'd flown out from New York while I was still in custody. Tony was on his way from California. Everyone was back to making a fuss over me. I was just grateful my parents didn't know anything.

Bucky hadn't come back. No one had seen him. I did what Steve told me to do and stayed quiet, even when Sam arrived. He kept his arm around my shoulder while I was questioned, but I kept my mouth shut until Stark's lawyer got there. Even then, I didn't say much. Steve looked for Bucky for as long as he could, but couldn't catch his trail. When I was finally allowed back home, I almost expected to find him lurking in the shadows. But he didn't come. And he didn't come the next night either.

"I just don't understand why you won't stay at a hotel," Clara was saying as she swept her dark brown hair out of her face and stirred the spoon in her mug. She swore the tea would help calm my nerves. She even brought it herself. Something with calming herbs, she said. But it didn't help, and I didn't expect soggy herbs to solve the anxiety inside me.

My house was trashed. There was another death on my hands. Another name on a list that no one should have. No matter what anyone said to try to cheer me up, I could still picture the blood on the lawn. The way the soil flooded red when I hosed it down. There were stains on the floor in the living room. There was a hole in the doorframe. The bullet that made it had gone through someone's throat before embedding into the wood. I put it there.

"I can't stay at a hotel. He might come back," I explained. I took another sip and winced from the sharp sting.

"Leave him a note. Give him another number to reach you at." I shook my head.

"Tony wouldn't let me do that. That'd tell Hydra exactly where to find me." She sighed.

"Hydra already knows where you are. So how does it make a difference? Let Tony set up more surveillance. He can tell you if Barnes comes back, so you can contact him."

"He won't come back if I'm not here."

"I don't think he's going to come back at all."

I glanced at her. She looked so neat and put together sitting in my modest, tiny kitchen. She even had pearls in her earlobes, and there wasn't a single strand of her naturally curly hair out of place. She was always so perfect. So put together. So sure of who she was. I envied her for that.

"He promised he'd find me."

"Let him find you somewhere else. And what if they got to him? What if he's with Hydra again?"

"He'll come back for me." She sighed with agitation and looked down toward the kitchen window. I glanced at the clock on the wall and set my mug back down. "I have to get to my meeting with Talbot. You shouldn't be here alone."

"You should let me come with you."

"It's at the Triskelion. You haven't been cleared, so unless you want to wait on the bridge, it's probably best if you don't come."

"You should have your lawyer with you."

"It's not an interrogation. My lawyer already did his job. Talbot just wants to scold me and debrief me. I'll be fine."

"I wish you weren't going back to that place. They already ruined your life."

"I don't have time to argue with you right now. If I don't go, Talbot will have me arrested."