Sparked (The Metal Bones Series Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter 22

I felt my face heat as everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at us—me still in his arms, and then at the door beneath Alec’s feet. The cold wind howled behind us.

“She’s okay. Right?” Bonnie zipped back into the room, holding a suitcase.

Alec eased me down and pinpricks cascaded all over my body.

“Nothing happened to her,” he said, and I was grateful he didn’t say anymore.

“That’s all we could ask for.” Bear nodded and shoved another can from the pantry into a bag.

“We’re ready.” Peach came out of the room with a checklist in her hands. She eyed me but didn’t say anything.

I felt her message all the same.
This is your fault.

Only this time she was right. This time, it was my fault.

A cold rush of air blew across my skin, knotting my hair around my face, and the door creaked beneath my feet as Alec and I moved off of it.

“Let me do it.” Alec said, maneuvering around me to put the door back into its place.

I watched his muscles bulge beneath his shirt, and I tugged at the collar of my suddenly too-tight parka.

“It’ll need new hinges,” Alec said.

“I didn’t mean to run from you.” My fingers clutched the collar of my parka.

“We can talk about it later.” Alec put a chair against the knob. “We need to move.”

“But still, I’m sorry.” I grabbed his hand. “You opened up and I just . . . ran away from you when you did.”

“Vienna.” Alec sighed. “We can talk about this in the car later.”

“Still. I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He stopped in the process of hauling one of the bags over his shoulder. “I’m not.”

“You’re not?” I frowned. How could he possibly not be angry at me at me for what I did? And putting us all at risk?

He stepped toward me and every nerve in my body came to life. “You can run as many times as you want. Forever.” He halted when we were nose to nose, well nose to chest, and my blood pounded in my ears. “As long as you kiss me like that every time after.”

A zing shot straight through my entire body.

“Alec—”

He hushed me with his finger. “Once we’re in the car.”

I kissed his finger, even though the others were moving around us, and his nostrils flared, tightening my stomach muscles.

He took one long glance at me and then turned back to what he had been doing.

“I liked it, too,” I said and walked away before I could see his reaction.

I sat in the car, warming my hands on the heater, watching as the crew revealed the use of their specific robot skills.

Kyle had extinguished the roaring fire in the fireplace with one deep breath, Peach had somehow magically replaced the hinge and when she went to lock the door her hand morphed into a key to do it, and Bonnie had turned into a snowplow machine shoveling two feet of snow out of the way faster than any machine could dream of doing it. Bear’s contribution was a strong bang on the cars’ hoods, freeing them from the mountain of snow.

To say
whoa
around this group, would be an understatement.

Everyone had automatically filled in, helping where they were needed.

Much like a well-oiled machine.
No
. I shook my head. Much like a family. A family that knew how to work together.

I grimaced. Would I ever fit in? Just sitting here, in the car? Not being useful to anyone?

I rubbed my frozen nose and listened to the wind howl outside. Additional heat filled the car when Alec sat inside.

A thud sounded outside after Alec closed the car door. Ice and snow flew through the air, over Bonnie’s head, landing all over the place. Pieces twice as big as my body soared through the sky. Another crashed into a nearby tree and took out half the branches.

Bonnie was . . . amazing.

“No way,” I breathed.

Alec nodded. “Way.”

I pursed my lips. So Alec knew some human slang. Nice.

“I hope . . .” Alec sighed, leaving the keys hanging in the ignition. “I just hope we don’t seem too weird to you.”

I snorted. “Name one person who isn’t weird.”

“Does that mean you’re comparing us to people? Human people? Did I just hear correctly?” He made a show of cupping his ear.

I looked into his green eyes and smiled. “Yeah. Maybe.”

His lips twitched up into a smirk and my heart flipped.

“The road,” Peach yelled through the window in front of us, and I jumped in my seat. “All clear.”

The road was clear. Completely. And it had only taken Bonnie a couple of minutes.

“Peach means well. She really does.” Alec’s voice softened. “Peach has always been watching out for us. But recently”—he watched her walk away—“she’s taken it to a new level. I know she cares, it just doesn’t show like it should.” He rubbed his head. “Peach is part of us. We stick together. No matter what. We’re always there for each other.”

I played with a button my jacket. Peach fit. But would I fit? Would I fit in with robots?

Robots.

No, I corrected myself. People. They were people, too. A different kind but still people.

