Melanie’s leg had stopped hurting after about three weeks. Her soul hadn’t yet.
She wanted to be angry with the others—Martin and Jon especially, but Sasha and Gerry too, and maybe even Tim—for not noticing what was going on with her. How had they not seen that she was getting so out of control, that she was being consumed by the Slaughter? How had none of them asked about her leg? How had Martin not even Looked at her? And she couldn’t bring it up with them, because they’d probably have some logical, rational explanation, like that it was so gradual they hadn’t noticed, or that she’d have bitten their heads off if they’d tried. Or at least, she told herself that was why she was annoyed. And it was true, kind of, but honestly, she was more angry with herself, because those arguments would have been true.
Why couldn’t it have been something sudden and dramatic, like the statement about the Murder Club they’d looked into? Or something obvious even as it was gradual, like Martin’s growing dependence on the statements? But then, they hadn’t really seen that getting worse until he’d come back from America and Elias had declared him the Archivist. And the only reason they’d noticed anything to begin with was that they’d already known how his Mark had affected him, kind of. They hadn’t thought Melanie’s Slaughter Mark was affecting her like that; after all, it wasn’t the Buried that made her seek out small spaces to squish herself into in times of high stress, she’d always been like that. Why would they have assumed that her being so angry all the time, when she’d always been ready to fight at the drop of a hat, meant she was being affected—or infected—by the Slaughter?
And yet…and yet.
As Melanie stared at her reflection in the mirror of the washroom at the Institute, taking in the pallor, the circles under her eyes, the hair dangling in her eyes and hanging past her shoulders—she hadn’t realized it was getting so long—she remembered the airport when Martin left for Beijing. She’d been so angry—with the situation, with Elias, with Martin for not being able to come up with a better excuse—but trying her level best to hide it because she didn’t want Jon to get more upset than he was. Every time she’d swallowed back the rage, her leg had given a renewed throb of agony.
And Jon had noticed. He’d asked her about it, and she’d brushed him off. There’d been other times, too—Sasha offering her paracetamol seemingly at random, Tim giving her piggyback rides unprompted while they staked out the House of Wax, Gerry suggesting she might want to get checked out again—but she’d ignored those as well. And the cats had avoided that leg entirely, something she hadn’t picked up on until she sat down after putting Nod in Daisy’s lap and Wynken had promptly loafed herself on top of the stitches and started purring her head off. Nobody had pushed her further. She guessed she couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to deal with her anger. She didn’t really want to deal with her anger.
She sighed and turned away from the mirror. She and Sasha had spent the night in the Archives; Daisy was unwilling to leave, or maybe just afraid, and Martin, perhaps remembering the uncomfortable weeks he’d spent alone while being menaced by the Corruption in the guise of Jane Prentiss, insisted she not have to stay alone. The only way to keep Martin—and by extension Jon—from spending every single night in the Archives was for the others to take a turn at it, and last night Sasha had managed to convince him to spend a night at home. Since Melanie had slept in a bit later than she wanted, she had only just woken up when Jon and Martin arrived and had had to walk past them in her rumpled pajamas. Not that neither of them had seen her like that before, but still.
The shower facilities in the Institute were primitive, but functional. Melanie scrubbed her scalp down and then began washing the grime off her skin. As she often did these days, she paused long enough to trace the puckered ridge on her upper thigh. Seventeen stitches, and the doctor at the clinic had complimented Martin on his precision but agreed they would need to watch out for infection. Still, he’d told her it would probably heal cleanly, and she likely wouldn’t even have a scar.
Well. She knew better. Much like Jon’s shoulder, Martin’s chest and hands, and the worm holes that still dotted both of them—worse on Jon, who was an absolutely terrible patient—not to mention the white streak at Martin’s temple and the one on the side of Gerry’s head, this was never going away. At least it wasn’t actively killing her anymore.
