Page 15 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

I clear the twigs away, pulling brambles back from the mound, brushing off leaves. Usually, I come here every month, before my appointment. But this past month has been… unexpected.

The grave underneath is small and low, barely noticeable this far off the track that traces the rocky escarpment north of Feston. Giants Peak, the mountain that Feston clings to the eastern slope of, blocks the view east from here.

I didn’t want her to have a view of the orphanage.

I sit on the grass beside her and place the handful of wildflowers I’d gathered on the way here at the head of it.

No cross, because she never believed in that.

“Frank Elvin is dead,” I tell her. “You never knew him. He knew none of us either, didn’t give a damn.

But he knew about us alright, profited from us.

Oh, and Declan Pastryachi. You’ll remember him, that older boy who tried to get us alone all the time, and then…

anyway. You threw a book at him when you caught him spying on us through the window.

He peed on my flowers too. Complete creep.

He didn’t change. Anyway, he’s dead now, too. ”

The wind whistles, and I take a deep breath. “They’ll all be gone soon. I’ll get them, before…” I stare at the mound, feeling too much of my own mortality. I’m not ready for that. But when has that mattered? “While I still have time,” I finish.

I glance towards the sky, the blue thats so rarely visible this time of year between the puffy white. “That’s four now. Four gone. Four to go.” Halfway. Not counting Declan. He wasn’t technically on the list. More of a bonus.

“I, uh, met a boy,” I say to the buzzing insects, the wind, and the birds. It’s never truly quiet here. That’s why I like it. Why Molly would’ve liked it. “He’s nice.” Then I laugh. “Well, he’s not actually. But he’s a similar level of broken as me. Cute, though.”

Idly I toy with a dead leaf, looking down at it over my crossed legs.

I lean forward, bracing my hands in the dirt, digging my fingers into the dry grass that’s grown over the grave, letting it get under my nails.

I don’t need words for that, for missing her, for wishing and wishing. But wishing never changed a thing.

Only vengeance matters now.

Maybe that’s what’s drawn Tristan and me together, nothing more.

He killed his sister. And I buried mine.

***

I never don’t break into a cold sweat as the MRI machine closes over my head, my body, my everything. Maybe this is what being in a coffin feels like.

“Aren’t we lucky to have one of these ourselves now? No more having to make trips to the mainland!” The tinny voice comes through the speaker while I try to steady my breathing. The machine hums and buzzes like it’s about to digest me.

“Mm, lucky,” I murmur, clutching my hands on my stomach over the clinical gown.

My feet are numb, my hands icy. This never gets less horrible, being pricked and prodded every month.

Packed into this machine twice a year. One day I’ll just stop coming, let whatever tumour that’s going to sprout its ugly head just come and take over, like it’s going to, anyway.

An hour and a million years later, I’ve got a little cotton bud taped to the inside of my elbow and all kinds of samples, in all kinds of jars.

I sit in the cold doctor’s office, dreaming of finally curling up in front of my fire until my skin feels hot to the touch and I can feel every digit again.

“All clear, again! You’re doing great,” Doctor Goodry tells me, like this is something I’ve achieved and not just dumb luck that’s going to run out, eventually. “Now remember, these things get more likely to pop up as you get older, so keep coming back, okay?”

“Mm.”

The doctor purses his lips, eyes on my face. He’s older, like most on this island, a skinny man with big, wrinkled hands, grey wispy hair and bright blue eyes.

“Paige. These are precautions we must take. With what you were exposed to…”

“I know.”

“We know harmful waves were used, given the markers in your blood, and other factors.” They were precise, though.

The same radiation that has rendered my womb ‘inhospitable’ left my ovaries untouched.

Dr Goodry assures me of this regularly, as though that’s a consolation prize.

Maybe that’s true. At least my hormones are fine, and I’m a regular woman in every way.

Except no babies, and probably an early death.

“But we can catch what comes up early, okay? It’ll be alright. ”

Last time, what came up was benign. Maybe they’ll all be benign.

“Sure,” I intone, feeling like the sullen teenager I was when I first started coming to him.

It was hard for me to trust doctors after everything.

He was the one who picked up my case, and the only doctor I’ve spoken to since.

Even when I had to catch the boat to the mainland, Goodry would come, bringing along a handful of others, usually older patients, to supervise them through the MRI and such, as well.

Sometimes, I think the stress of coming to this clinic, of not knowing, is what’s really going to give me cancer. Don’t they say stress kills?

These paper gowns, the faceless masks, all the cold and sterile implements, they’re what fill my nightmares, fuelling them anew with every visit.

I can never escape those fractured memories from so long ago, the reason I can’t have children, the reason I’ve got all these ‘markers’.

So long as I come here, they can never fade away and leave me in peace.

But the pain and fear serve as a reminder.

I might not have long. That’s what the last time showed me, a scare that turned out to be benign.

I realised then that if I wanted justice for Molly, for me, for the countless others, I’d have to get it myself.

No one else was moving to make these people pay, to tell the world what they did, and what they let happen.

By the time they get around to it, I’ll be dead.

So, I set about taking care of it myself.