I tried to sleep but when I closed my eyes all I saw was Crooked Nose, running toward me, playing with his pocket watch, and the soles of his feet from when I was slung over his shoulder. Amazing. Out of everything, that was the thing that bothered me most. Not Alec ripping him apart. Not a shredded piece of an arm with electrical cords sizzling against metal bones in the snow next to me. No. It was
him
. Stalking me. Laughing at me. Tossing me over his shoulder and running. Maybe that was what scared me the most. Me, being taken some place where there was no turning back. Where there would be no more
me
.

No more anything.

I opened my eyes, trying to take myself away from the images, and what did my eyes do? They immediately drifted to Alec’s face, and lingered on his full, lush lips. New images flooded my mind—his hands, his chest, the warmth of his breath, his scent. The assault of the new emotions surfaced within me, and I winced.

We still hadn’t talked about the kiss, and I didn’t know if I should wait for him or if he was waiting for me.

I leaned back against the headrest.

We’d been driving for six hours. Six long hours. My legs were stiff and my lower back ached. I tapped my foot against the floor, trying to restore feeling. Pins and needles stabbed their way up my knees. I sucked in a breath and clenched my teeth together.

I wasn’t equipped to deal with this. Any of it.

Mom. Tamera. I pushed them away.

I needed my friends. Sydney would know what to say, Carmen would know what to wear, and Jayla would know what to do. I need them. It was too much. I pressed my lips together. It was all too much.

“You haven’t said anything the whole trip.” Alec traced his hand on the steering wheel. “I thought you’d at least be curious about where we’re going.”

I hugged my jacket against my body. So this is the conversation he chose to break the silence. Not,
Now is later.
Not,
I still remember our kiss.
Not
, I still remember the way you felt in my arms.
Not
, I want you.

I pulled my hoodie over my head. And why was I so darn afraid of bringing it up? “It’s not like you would tell where we’re going anyway.”

I felt his eyes on me. “What’s wrong?”

That I want you. That I miss the way I feel in your arms.

I turned away. “Nothing.”

And just like that, Alec shut down. Both of us ignored each other, pretending the same dull dead trees passing by were more interesting than I wanted them to be.

The radio deejay chose this moment to play a sad, slow song that I didn’t know. I became aware of Alec’s closeness to me, of the distance of his body from mine, of his warmth running through me, and of the reason we were on this expedition, in this car. Me. I was the reason he was putting everything on the line, putting everyone on the line.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t. You want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”

“The kiss,” I said.

“I thought you liked it.”

“And I thought you said
you
liked it.”

Alec’s warm hand slipped into mine.

“I did.”

And with those two words, his warmth poured over me. I wove my fingers deep into his and he squeezed, locking our hands together.

I latched on to him. On to his support. On to his strength. Everything would be okay. Everything would be all right. Mom. Tamera. My friends. School. This wild-goose chase. It was going to be okay.

We drove like that for some way. My head pressed against the cool windowpane, his eyes focused on the road, our hands clasped together and my eyes . . . my eyes focusing on nothing.

Nothing at all.

I once heard how people partitioned their minds. They secluded the images, the things they couldn’t face and put them away, into a section of their mind where they locked them up and threw away the key, until a time when they could face them. A survival mechanism, waiting until they’ve built up enough armor to face their demons.

I wondered if I’d been doing that my whole life. I wondered if that was why it was so easy for me to do it now. With Tamera. Had I been doing it all along with Mom? Did I have two separate places, one where nice, happy, smiling Vienna lived and another were lonely, scared, depressed Vienna lurked?

I must have, because that was exactly where I pushed Aunt Tamera, to the back of my mind, to the space where I kept Mom. Like true sisters, they could share the space together. Only for different reasons. For very different reasons.

I forced Tamera there, with Mom, staring at me, and then lowered the wall, leaving them locked behind the partition.
I’m sorry,
I told them. But I couldn’t deal with the love, loss, and heartbreak, and even though I was locking them away, I knew I was locking away part of myself. And it hurt. Like I was denying something from the very fiber of my being. But I had nothing left to give. Nothing.

As of now, it would be over. That was then. This is now. They will be sorted out sometime later, in the future, when I could bear to open it. Not now, though. Not now.

I twisted in my seat.

Alec’s hand brushed against mine, and I froze.