She washed the soap off and shut off the shower just before the hot water ran out, squeezed the majority of the water out of her hair and toweled off roughly, then tugged her pajama bottoms back on. Screw it. Wasn’t like they could get fired anyway, and she wanted to be comfortable today. That was also why she put on the Sinner’s Gin tour shirt—because she wanted to be comfortable. It certainly had nothing to do with what it represented to her. Then she gathered her other things and stepped, barefoot, out of the washroom.
One good thing, if you could call it that, about Peter Lukas’ tenure at the head of the Institute was that they very rarely encountered people from other departments walking around, so Melanie didn’t have to justify her attire, her attitude, or her wet hair. Still, best not to push her luck, so she chose not to duck into the break room for tea or cocoa and instead headed back to the Archives.
Sasha sat behind her desk, a cup of coffee at her elbow and a pile of papers at her side, leaning way too close to the screen of her laptop; she really needed to go in for an eye exam, but always claimed there wasn’t the time. Daisy was curled up in the chair behind what had once been Basira’s desk, feet on the seat, arms draped over her knees like a beggar in a pantomime or a painting of Primitive Man Around The Fire, her face haggard and normally keen amber eyes haunted. She was looking up at Gerry, who was perched on the edge of Tim’s desk, cradling a mug of tea in both hands; Tim had his own chair turned around backwards and was leaning over the backrest, blatantly more interested in whatever was going on than in any actual pretense at real work. Melanie didn’t see Jon or Martin, but the door to the Archivist’s office was slightly ajar and the light on, so probably they were in there for some reason.
“—long night,” Daisy was saying, her voice quiet and slightly ragged. “It’s always harder after a nightmare.”
Gerry nodded. “Yeah, I get it, trust me. The problem is you’re expelling a lot of fear, which takes energy. So you start reaching for something to refill that energy. And because it’s Fear-related, the Hunt is promising you the exact kind of energy you want. Need, really.”
“I—” Daisy’s hands clenched over her knees. “I can’t do that.”
“No,” Gerry agreed. “But there are ways to get around it. We’re both a bit lucky there, too. The Hunt was an animal fear before it bled over to people, and there are definitely animals aware enough to fear death, too.”
There was a moment’s pause, and Daisy uncurled very slightly. “Are you saying I should go chase the pigeons in Trafalgar Square?”
“No, I’m saying you should go chase squirrels in Hyde Park. Pigeons aren’t afraid of anything,” Gerry said, deadpan. It got a surprised laugh, albeit a small one, out of Daisy, and Melanie covered her mouth to muffle her own snort. “Seriously, though. There are ways to satisfy the Hunt without…Hunting people. I, uh, usually end up finding hospice units and lurking in the hallways. There’s usually someone dying, and I can…kind of passively absorb the fear that comes from knowing their lives are at an end, or the fears of the family members that they’ll be next. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. I used to feed off the rats in the alleys around the bookshop, but the little bastards are quick, I can’t always catch them anymore.”
“Maybe you should work together,” Sasha said absently. “Daisy can hunt the rats and you can subsume their souls once she’s got them cornered.”
Gerry paused. “That’s not a terrible idea, actually. If you’re up for it, Daisy.”
“I…maybe,” Daisy said uncertainly. “Won’t it…I mean, it won’t split the difference?”
“That’s not how it works. Fear’s not a finite resource. Besides, we’ll be feeding off different points of the fear. You’d have the fear they felt at being followed, chased, backed into a corner…and I’d have the fear of knowing it’s the end of the line.” Gerry took a pensive sip of his tea. “I mean, we have to be a little more active about it than Martin does. The Eye can get at least a little bit of satisfaction out of the statements, even the written ones, if Martin’s experiencing them for the first time. But there’s something we can do, anyway.” He studied Daisy for a moment, then added, “What’s really worrying you about that?”
Daisy looked conflicted. After a moment, she asked, “Should we really be working together?”
“Why not?”
“It’s just…it’s something Martin said once. Said we shouldn’t be relying on other people to keep us human. That we had to do it ourselves.”
