His cheeks flush, and he shrugs that it’s fine. I look sideways at Marcella, and she lifts her eyebrows curiously.
Sydney comes out of the bathroom in a towel, her hair wrapped up in another. She places her hand on her chest in relief when she sees me. She comes to join me on the bed, and the others crowd around while I tell them everything I heard at Winston’s house.
“I hope Claire’s okay,” Brynn says.
“I’m sure she is,” I say, although I have no idea. Then again, I don’t imagine Raven would hurt her. Fix her? Yes. Maybe spy on her on bit. But not destroy her. Not with the way she loves our tech.
Sydney tries to brush my hair off my forehead, but it’s stiff from dried sweat. “You should take a shower,” she says. “And Jackson has a first aid kit if you need help with those scrapes on your thigh.”
Jackson flinches at the idea of me being hurt, but he doesn’t look over. “Yeah, I’ll clean it up for you if you want,” he says.
“He’s weirdly good at it,” Sydney says. “Like a little medic.” He laughs.
“That’d be great,” I tell him. Jackson seems sad, but I have to admit that although there’s still so much wrong, being with the girls and with Jackson instantly feels like home.
I get up and cross to the bathroom, closing the door to shower.
Hot water and torn skin are a terrible mix. When I’m done showering, in a significant higher amount of pain than when I started, I wrap myself in a towel and call to Jackson. I sit on the edge of the tub and he pokes his head in the doorway nervously, as if making sure I’m dressed. I wave him in.
The room is still a little steamy, but it dissipates quickly. I watch as Jackson sets up a first aid station on the counter, and when he’s done, he puts his crutches aside and finds his balance.
“Show me,” he says, motioning to my leg.
I push up the edge of the towel to show him the scratches on my outer thigh. They look worse than I imagined, and Jackson winces when he sees them. He eases into a kneeling position in front of me.
“I don’t think of you like that, you know,” he says, opening one of the alcohol pads.
“Like what?” I ask.
“I don’t think of you as a machine,” he says, looking up at me. “And I don’t think of you as a status symbol. Both the investor and those guys at Ridgeview are wrong.”
“What do you think of me as?” I ask. “And you can’t say ‘a person.’?” I smile at him. He reaches to tenderly wipe my scrape with the alcohol, and I suck in a breath and grip his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he whispers, finishing up before getting a gauze pad.
“I think of you as Mena,” he says simply as he tapes the edges. “Just … Mena. No other label required.” He pauses with his eyes lowered.
“I’m kind of in love with you too,” he adds quietly. “I just… I don’t know what I want to do about that yet.” He looks up at me again. “Is that okay?” he asks.
I nod that it is, my heart beating faster. We stare at each other, close together in a motel bathroom as he kneels on the dirtiest floor I’ve ever seen.
“It’s understandable,” I add, starting to smile. “I’m the rebel type. That’s what the investor told me at his house when he thought we were going to kill him.”
“Huh, did he now?” Jackson replies, getting up to put the first aid supplies back inside the box. “Since he was being so revealing, did he admit to being the creepy perverted type? Or was he the raging sex-monster type?”
“The first one, I think,” I say, pretending to be sure.
Jackson shakes his head and then grabs his crutches. “Come on,” he says, reaching out his hand to help me up. “I was going to buy us candy from the vending machine.”
“Always saying the right thing,” I say, slowly letting his fingers slide from mine as we walk back out into the room with the others.
I still have nightmares. I sleep in the bed with Sydney wearing one of Jackson’s T-shirts and a pair of his boxers. Marcella and Brynnare in the other bed while Jackson takes the floor between us.
In my dream, Anton is waiting for us at a train station. For a moment, I’m not sure if I’m in the past or the future. He looks older, but I feel younger.
“I gave you this life,” he says, holding an ice pick in his hand. “And I can take it away.”
When I turn to run, something catches my ankles, pulling me down. And then I’m being dragged along the train platform, screaming for help while others, humans, just watch curiously.