I forgot about that—about his hand in mine.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Define the meaning of
okay
,” I said.

“I know. There’s been a lot put on you.”

I tapped my foot on the bottom of the car floor. “Tell me,” I said, “I want to know, about life as a robot.”

He pulled his hand out of mine and rubbed his face.

Electric jolts shot up my arm.

“What do you want to know?”

I wanted to know him. A look inside the hard-core exterior of Alec, of the commander, of Green Eyes . . . of my savior.

I tugged at my lips, my finger gliding over the chapped skin. “Whatever you want to tell me.”

He laughed, a harsh bitter sound. “It’s nothing to romanticize about.” He tapped his fist against his knee. “Believe me.”

“Then tell me the good parts.”

“You mean the gore, the savagery, the rules and commands aren’t the good parts?” He shook his head.

My fingers traced the threads in my jeans, following their uniformity. “So there was nothing then?”

Nothing good or beautiful? Nothing unique to them? Nothing special?

The car motor hummed, filling the air, telling me more than he ever would.

“I see,” I said and curled into a ball on the seat.

What did I think was going to happen? That he was going to open up? To spill his soul to me? It had only been a kiss. One kiss we shared. It didn’t mean I had been granted access to his soul.

His hand raked through his hair and my eyes burned, remembering the closeness, the comfort he had given and then so sharply taken away.

I tucked my knees under my chin and leaned against the door, still feeling his warmth radiating through the car, through me, still feeling his presence next to mine, still feeling too close.

Still feeling him.

I guess kisses don’t open all the closed doors. I guess sometimes kisses don’t mean much at all.

Chapter 23

We took a rest stop and I walked to the end of the street and sat on the curb facing the city below. Whatever city we were in now. I hadn’t been paying attention to the signs. Did it really even matter anymore? I might be traveling like this forever. I might never see my friends again. I might never see my family again. Dad. Mom.

Mom?

I choked and I felt Mom bang against the other side of the partition, her echoing cries vibrating in my head.

I imagined the barrier and put everything I had into reinforcing it, making the walls, the doors, the floors, everything, soundproof—I clasped my head and focused—strengthening the walls, watching the fortifications seal the gaps as I pushed them up the wall and then . . . I relaxed.

Blissful silence. Nothing but calm and tranquility.

“Vienna?” A warm hand rested on my shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”

Bonnie’s hand rubbed my shoulder, and I opened my eyes. Now there was no banging. Only silence. Wonderful silence.

“Yes. Help me up.”

Bonnie wrapped a hand around my waist and hauled me against her. We headed toward the car and I saw Alec standing outside.

I stiffened, remembering our last conversation and his unwillingness to open up to me.

Bonnie ran her fingers through my hair. “He’s not used to it.”

“To what?”

“To you.” Bonnie pushed me toward the car.

I stumbled and opened the car door, feeling Alec’s eyes on me.

When I peered inside the car, I saw that two more books and another box of the chocolate chip cookies I liked so much sat on the floor. 

I closed the door and flipped to the back of the books.

“I didn’t mean to shut you out,” Alec said.

“Then don’t.”

“Vienna,” he said with a sigh. “I’m not . . . I’m not the hero you make me out to be.”

“You’re not the monster you make yourself out to be either.”

He traced his hand on the steering wheel. “You don’t know how bad I wish that was true.”

“It’s true.” I flailed my arms in the air. “You’re not a monster. And you never will be.”

“But you don’t know . . .” He tugged at his shirt, trying to cover the scar that rested on the side of his neck. And I knew the flashbacks he was having, the memories going through his mind. But he wasn’t the only one with demons in his closet. He wasn’t the only one with two sides.

“And I don’t care.”

“How can you say that?” His fists tightened against the steering wheel. “You don’t even know anything about me.”

“Then tell me.”

He snorted. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

I grunted.

And you wouldn’t want to know about the soundproof wall in my head.

I crossed my arms. “You can’t know that.”

His voice deepened. “But, Vienna, you haven’t seen—”

“I was there!” I bolted out of my seat. “Where were you? I was there. I watched the whole thing. I watched you rip him apart, and you know what? That’s not what scares me. That’s not what haunts my thoughts when I close my eyes. That’s not what creeps into my mind and freaks me out when I’m alone. You’re not it. You’re actually the only
one
that even comes close to making everything okay. You’re the only reason I can close my eyes and don’t start screaming. So stop with the
you haven’t seen
. I have. And you’re the reason it’s all okay. So stop.” I breathed in gulps of air and turned away from him. “Just stop.”