Gerry snorted. “Martin’s smart, but he doesn’t know everything. And since I’m guessing this was last year when Elias Bouchard murdered Leitner, he knew even less than he knows now.” He pondered for a moment. “Or maybe he just phrased it badly.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s like…like getting sober, or, well…” Gerry grimaced and gestured at himself, a bit self-deprecatingly. “Or quitting smoking. We have to want to do it for ourselves. If we only want to stop, or try to stop, because someone else wants us to, then yeah, it’s not going to stick. Trying to rely on just yourself…it’s so easy to lie to yourself, to convince yourself that you’re beating it and that just one won’t be so bad. That’s why Basira is in so deep. She’s convinced she can just count on herself and it’ll be fine.”
Daisy flinched at Basira’s name, but nodded. “She’s always been like that.”
“I thought you were partners,” Tim said, speaking up for the first time. “She didn’t ever rely on you?”
“Of course.” Daisy stared at the floor, or at least in the direction of the floor. Melanie got the impression it wasn’t the floor she was seeing. “If it was a situation where I knew what I was doing, she’d…trust me. She just expected I’d do the same when it was her taking the lead.”
“So…not partners,” Tim supplied. “Just whoever was in charge in any given situation. Basira doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who sees the world in shades of grey.”
“Not helping, Tim.” Gerry rapped his knuckles lightly on the top of Tim’s head. It made Melanie smile a little—God knew he’d done that to her enough times.
“I guess,” Daisy said uncertainly. She slumped. “Makes me look pretty stupid, then. Trying to anchor myself to someone who—”
“You’re not stupid,” Gerry cut in, his voice gentle but firm. “She was the only person who was there for you for…how many years? And she accepted you as you were, which was what you wanted at the time. Just not what you needed.” He softened. “Look, I’m the outlier here—I kind of went from zero to avatar in five point two, you know? But Martin…he was luckier than most. He came into his powers sort of gradually, at least at first, and we all knew what was going on, so we were able to give him something to hold onto, pull him back when he started getting too close to the edge. Even I had them to keep me from just giving up and buying a holocaust cloak and a scythe and lurking in graveyards.” He ran a hand over Tim’s head. “And then I met Tim and Sasha and Jon, too, and they got tangled into this mess, and they gave me more anchor points. Same with Martin.”
Daisy messed with one of the folds in her jeans. “I don’t have that, though.”
“Yeah, you do,” Gerry assured her. “We all know what you’re dealing with…to varying degrees. We’ll help you however we can.”
“It’s—it’s not the same, though, is it? I don’t have…” Daisy glanced at Gerry’s hand, still resting on Tim’s head, and then cut her gaze away quickly.
Tim huffed out a laugh. “Doesn’t have to be…whatever you want to call this. I mean, yeah, we’ve got this, and Martin and Melanie are his siblings, but Jon and Sasha are friends and they’re just as important. And then there’s whatever Jon’s turning into, or trying not to turn into or whatever. Just because Martin is his strongest anchor doesn’t mean he’s his only anchor. Hell, I’m pretty sure Jon was the biggest factor in slowing the spread of that Slaughter bullet through Melanie, and they’re more what I would term ‘partners in crime’ than anything else.”
That struck Melanie in the chest like an almost physical force. She’d been mentally nodding along to everything Gerry—and Tim—had been saying, recognizing all the ways Martin held onto his humanity…by the tips of his fingers and the skin of his teeth sometimes, but still, human. Until Tim said that, though, she hadn’t realized how close she had come to losing it altogether. She’d been angry, sure, the Slaughter had been affecting her…but now she found herself mentally recategorizing everything she’d done in the last year—the way she’d acted towards Georgie after she’d revealed the cause of her and Jon’s breakup, the screaming match she’d had with Tim over the tapes, the various murderous thought’s she’d had towards Elias, the relief she’d felt when the things attacked the Archives and she had an excuse to go after them.
Fuck.
“Where’s Martin?” she asked, coming into the circle of desks proper.
Daisy jerked up and went tense, obviously startled, then slowly relaxed. Gerry glanced up at her. “Document Storage. Morning, Neens.”
