The Bones Beneath My Skin

by TJ Klune

  Nate didn’t let himself think about that much. That way lay danger.

  There was an old dresser against the far wall near the small closet. It was the same one that’d been there when Nate was a kid. The large photograph on the wall was new, a framed picture of a lighthouse shot in black-and-white. The lamp on the chest between the beds was new too.

  Other than that, there wasn’t anything else in the room.

  Aside from two green duffel bags, one at the foot of each bed.

  They were the same, a deep forest green with a silver zipper that ran down the middle. They looked military issued, something Nate had expected.

  He went to the closest one first, at the foot of the bed nearest the door.

  He unzipped it.

  It was Alex’s.

  Three pairs of jeans rolled up tightly. A few shirts. Undershirts. Socks. Boxers.

  Nothing else.

  Nate felt almost guilty.

  Almost.

  He zipped the bag back up.

  The contents of the second bag were more… colorful.

  It was all clothes belonging to a little girl.

  A bag of scrunchies.

  There was a side pocket filled with rocks of different shapes and sizes.

  And nothing else.

  It almost hurt to see. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find. Something, maybe. Something that could have given him any further clue as to what he was dealing with. Of where they had come from. Of who or what they were running from. Something.

  Instead it was the barest of possessions.

  In the hall bathroom, there were two toothbrushes lying side by side next to a half-empty tube of generic toothpaste.

  In the shower was a bottle of bright pink shampoo with flowers on the label. A bar of green soap sat in the soap dish.

  It was like they barely existed at all.

  “What about school?” he asked.

  Alex stared at him. “School?”

  “Was she—should she be in school?” He was floundering. But he had to push. He had to. The pink shampoo made him. It meant that Alex had gotten it for her. It was the type of shampoo a dad buys for his daughter when she visits after a divorce. Like he didn’t know what else to get and only got it because it looked girly.

  But there was no other shampoo in the shower, and that meant he used it too.

  He had to ask.

  When Alex didn’t answer, he said, “You’re taking her back to her parents.”

  Alex said nothing.

  “Where are they?”

  “I told you,” Alex said tightly. “I can’t—you need to stop. You’re not going to get the answers you want.”

  Nate backed off.

  For now.

  They ate all their meals together.

  Art insisted on it.

  “People need to eat together,” she told Nate the second night when he’d tried to take his meal to his room. “You don’t have to be alone when others are near.”

  He’d thought about arguing against it.

  But she had big, big eyes and she knew how to use them.

  It was unfair, really.

  But he’d set his plate back on the table and pulled out the chair.

  Alex said nothing.

  But Nate noticed he didn’t take a bite of his own food until Nate did so first.

  Ruth didn’t call back.

  Nate checked.

  He thought about driving down the mountain. Just to be sure.

  He didn’t.

  The weather held. The stretches of days were bright and sunny, though still cool. Sometimes Art would take her book out onto the dock and lie on her back, holding the book above her face, her oversized sunglasses blocking out the sun. She would flip through page after page.

  Alex always followed her out.

  He would stand at the edge of the dock, eyes scanning the tree line.

  Nate could see the outline of the gun tucked into the back of his jeans.

  “Let me see,” Nate heard Art say as he came out of his room on the afternoon of the fifth day he’d been at the cabin. He’d just woken up from a nap he hadn’t meant to take, feeling particularly self-indulgent. He reminded himself he was on a vacation of sorts, though it wasn’t turning out like he’d expected.

  “It’s fine,” Alex said.

  Alex was sitting at the kitchen table. Art was standing next to his chair, her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. His beard was fuller now, almost looking a little wild. He’d need to trim it soon or it’d be out of control.

  “I know it’s fine,” Art said. “But it’s still good to check and make sure.”

  “I already checked.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her.

  She smiled sweetly at him. Then, “Nate, would you please tell Alex to take off his shirt?”

  Nate stumbled.

  They both turned to look at him.

  He ignored them, sure his face was bright red.

  “See?” Art said. “Even Nate thinks you should.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Nate managed to say. “Whatever you’re doing, I don’t want to know.”

  “I need to make sure his side is doing better,” Art said. “And he won’t let me check.”

  “If he says he’s fine, then he’s fine.”

  “Wow,” Art said, the glare turning to Nate. “I didn’t know it’d be you who betrayed me. Now I know what Old Man Brannagan felt when his nephew turned him over to the sheriff. Real bad, hoss. I feel real bad.”

  “You need to stop reading those books.”

  She shrugged. “I like them. Things make sense in them. Good guys are good guys. Villains are villains. The good guys always win.”

  “They do,” Alex said quietly, and it was one of those things that meant more than he understood.

  Art softened just a little. “I know. But that still won’t get you out of being checked out. Come on, partner. Off with your shirt.”

