Sparked (The Metal Bones Series Book 1) (29 page)

Once the front door closed, Dad sat on the bed and patted the spot next to him. “How are you?”

Which part of me?

“Did Alec tell you what happened?” I asked instead and sat.

Dad hung his head. “We can discuss it tomorrow.”

I nodded.

Mom sauntered into the room, standing right where I had been in front of the window.

Maybe we weren’t so different after all.

Her glassy eyes stared outside, I’m sure not seeing a thing. “If you only knew, Vienna. If you only knew.” Mom bent over the desk chair, a sob escaped her lips and I knew. I just knew.

I jumped off the bed and caught her as she crumbled to the floor. Her arms wound around me and Mom wept into my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Mom. The past is in the past.” I rubbed her back. “But the future can be different.”

We can make it different.

“Oh, Vienna, how can I?” Mom sobbed. “How can I?”

I knew.

Mom loved me.

But I also knew her relationship with Tamera had affected whatever relationship we might have had.

But we can start anew.

It wasn’t me Mom was upset with. And it wasn’t Tamera. It was herself.

And now you understand. Mom’s inability to communicate doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, it only means she doesn’t know how to communicate she loves you.

Let it go, Vienna. Let go.

It’s not your fight.

I shook off the feelings of anger and sadness and loss and for the first time, in ten years, felt the warmth of my mother’s embrace, felt the warmth of her touch, and felt the warmth of her breath against my neck.

Sometimes it takes certain things, certain events, to make you realize what you forgot—to make you realize what’s important, to make you realize what it is you truly want.

“I thought . . .” Mom’s tears glided down my cheek. “I thought I lost you,” she whimpered.

We almost did lose each other.

Instead, I stroked Mom’s hair and Dad’s arms came around, encircling us.

“You could never lose me,” I said into Mom’s ear. “I’ll always be there for you.”

Mom’s sobs grew louder, and I hugged her to me, absorbing her weight as she leaned against me.
I’ll always lo—

I stilled.

Inside my mind, I felt Mom, on the other side of my partition, smiling, soft and sweet, and her lime-green eyes glowed. I closed my eyes, with Mom in my arms, and . . .

Stood before my massive wall.

Chapter 45

I had never paid attention to what my partition actually looked like. I stood like a mouse before a mansion. My partition was white granite, spanning as far as the eye could see, except for two things. The repaired caulked fissure and the door.

The door was just the opposite, black sparkling granite with thin yellow veins swimming through it. A bold long granite handle dared me to pull it open and discover what I’d locked away.

I reached out, my fingers skimming over the thick handle, warm under my touch. It pulsed through my palm, letting me feel Mom, on the other side, and guiding my eyes back to the crack that had pierced the granite twenty feet up. It was thin and long, spanning another twenty feet horizontally.

I swallowed, letting my eyes skim back down. I took a deep breath and pulled. The door creaked. I propped a foot on the wall and threw my back into it.

I was rewarded with the glorious sound of rocks sliding, of stones moving, and of a door opening.

Mom . . .

She stepped out and we stared at each other, soaking each other in.

Mom?

Vienna.
Her beautiful green eyes looked at me with joy and love.

I forgive you,
I said.

Oh, darling, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Ever.

I raced to her and felt her arms engulf me. I felt her joys and her sorrows pour through me.

The sparkling granite door slid closed, on its own accord, behind us, clicking shut. The sound tightened in my chest. The sparkling chips dared me to remember what I was leaving behind.

Aunt Tam—

Not now.

Not now.

And then I opened my eyes and saw Mom in front of me, her red eyes rimmed with tears, her red eyes rimmed with love, her red eyes rimmed with pain . . . for me.

“Mom,” I said and her lips trembled in bitter-joy. “I love you.”

Her tears spilled down me and my tears spilled down her. Her deep tortured sobs racked my body. And my quiet silent sobs shivered down hers.

“I should have been there for you more,” she sniffled into my hair.

But I knew the words she couldn’t say,
I love you.
And I forgave her for it.

Not everyone’s the same. Not everyone can express things in the same way.

Sometimes life gives you pieces that don’t fit, anywhere—a mother you can’t relate to, a father who’s never home, and family and friends who try to push you in directions you don’t want to go in, even when they mean the best. Things become twisted and convoluted. A cough turns into a snort. A sneeze turns into a scoff. A laugh turns into a snicker. A genuine interest in something else turns into you not being good enough to hold their attention.

The signs get misinterpreted.

The communication becomes strained and the interactions dissipate.

Sometimes you don’t click, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes it seems like water is thicker than blood because at least water’s always there. Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. And sometimes you don’t want to.

Sometimes holding on to the anger is all you have and you don’t want to try, don’t want to let go of it, to let go of the only thing that’s been holding you together.

But to heal, you must.

Go,
I said.

I felt my memories, my emotions—my hurt, my anger, my losses—drift away, like a massive hand that had been constricting my heart, decided to release its hold. Unburdened and free. Drifting away.

Why had I let you hold on so long?

The weight lifted off my shoulders and the love and the peace and the forgiveness poured through.
And I accepted my family with all that came with them. I rested my head on Mom’s shoulder and caught Dad grinning as my eyes flittered shut.

I was home. I was finally home.

Chapter 46

It smelled of Snuggle fabric softener. I breathed it in and a pang filled my heart.

Just like the one Mom always used.

Mom.

I opened my eyes to my white walls, bookshelves, a blue sofa, a desk, and light shining in a window.

My room.

And it was Day Three.

I rolled out of bed and tucked the comforter around myself as I trudged in search of my family.

My heart actually did a little flip at the thought.

My family.

Dad’s golf room was open, and I poked my head in. Papers draped the floors, oozed out of drawers, flowed over tables, and absorbed every inch of available space.