I dropped my head into my hands and my heart pounded against my ribs.

What have I done? What have I told him?

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to make everything go away, trying to take my words back.

“What’s your favorite color?” he whispered.

My body shook.

“What is it?” His voice softened.

“Yellow,” I croaked.

“Yellow?” His lips caressed the word. “Mine’s red.”

“R-Red,” I stuttered, trying to figure out what game he was playing.

“Red,” he reaffirmed, and then I felt his finger gently lift my chin. His breath tingled against my face. “Ask me what my favorite thing to do is.”

I hiccupped and my chin wobbled in his grasp.

He smiled, his green eyes glowing, devouring my face.

“What’s your favorite thing to do?” I asked.

I watched his eyes darken, turning a deep-forest evergreen. The soft pad of his finger traced my lower jaw. My stomach tightened.

“Nature.” His thumb continued to stroke my cheek.

I felt his warm breath on my face, his heat burning its way into me, his wood-pine scent taking over my body.

“Nature?”

He let go, and my face tingled.

“I like to watch, to learn the way things move, how they were created, how they live, how they adapt. The beauty in it. The way things crawl, the way they climb, how they hold on when the wind blows, how they glimmer in the sun. The ease they have.”

“The ease they have?” I stared at the delicate scar on his neck.

“The beauty in the simplicity.”

I frowned, trying to absorb his words. “And how do you see that?”

The corners of his mouth turned up. “It’s in the way the leaves turn as they blow, the way the birds arch their necks before they fly, the way petals float before they hit the ground.”

I stared at him. Mesmerized. I’d never thought of anything like that as beautiful before.

“I’ll show you.”

“You’ll show me?” I twirled a strand of my ponytail and envisioned us in a grassy plain with him trying to point out the little things scurrying, floating around that I’ve never seen before, or rather that I’d never cared to see before. Alec showing me the beauty in all the things I’d missed. And I wanted it. I wanted to see life the way he saw it. I wanted to see it—with him.

A robot, full of hard lines, ridges, and edges yet as gentle as a bunny, as sweet as a puppy, and as in love with nature as Mother Earth herself.

What a beautiful contradiction Alec was. What a beautiful juxtaposition. What a beautiful creation of Earth he always will be.

Peach and Alec needed to figure out strategy, which was why I was now I sitting in the passenger seat with Bonnie, my fingers white, clutching the seatbelt for dear life.

We cut off another car and dodged around two more that were clogging the lanes, riding the brakes down the highway.

I couldn’t stop my eye from twitching or my throat from gulping. It really would be a shame for it to all end here.

And yet, every time I went to tell her to stop, I couldn’t. She looked free, happy, and beautiful. The more I stared, the more beautiful she became, the more her skin shone, the higher her cheekbones appeared, the bouncier her hair became, and the more her eyes smiled. She was beautiful—for a human, for a robot, for anything—she was simply stunning.

With my free hand, I traced the planes of my face, feeling the incongruities and the blemishes.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours?” Bonnie asked.

“Nothing.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure, I can see the wheels turning in your head.”

“And they’re all about your driving,” I said, and tightened my grip on the seatbelt.

She laughed, her bubbly voice filling the car. “Wait till you drive with Kyle. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Thank you for the warning. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Mental note: Never drive with Kyle.

“Are you excited?” she asked. 

I eyed the sign. “For Texas?”

“It’s beautiful.” She beamed. “And the best part, only three hours left.”

“My back thinks that’s wonderful.”  

“Mine, too. Believe me, I’d have stopped the twenty-five hours ago if I could’ve.”

“Don’t remind me.” I stretched. “I don’t know how you did it, all that time with only Peach in the car.” I shuddered.

“Peach isn’t that bad.”

I clicked my tongue. “Then why isn’t she nice to me?”

“It’s not you. It’s the decisions”—her voice caught—“others make.”

“You mean Alec’s decisions? Like the one to save me? Because now I feel even better.”

“Peach used to be much different. Peach used to be happier. Things . . . used to be so different.”

“Like how?” I tipped my head back and tried to conjure up an image of this  “new” Peach, of this “nice” Peach.

