Sparked (The Metal Bones Series Book 1)

by Snow, Sheena

  Let me out. Let me out. You must get my daughter. You have to save my daughter. Save London! Please.

  I shook my head, putting a Band-Aid over her words, putting a Band-Aid over the crack, as if that would fix it—as if that would fix everything.

  “Not . . .” Mom’s voice died. Her hands shook. “Is . . .?” Mom’s doe eyes burned into me. “Is Tamera . . .?”

  I stared down at my hands. How was I supposed to tell her? How could I?

  I looked away from them, finding a spot on the beige carpet. How could you not know, Mom? “Lung cancer,” I spit out.

  I shouldn’t have to been the one to tell you.

  She’s your sister. I lowered my head.

  Your sister.

  “Tamera? But Tamera?” Mom shook my shoulders with a strength she couldn’t possibly have had and my head swayed back and forth on my body. “She, Tamera, she can’t be gone?”

  My head felt like a balloon caught up in a wind storm, being blown back and forth. Bounce. Spin. Bounce. Spin. Spin.

  I can’t.

  My breath clogged in my throat.

  I can’t.

  And then pinecones were everywhere, enshrouding me.

  “I should have told you both.” Alec insulated me in his arms.

  “It’s all right.” I heard Dad’s hand slide into Mom’s. “Please give us a minute.”

  I peeked through Alec’s arms and saw Mom’s wide, shock-filled eyes, her ashen face and shaking hands.

  Alec ushered me into the kitchen and on the way, my gaze caught on the picture of the three sisters on the mantel of the fireplace. Three little blondes curtsying in a row. Now only two were left, the one gone with a daughter soon to follow.

  “You made it back. In one piece.” Robotatouille leaned against the stove.

  I pursed my lips.

  My wall is cracked. London is still there. And if you think I still am one whole piece, you should pry me open and look inside.

  All my pieces would tumble right out in front of you.

  “How’s it been?” Alec squeezed my hand when I remained quiet and set me on the counter. I slid a drawer open from under me.

  “Cooking and cleaning.” Robotatouille tapped the pots hanging from the center of the kitchen island. “For the most part. Glad you’re back. Surprised you’re back, actually, but glad.”

  I clicked my heels together. I wondered how he’d feel once he knew I was going back for London and, hopefully, all them.

  The drawer banged shut beneath me and Robotatouille’s eyes narrowed on mine.

  I heard the shuffle of Dad’s feet and saw him enter the kitchen with Mom. “Have you checked your room yet, Vienna?”

  My room? That’s right. I had an actual room. That was mine.

  I shook my head, ignoring Robotatouille’s eyes on my back, and followed Dad to my room.

  “Take a look.” Dad opened the door, and I wanted to laugh.

  The room was perfect.

  Exactly the way it had been before.

  My fingers traced the fresh coat of paint on the walls, across my brand new closet door—where the robot had gone flying through—my resurrected picture frames, my books all fully restocked and restored.

  My room was everything I was supposed to be.

  The same.

  I rested my palm against the wall.

  And I bet under all those coats of paint, the scars were still there, the scars still lurked, hidden deep inside the support beams.

  And here I was staring at a room, pretending everything was okay.

  When it wasn’t.

  A bubble formed in my throat starting to build, wanting out, until I turned and met Dad’s hopeful face. One look at him and I swallowed the pain down into my stomach.

  “Thank you,” I whispered instead and Tamera pounded against the fracture in my mind.

  I can’t hurt my parents again.

  I’m sorry, Tamera.

  I removed the Band-Aid and spread caulk over the fissure of my wall, deadening out Tamera’s cries.

  I looked up and found everyone staring at me.

  I shifted.

  “We’ll give you some time,” Dad said. Mom opened her mouth but Dad shook his head, helping her out of the room.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Alec tilted his head.

  “How am I supposed to be all right?” I strode toward the window. “How can they pretend everything is all right?”

  “Who says they are?” Alec asked, suddenly behind me and cupped his hands over my shoulders.

  “But aren’t they?” I gestured back at the room. “I feel like it’s their way of saying they expect me to be who I was before I left.”

  Alec leaned me back into his sturdy chest and rested his chin on my head. “No one is asking you to do anything, Vienna.”

  “I just”—my shoulders shook—“can’t help it. I keep thinking about London. And leaving her there. All alone.”

  “You’re allowed to.”

  “Alec?” My voice sounded lost and forlorn even in my own ears. “How am I supposed to go on from here?”

  How am I supposed to pretend to live a normal life?

  “We take one hour at a time. One day at a time. That’s how I got through. And that’s how we’ll get through.”

  I don’t know how long we stayed like that, holding each other in front of my window, cascading in the sunlight, feeling the steady beating of each other’s hearts until Dad knocked on the door.

  I uncurled from Alec’s body and the vein in Dad’s forehead pulsed.

  “See you tomorrow,” Alec said, and kissed my forehead.

  “But—”

  Alec stilled my objections with a finger against my lips. “I’ll be back in the morning. And I’m never leaving you”—he cupped my face and those emerald eyes of his blazed into me—“never.”

  He kissed the tip of my nose and I shivered as he walked past Dad in the doorway. Dad watched him walk the whole way out.

  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.”