  “Why did you wait until right this moment to ask this?” Alex asked her, glancing at Nate for some reason.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Art said sweetly. “Are you going to do it? Or are we going to have to do this the hard way?”

  Nate didn’t want to know what that meant.

  Alex sighed. “Fine. But this is the last time.”

  And he lifted his white undershirt over his head.

  Nate should have looked away. He should have. It was the right thing to do.

  He knew this.

  But.

  He looked. For strictly professional reasons. That was it. He only wanted to see how Alex was healing. It had absolutely nothing to do with the miles of skin and muscle and hair on his chest and stomach. At all. It wasn’t like that for him.

  It wasn’t.

  The bruising was almost gone. There was the barest hint of color against his skin, but that was it.

  Even the scar had disappeared. Or the indent. Whatever it’d been.

  Art looked pleased. “Looks just fine. Nate? What do you think?”

  “Yeah,” Nate said. “Yeah.”

  Alex grumbled at the both of them and pulled his shirt back on.

  “You’re getting scruffy,” she said, reaching up, the tips of her fingers disappearing into the hair on his chin. “I can barely see your face anymore. Which is too bad. It’s a good face.”

  Alex almost looked embarrassed. “I don’t—it’s not.” He sighed. “I don’t have a razor.”

  That hit Nate square in the chest for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Alex didn’t look at him. He stared down at the table. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “He doesn’t like having a beard,” Art said to Nate. “He likes to be clean-shaven.”

  Nate said the only thing he could. “I have… a razor. A spare blade. Shaving foam. You can
—you can use it. If you want.”

  Alex put his hands on the tabletop. He flexed his fingers against the wood. His brow was furrowed. He looked put out.

  He was fucking aggravating.

  Art cleared her throat pointedly.

  “Fine,” Alex said.

  Art coughed loudly.

  Alex’s hands curled into fists. “Thank you.”

  After the door to the second bedroom was shut for the night, Nate went to the hall bathroom and left the razor and foam next to the sink.

  Alex was in the kitchen like he always was first thing in the morning, coffee in hand.

  A second mug sat filled next to the coffee maker.

  He had shaved.

  His face had an almost square shape to it, blunt and firm. His jawline was sharp, his neck thick. He had a small dimple in his chin.

  Nate stared.

  Alex snorted.

  “Feel better?” Nate finally asked.

  Alex shrugged. He tilted his head toward the coffee he’d made for Nate.

  They drank in silence.

  Art squealed when she saw him, demanding he come down to her level.

  He did.

  She ran her fingers over his face.

  “There you are,” she said. “I see you.”

  One of the first things he’d learned when he’d began his internship at the Post was that a good journalist knew which questions to ask, but they also knew when to keep their mouths shut and observe. “You can see things you might not have if you’d wasted your time talking,” Ruth had told him gruffly. “You don’t always have to talk. Let others do what they do and adapt from there.”

  Artemis Darth Vader did not go anywhere without Alex Delgado following.

  He was her protector, she’d said.

  A bodyguard, he’d said.

  She wanted to go outside?

  That was fine.

  Alex was right there behind her.

  She wanted to read on the couch?

  That was okay too. Alex was standing in the living room, near the window.

  She was in the bathroom?

  Alex was in the kitchen.

  Sleeping in the bedroom?

  Alex would open the door quietly, sticking his head in as if to check to make sure she hadn’t disappeared in the last fifteen minutes.

  He made sure she ate. Sometimes Nate made their meals. Other times, Alex did. When it was Alex, it was always from a can. He would set the bowl in front of her and made sure she took at least the first bite before he’d go back to the kitchen.

  He always served himself last.

  She had his attention. Always.

  “You can ask him,” Art was whispering. “He likes us. He’s not going to say no.”

  Alex muttered something in response, but Nate couldn’t make out what it was.

  “Fine,” Art sighed. “I’ll do it. You’re so weird. Nate. Hey, Nate!”

  He looked up from his laptop, where he’d been going through notes of stories that would never be written. He couldn’t bring himself to trash them, though it was close.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can we use your washer and dryer? We don’t have many clothes. We need to wash them.”

  Alex wouldn’t look at him.

  “Yeah,” Nate said. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t even think. Of course you can. The laundry room is down—”

  “I know where it is,” Art said. “When we first came here, I went through every room in the house. Alex said I was being nosy, but I was just trying to make sure no bears had gotten inside. They hadn’t. Which was good. I’ve never seen a bear in person before, but I imagine they are quite large.”

  Nate just nodded, which was beginning to be his default reaction when Art said something that didn’t quite land right.