“Morning.” Melanie dropped her sleep shirt and towel on the seat of her own chair and headed towards the room, then pushed the door open.
The cot was still in here, but none of them really used it much anymore; they tended to sleep out on the main floor so as to be more aware if things attacked. Still, it made a useful place to sit, and Martin and Jon were seated on it, Jon with his head resting on Martin’s shoulder and Martin holding him tightly. Both looked up as she came in.
“Move. I need a hug.” Melanie crossed over to the cot and wedged herself between them, the way she always did with Gerry and Martin. Jon made a couple noises of protest, then shifted to put his arm around her as she practically crawled into Martin’s lap.
Martin hugged her tight. “Rough night?”
“Rough morning.” Melanie clung to Martin’s jumper and fought back the tears. “I owe you an apology. Actually, I owe you a lot of fucking apologies, but…”
“Why, what grievous sins have you committed lately?” Martin said lightly.
“Don’t give me that. I…Jesus.” Melanie took a deep breath. “I almost let myself turn into an avatar of the Slaughter. I almost killed you. And I haven’t apologized for it. I, I wanted it in there, I wanted the anger, and…”
“Hey.” Martin’s tone grew serious. He kissed the top of her head lightly. “You’re my sister. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yeah, well, I’m apologizing anyway.”
“Fine. Then I accept your apology.”
Melanie waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. Then again, had she really expected it? She hadn’t asked for Martin’s forgiveness, and she hadn’t earned it either. And there was more to it than that, there was the whole…making amends thing. She’d have to work on that. For now…at least Martin knew she was sorry. And he’d accepted her apology.
“I’ll give you two some space,” Jon said. There was a creak as he got up from the cot, and he slid his arm away gradually, his fingers lingering briefly on the back of her neck before he traced a small curlicue and let them trail off. It was such a typically Jon gesture, the little sign-off before he broke physical contact, that it made her heart ache even more. There was a rustle and a small shift, and then the soft click of the door to Document Storage closing, and Melanie and Martin were alone. They sat for a while, Melanie just pressing her face into Martin’s chest, Martin rubbing his thumb absently against her shoulder in yet another familiar gesture.
“This sucks,” she said finally. “I hate knowing that I hurt you and I can’t change that. I hate realizing just how goddamned angry I was for so long, and that I just…let it happen. I hate that I’d have probably killed someone a lot sooner if anyone had actually tried to intervene, and I hate that now that it’s gone, I kind of miss it.”
“And you hate that I get to keep the Archivist powers,” Martin said.
Melanie glared up at him halfheartedly. “And I also hate that I genuinely can’t tell if that was some Archivist bullshit or just an educated guess.”
“I’ve known you since we were seven, Neenie. Up until you stabbed me, the only time you ever actually, seriously got that mad at me was when we were ten and I didn’t drop out of chorus because you found out you weren’t going to be getting into the pointe class. Remember? You screamed at me that it wasn’t fair I got to keep going when you couldn’t.”
Melanie flushed as the memory, which she’d repressed pretty thoroughly, forced its way back into her consciousness. “Yeah. I remember. I was mad at you up until you were so shocked that I didn’t keep going to my classes, because I said what was the point if…and you said you thought I enjoyed it and that was why I was even dancing in the first place.” She sighed heavily. “I’ve burned a lot of bridges with my temper, haven’t I?”
“And sunk a lot of ships. And salted the earth for good measure,” Martin agreed.
Melanie couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “Jesus. I need therapy.”
Martin laughed, too. “Don’t we all.” He reached down and tugged her hairbrush, which she’d actually forgotten about, out of the back pocket of her pajamas. “Sit up. Your hair’s going to dry with those knots in it.”
This was familiar territory, too, and Melanie wasn’t sure she deserved it, but she complied, sitting cross-legged on the cot with her back to Martin. He was always gentle with her when he did this, no matter how badly tangled it was, and the delicate way he picked up a handful of hair and carefully began working out a nasty knot without pulling on her scalp felt a lot like forgiveness to her. “Is it long enough to braid?”
