I became keenly aware of my sorry physical state as students from different Orders walked by, staring at us. I must have looked like I'd survived a battlefield. I guess I had. "It's late for them to be up, isn't it?"
"We have different training exercises that run throughout the day and night."
A tall girl with red hair and the mark of the Teutonics on her tunic stared at me as she walked by.
Jax tugged at my hand as he glared at her, dark eyes narrowed. "Mind your own business, soldier."
Her mouth snapped shut, and she hurried off as Jax increased his speed, and I rushed to catch up.
We entered a large hall with couches, chairs and tables scattered throughout and a huge hearth roaring with a fire. Above it hung a tapestry embroidered with the Teutonic Knight symbol. Only one student occupied the room: a long, lanky man reclining on a couch in one corner, a large leather book covering his face as he slept.
Jax crossed the room and slapped his boot. The man jolted awake.
"Get to bed, Saunders. You'll be useless to me tomorrow otherwise."
"Yes, sir," he said and scrambled out one of the doors, not even sparing a glance in my direction, which I appreciated.
"Tomorrow you'll be given a room in the Initiate's wing," Jax told me. "But for tonight, you can have my room. I'll sleep out here."
He led me through the door on the East side of the hall and straight into a suite with a sitting area, a study area and a bed. I saw touches of the Jax I knew in the room—his favorite baseball glove and ball sitting on his desk, a stack of comics I recognized from home, jeans and t-shirts strewn about, familiar pieces of a life that no longer existed for me. Mixed in with this were other items I'd never seen—a sword with the Teutonic Knight symbol engraved on the pommel, a ring bearing the same mark, two sets of armor on dummies in the corner, one light and one heavy… pieces of his life I'd never known existed.
He cleared his throat and went to his closet to get a towel and some clothes. "I know these will be too big, but they're clean and will do the job until I find you something more appropriate."
I accepted them, the smell and feel so familiar to me. These were the sweats he’d always worn when we’d had movie nights at his house. When we'd fall asleep with the television on, a bowl of popcorn between us, not waking until the next morning. The memory made my eyes burn with the heat of unshed tears.
"Thank you," I said.
He looked like he wanted to say more, his face full of unspoken thoughts. I paused, waiting, but he just nodded. "Help yourself to anything. I'll be back with some food."
He turned and left me standing alone in this half strange, half familiar space of memories.
I went to the bathroom and saw my reflection for the first time and trembled. It wasn't as bad as I thought. It was worse. I looked like the scene from Carrie, where she was bathed in blood. Only this blood was human, and some of it was mine. Perhaps even most of it. But a lot of it also belonged to my parents.
I waited, expecting the pain to overtake me, but I'd buried it too deep for it to surface now. I pulled out the Token of Strife from my pocket, and the memory chip from my shoe, peeled off my clothing and dropped the pile in the small wastebasket by the toilet. My hands were steady. Numb. I looked around for a place to hide my two treasures, settling on the box of tissues on the toilet.
Turning to the mirror again, I stared at myself. My pale skin was covered in bruises, cuts, scrapes and gashes. But the bullet wound I'd been most worried about had healed considerably. I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen myself in color. I looked so much more different than I'd imagined. I tugged on a long strand of my silver blond hair, rubbing a bit of blood out of it. My eyes were bloodshot and tired, but the blue silver of my irises had an unearthly quality that was disconcerting.
I couldn't look anymore... not until I'd cleaned up.
I turned the water to the hottest setting until steam filled the bathroom, then stepped in, bracing myself against the burn of the water. I let it soak me as rivulets of bloody water circled the drain. I washed my hair four times, until nothing but clear water ran through it. And I scrubbed my skin until it nearly peeled off my body.
As the last of my parents' blood, now just a stain of pale pink, pooled at my feet, a dam inside of me broke, and I fell to my knees in the shower and sobbed, my body shaking with grief. I couldn't stop. Couldn't quiet myself as my sobs grew louder, a keening brokenness tearing out of me.
I didn't hear the knock at the door. Didn't realize Jax had come in until he entered the shower and wrapped his arms around me as he sat under the water, fully clothed, holding me.
In that moment, I didn't think about his lies, his alter-identity. I didn't think about what our future would be or what I would do tomorrow. I just clung to my friend, to the person I'd grown up with, to the only one who knew me inside and out. I clung to him as my heart broke, and he gave me his strength even as he mourned with me. Even as his tears mingled with mine. Even as the water chilled... still we sat there, embraced in our shared grief.
I hadn't been the only one who'd lost family today. My parents had been his family too. Whatever else had happened between us, whatever else would happen later, he was my brother in this loss, and I couldn't shut him out. I needed him too much.
Time passed, but I didn't feel it. Everything stood still until finally my sobs subsided, and I could breathe again. The pain didn't go away but buried itself in my heart. It created a new home in me, nursing on the anger that had begun to swell there.