  She beamed at him. “Thank you! Alex. Alex. He said we could. Come on. Get up. You are so heavy, jeez, get up, get up! You promised you’d show me how to do laundry!”

  Alex got up.

  Art raced down the hall toward their bedroom.

  Alex followed, albeit at a much slower pace.

  He stopped near the table.

  Nate looked up at him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Wow,” Nate said. “You’re getting better at that. I’m proud of you.”

  Alex scowled at him before going after Art.

  It rained.

  The surface of the lake was dark.

  Art stared out the window and sighed, her book forgotten on the couch.

  Alex asked, “Do you have a deck of cards?”

  It was the first time anyone had spoken in almost an hour. Nate looked up from his own book at Alex, who stood near the kitchen table. “What?”

  “A deck of cards,” he repeated. “Do you have one?”

  “Uh. Yeah. There should be one in the—hold on a second.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  Nate ignored him, pushing himself off the couch. He felt Alex watching him as he walked down the hall to the closet across from the bathroom. He opened the door and pulled the metal string for the light overhead.

  There were four shelves inside. The bottom held old towels.

  The next shelf had spare sheets for the beds.

  The third shelf had light bulbs and batteries and a couple of flashlights.

  The top shelf was stacks of board games.

  Sorry. Monopoly. Trivial Pursuit. Guess Who, which had been his favorite, though no one else had liked that one much. He’d hated Trivial Pursuit since it’d been an edition from the seventies. His dad had always won whenever they’d played.

  When he could convince Rick to play Guess Who, it usually only lasted a few minutes before Rick would get bored and start to cheat.

  Next to the board games were a couple of packs of playing cards.

  He grabbed the one from the top and closed the closet door.

  Alex was still standing in the same spot.

  Art was staring out the window. The rain sluiced down the glass.

  “Here,” Nate said.

  Alex glanced down at Nate’s outstretched hand. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s… I know it’s—”

  Nate shrugged. “It’s fine. You’re welcome.”

  Alex nodded. Then, “Artemis.”

  She looked over at him.

  He held the deck of cards up, shaking it slightly.

  Her eyes lit up. “Where did you get those?”

  “Nate had them.”

  “We have to play!”

  He jerked his head toward the kitchen table.

  Thunder rumbled overhead as she pulled out a chair and climbed onto it. He sat across from her. “You going to play?” she asked, looking up at Nate.

  He shook his head, unsure of what was happening.

  Alex pulled the cards from the box.

  He didn’t set the Joker aside.

  He shuffled the deck expertly. The cards sounded like the rain on the roof.

  He dealt two hands until the deck was gone.

  He waited as Art picked up her cards. She frowned in concentration, the number of cards too big for the size of her hands. “Cover your eyes,” she told Alex.

  And wonder of all wonders, he did. He reached up with one hand and put it across his eyes.

  Art pushed herself up on her knees in the chair, reaching across the table and waving her hand in front of his face.

  Nate swore Alex’s lips twitched.

  Once she appeared satisfied that Alex couldn’t see, she spread her cards on the table. She picked up any pairs and discarded them to the side.

  Nate knew this game. He couldn’t remember the name of it, but he knew it.

  She had the Joker.

  She looked up at Nate. “No helping him,” she ordered.

  Nate could do nothing but nod.

  She picked up the remaining cards and held them in front of her face, peeking over the t
ops. “Okay,” she said. “You can look now.”

  Alex dropped his hand. He picked up his own cards and moved his matches back to the table.

  “You can pick first,” Art said. “Because I did last time.”

  “How generous of you,” Alex said, dry as dust. He reached out and took a card from her, the one that stuck out above all the others that Art obviously wanted him to take.

  It was the Joker.

  She cackled.

  Old Maid. These two people whom Nathaniel Cartwright had been living with for a week now, who were on the run from something unknown, were sitting in his kitchen in a cabin in the middle of nowhere playing Old Maid.

  Art won the first game.

  And the second.

  And the third.

  By the time they finished, the rain had stopped, and she said they needed to go outside because there was nothing like the smell in the air after the rain.

  It was when she was standing by the door, Alex’s hand in hers, that she turned back toward Nate. “Are you coming?”

  Alex was looking at him too, waiting for his answer.

  Eventually, Nate nodded.

  They went outside.

  Art was right. There was nothing like the smell in the air after the rain.

  His skin was chilled by the time they came back in. He told them he was going to take a shower to warm up.

  He stood under the spray for a long time.

  He wondered how much longer they were going to stay.

  The water felt good on his skin.

  Art had changed into a pair of sweats that looked to be a size too big for her. The bottoms had been rolled up several times. She wore a sweatshirt that said DIVA on it. She looked ridiculous.

  She was standing in the hall, looking up at the photographs on the walls. He could hear Alex moving off in the kitchen.