“I think so, yeah.” Martin began working the brush through her hair. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m not sure therapy would actually help all that much.”
“Might be good to have someone to talk to who wasn’t in the middle of all this bullshit.” Melanie thought that over. “Then again, I’m not sure how much I could actually talk about my issues without…you know, going into the Fourteen and all that. And I don’t think that would make much of a difference.”
“Yeah, I don’t think the NHS employs that many people who know anything about this,” Martin said dryly. “And if they do, I doubt I’d want to talk to them.”
“Spiral, you think? Convincing you your problems are all in your head?”
“Or the Flesh amping up your body dysmorphia until you’re willing to let it do drastic things to make it stop. Or the Web convincing you to give into your impulses. Or the Eye pulling your secrets out before you’re ready to share them. Or—”
“Okay, okay. I get the idea.” Melanie sighed. “Mum’s the word.”
“I didn’t say that,” Martin said, surprising her. “If you want to try it, I’ll certainly support you. Won’t even ask you what you’re talking about or offer to help you figure out how to phrase it. I just…” He took a deep breath. “Did I ever tell you I went and saw the school counselor a couple of times, after I tried to kill myself?”
“No, you never mentioned that.”
“It was one of the conditions of them letting me out of hospital. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I went and saw Ms. Lorraine during my study hall. Just for a couple of weeks, though.” There was a plunk as Martin pulled through a particularly tough knot. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t feel anything.” It took a lot of effort to keep from turning her head to look at him, but Melanie managed. “What happened? I mean, why did you stop talking to her? Because you convinced her you wouldn’t try again?”
“I dunno. It was hard to explain why I’d done it without talking about the Spiral, you’re right about that. I had to do a lot of improvising,” Martin admitted. “But we talked about other things, too. Mum being sick, and Dad leaving, and even Granddad dying. That was really why she stopped our sessions, honestly. She said therapy was great and all, but that there were some things I would never be able to deal with while I was still in the middle of them. A wound can’t really start healing if it’s actively being held open, you know?”
Melanie swallowed and started to nod, then stopped herself. “Yeah, I know what you mean. And it’s hard to pick out what problems are tied up in the bullshit Mum and Aunt Mary dragged us into that we’ve never been able to climb out of and what problems are just…problems I can recover from. Losing Mama, that I can probably talk to someone about if I’m not over it, but even losing Dad, now that I know Mum was making him sick…”
“Well, she was helping, but the Fears do tend to build on what’s already there. I think Dad would’ve deteriorated early anyway even if Mum hadn’t intervened. Just…maybe not quite that fast.”
“Still. I can’t really talk about how much losing him hurt to someone who doesn’t understand…”
“That your stepmother was exploiting his condition? That I think you can talk around pretty easily.” Martin began separating her hair into sections. “I dunno, Neens. I know I sounded like I was being sarcastic before, but I think we all do need therapy, to one degree or another. I just don’t know what good if we’re still actively in a situation. And it’s not like this is a situation they can give us advice on getting out of.”
“You know I still won’t ever leave you, right?” Melanie asked quietly.
“I know, Neens. Just like I won’t ever leave you.” Martin paused in his work to lean forward and give her a tight hug. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Martin.” Melanie snuggled back against her brother for a moment, relishing the moment of calm and familiar peace in the midst of all the—also far too familiar—crazy that was her world. “That’s never going to change. No matter how angry I get or what happens, I’ll always love you.”
Martin squeezed her, then let go and resumed his braiding. He began humming under his breath, then singing softly. Melanie recognized the tune instantly. It was the song that had started their love of sea shanties, the one they rarely pulled out except in lighter moments or dire circumstances, the one that had inspired them to sing shanties to burn Leitners. The one that always made her feel better when she thought about it. Martin’s very first solo.
Tears pricked her eyes, but that didn’t stop her from joining in with Martin when he got to the chorus again. “Leave that poor old stranded wreck and pull for the shore…”