Bones was in his bed, settled into a chemical-induced sleep when he got the call from Randle. After Step pretended to be surprised by his cousin’s information, he disconnected the call and sat frozen in his ratty old chair, terrified to stand. There were no assurances that Bones would be alive when he got back, and he hated himself for caring. Giving a shit about people had brought nothing but misery into his life.
He stood, moved to her side, and avoided looking at her for as long as he could. Eventually, he tilted his head down. The doc had done a much better job on the stitching, and he had done his best to tend to all her other wounds, old and new. She looked younger than she had in months. For the first time that Step could remember, she almost looked girlish.
He considered a thousand ways to tell her goodbye, but decided there was no point. He couldn’t wake her and, even if he could, her mind would be too scrambled to understand where or even who she was.
He shuffled across the floor and counted in his head the steps he left behind, as if he were marking a buried treasure.