Dad was perched on the edge of the sofa, papers scattered on the couch behind him. Dad’s jaw locked as he stared at the TV.

“Dad?”

The colorful array of news stories reflected off Dad’s face, outlining the throbbing vein in his forehead. Dad clasped his hands in front of his mouth as he stared forward.

I looked at the TV screen. It was the anchorwoman with the bright pink hair.

“What happened?” My fingers tightened on the corner of the couch.

“It’s nothing.” Dad shook his head, disengaging himself from the story. “I can make you something to eat if you’d like.”

But something wasn’t right.

I glued my vision to the TV, to see what he had found so disturbing.

The anchorwoman’s almost-pink hair flashed on again. She shared the screen with a clip of a man and his family members swarming around him. Something stirred in my stomach. The reporters stalked the man to his car, jabbing microphones around his haggard face and unkempt black hair as his family members fought them off.

“Vienna, you. . .”

I held up a hand to my dad, cutting him off.

The man on TV pressed his lips together and finally turned, staring into the screen, with big gold-brown despondent eyes . . . so like . . . someone I knew.

My hands traced the man’s facial features on the fiberglass.

Words flashed in front of his face:

Missing. Person. Found.

My breath came up short. My heart rose in my throat. My stomach turned. Every organ in my body switched places with another. Numbness filled me as I stared into his big gold-brown eyes.

Dean?

Chapter 47

Car.

Keys.

Door.

Sidewalk.

Car.

A quiet static filled my head.

Drowning everything out.

“Vienna?”

Muting everything out. 

Dad’s hands flailed somewhere in my peripheral vision. He was somehow on top of my hood, his face pressed against the windowpane. His lips moved and formed words.

I tilted my head.

Red.

Green.

A ringing filled my skull, followed by my own voice. “To save them.”

And then the calm before the storm ended.

Chapter 48

An explosion filled my ears. Chatter left. Chatter right. Noise . . . Volume. Noise. Volume. Noise. Ratchet. With clatter. With them.

“You traitor,” she screamed.

“They’re coming.” He stared off into the distance.

London looked at her sleeve. “To remind me what has been lost, what has been learned, and what has been gained. Everything I have overcome.”

Dean. The lost boy on the TV screen with microphones jabbing in his face.

Paula. The screaming girl who was dragged off by guards.

London. The blood of mine I left to rot in a cell.

Their names chanted in my head, their voices serenaded in my head, their screams drilled into my head.

“You don’t even care as we crumble away!” she screamed.

“You don’t even care.”
My lips mimicked her words. You. Don’t. Even. Care.

But . . .
“But I do.”

My eyes narrowed into thin slits. The cheers. The crowd. The audience. For me.

For my release. 

For the first successful completion.

My hands clenched, turning white on the steering wheel.

“Successful.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood. My jaw worked. My muscles tensed.

Their screams, their battle cries urging me on.

“Oh, Bacchart. You should have never let me go,” I whispered, “never.”

I un-clicked my seatbelt and stared up at the three-story building now in front of me with a colorful logo.

I moved. My feet pounded against the cement, thudding in my head like war drums.

Pound. Da-Dum. Pound. Da-Dum
.
For them. For me. For them. For me.

“Vienna?” My name echoed somewhere off, far and distant as I walked through the building.

“Umm,” the receptionist stuttered. “Can-Can I help you?”

I didn’t spare her a glance.

“I-I’m not sure—” She fumbled for something.

I barged past her and strode through the glass doors. My hair billowed around my face, my hands curled into fists, and my shoulders stood tall and erect.

The room immediately hushed. People froze mid-type, phones hung in mid-air, and papers feathered off desks.

“I have a story to tell,” I said, my voice so quiet, so sure, it didn’t even sound like mine. “A story you might be interested in retelling.”

I stood in the middle of the floor as the big honcho burst out of his office, causing newspapers to go flying around him. “Get this girl out.” His finger paused in the air. “What-what are you wearing?”

I felt it calling me, my story begging to be let out, begging to be freed.

“There’s something you don’t know.” My pulse thundered.

Pound. Da-Dum. Pound. Da-Dum
.

“Something no one knows.”

Pound. Da-Dum. Pound. Da-Dum
.

“The government kept this secret under wraps. It’s something they refused to disclose. Something they made a horrible judgment call on.” I stared at them, every single one: glasses, no glasses, blue eyes, brown eyes, furious eyes, scared eyes.

My voice became a lethal whisper, snaking over them. “You know all those missing persons reports?”

Pound. Da-Dum.

It was them. It was the government. The whole time. Kidnapping people for their own experiments, messing with people’s bodies, messing with their minds . . . for some inane project.

I opened my mouth and the words flowed out of their own accord. “The government has been nothing but cooperative.”

No.

They imprisoned me. They have imprisoned countless others.

My throat choked. “They have been nothing but an imperative piece.”

No!

My eyes widened. “In putting a stop to this tragic loss.” I wobbled across the tile. “They have taken it upon themselves to enable robots to take a more active position in acquiring the lost persons, to take a more active position in preserving the integrity of our country.”

I grimaced and stumbled backward, clapping my hands over my mouth, staring at their dumbfounded faces in sheer horror.

No. No. No.

“Yes.”

A sob escaped my lips and I fell to the ground.

Where . . . where were my words? My? Words?

My lips opened again.

“The government is undeniably the only instrument directing us to our future and without them, we are most undoubtedly, all lost.”

Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost.

I crawled across the tile floor.

Lost. Lost. Lost.

I frantically swung my head back and forth.

Lost. Lost.

I pounded my fists to the ground.

Lost.

Vienna’s story continues in
Enflamed (The Metal Bones Series Book 2).

For more information please visit Sheena at

www.sheenasnow.com and sign up for her newsletter.