“Well,” Bonnie said, “she used to sing.”

“Sing? Peach?”

Should I laugh?

“She had some voice, and when she sang, I would close my eyes”—Bonnie’s voice lightened—“and let it drift through me. I would stop and listen before I walked into the room. It was something to hear. Everyone loved it.” Bonnie shook her head. “I miss her singing.”

“Why’d she stop?”

“The day they took Alec. Sometimes, at night, I would hear her humming herself to sleep.” Her voice stilled. “But it wasn’t the same. Her voice could fill ballrooms and form goose bumps on your arms. Even her humming was beautiful, a lonely, broken, sweet melody.”

My heart fell into my stomach.

“But then she stopped that, too,” Bonnie said. “After . . .” She pressed her lips together. “After me.”

“You?” My eyes widened. “What had happened to you?”

“He’s not here anymore,” Bonnie said.

“Who’s not?”

“Steve. My Steve.” Bonnie’s lips trembled.

“Who?”

Bonnie’s eyes zoned off.

I pressed my lips together as I looked between her and the car that just switched into our lane, the car that we were suddenly approaching. Way. Too. Fast.

“Umm, B-B-Bonnie?”

We were going to collide.

I fumbled across the seat and grabbed the wheel. The car swerved, its wheels skidding off the road, turning into the ditch. My fingers cramped around the wheel. The car slid back and forth. Dust pitched against the windshield.

“B-Bonnie!” I screamed.

Her eyes snapped into focused and we flew back onto the road, into the flow of traffic.

I sagged into the seat and rested my palm against my beating heart, breathing in and out, in and out. I was still alive.
Calm down.
I was still breathing.
It’s okay.

“Oh my god, Vienna,” Bonnie gasped. “I’m so, so sorry. Crap.” Her shoulders shook and tears filled her eyes.

“Bonnie? Hey? Shh . . . It’s over. It’s—”

“I nearly got us killed! Again,” she screeched, and all the joy and light fled her eyes.

A-Again?

“Crap!” Bonnie sobbed and slammed her hand against the steering wheel. “It almost happened. It almost . . .” She let out a cry.

“Nothing happened.” I rubbed Bonnie’s shoulder.

“No. No. No-No,” she whimpered.

“Pull over,” I said. “Pull over now.”

We turned off onto the side and the car came to a jolting stop.

“It’s over,” I said.

Bonnie shook her head.

“Bonnie, look at me.”

“I was the last straw.” Her chin wobbled. “I was the final thing. I’m the reason. I’m why Peach is this way.”

“Bonnie you can’t blame—”

“No.” She shook her head. “This is exactly what happened last time. This was what happened after he died.”

“After who died?”

“Steve.” She clenched her fingers in her lap.

“Steve?”

She nodded. “My match.”

My blood froze in my veins. “Your what?”

My world was suddenly spinning. Bonnie had a match? Bonnie had a—

“He was human.” Her lips quivered. “Like you.”

“Like me?” I sat back in my seat.

Oh no.

“Steve was my everything. He was my shelter from the world. The place I could always be myself. The place I never had to worry. He was my everything. And now h-he’s gone.” Her shoulders sagged. “And I’ll never get him back. Never get to spend another minute with him. Never get to see him smile again.

“After I lost him . . .” Bonnie’s eyes clouded.
I lost everything that mattered,
they said. “I lost myself.”

My fingers traced the smooth leather of the door handle. She lost everything that mattered.

“I left the crew,” she whispered. “Really they asked me to leave. It was good they did. I was a liability. Sometimes, like now, I wonder if I’ll always be. I almost killed everyone on a mission. It was a simple mission. It was an easy one, in the bag, but I blacked out . . .” Bonnie swallowed. “The loss took too much from me. That’s why Peach hates you, because of me, because of what I did, because she’s afraid of the same thing happening to Alec.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s afraid of losing Alec. She’s afraid of what he’ll become, what he’ll do—if he loses you.”

“But Alec’s fine. He would never . . .” I looked into Bonnie’s heartbroken eyes, like large pooling orbs holding nothing but destruction and pain, and the words fled my lips. “Bonnie . . .” I crushed her to me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I wished I could have been there.

“Steve was my everything.”

I tightened my grip. “How long ago?”

“Two years, nine months, and twenty-two days. That’s the terrible part about loving a human.”

“We die?” I whispered.