Sapphire Bones

Animal

L

Abandoning Cole back at Graphite proved harder for Roddy to shoulder the longer we traveled. Several days passed since we left, or at least that's what he told me every time I asked. We stopped often; Roddy swept behind a tree to vomit only to emerge moments later shaking it off as food poisoning - an odd choice of excuse considering our lack of food since the diner. His attitude after my bout of honesty-without-a-filter didn't fade either. A cloud of brisk irritation sweated the air like wet sheets sopping from a washer. But instead of eventually drying out that sheet stunk with mildew while the wild grasses and nature's debris kicked up around it. I didn't bother trying to make amends. The slick tension cord between us didn't stand a chance if I added to his distress about Cole. As much as I hated admitting it, especially after what he did to me, I hated leaving him behind. We went into the rogue camp as a group and intended to leave as one as well. Yet here we were, two left standing while the other lay on the forest floor with a needle in the bend of his arm. I shuddered violently and skirted my feet across the dirt.

"I'd ask if you had any clue as to where we are but," Roddy's words hung in the air, a thick fog that followed us through the thick forest. His use of humor in the face of fear and irritation became a staple during our travels.

"Heat signatures don't normally tell direction," I muttered, a hint of sarcasm biting on the edge of my tongue.

"Figures," he said and went quiet. Roddy didn't keep a hand on my elbow anymore. I presumed he felt I could find my own way, what with the bright red splotches in my vision. In truth it didn't help much, but I didn't complain. It was better than the black void I stared into every day and night. There were times back in the Council prison when I questioned my consciousness. When the world around me existed in a never-ending blanket of black, I questioned day and night, and if I were dreaming or awake. My awakeness became a trance I was lost in, a vortex that sucked me under the surface of the Council and held me captive.

"I thought you knew where you were going," I said, shattering the silence that built up between us into a wall that, if I could see it, towered over us with holes in the middle just big enough for us to see each other.

"Well, getting kidnapped by a pack of druggies in the middle of nowhere doesn't help ones internal compass," Roddy said. I could almost hear the smirk playing on the edge of his lips. "But I mean we haven't fallen off anymore cliffs or come across anymore rogues so that's good?" He questioned himself. I gulped but didn't respond, only trudged forward through the thick, hardened mud with encased rocks and sticks that spurred up into the bottoms of my feet. During my tryst with the leader of Graphite, I realized that clothing wasn't a barrier that kept them from harming me. A useless shield. The world saw through the walls in front of my body, but the Graphite leader forced all my secrets and fears to the surface.

"I don't plan on falling off anymore cliffs," I snorted.

"I doubt it was ever on your bucket list, huh?"

"Just doesn't seem entertaining, falling to your death only to wake up with sand between your teeth," I shrugged.

"Sounds gritty," Roddy said flatly. I froze in my spot for a mere second before continuing, an audible sigh forcing its way up my throat. He clearly heard it and chuckled, "sorry, couldn't help myself," he said.

"It's been so long since I've found something humorous. I figured my first real laugh would be something other than a bad pun made at my expense," I said. Roddy snorted up his own laughter, but doubled over himself at my lack of filter when it came to my past and what happened. They just kind of slipped out whenever, and I normally regretted them as soon as the reactions flooded in. After spending so much time with Peter and down in a cell, those memories became my primary and all others were pushed into a locked portion of my brain I couldn't reach.