Marrow

“I guess I’ve been gone too long. But that’ll be different now that I’m coming back.”

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, wondering if he thinks I’ll be driving back to the damn Bone every week to see him. Fat chance. I stick a slab of chocolate in my mouth to keep from bursting his bubble.

“My therapist told me you aren’t real,” I tell him.

He grins at me. “I’ve always been too good to be true, Margo.”

It’s the same as it’s always been. I keep my eyes fixated ahead, trying not to look at all the things that haven’t changed. I don’t see the wet paper cups lying in the gutters, or the smoke from the food trucks curling into the sky. I definitely don’t see the high school girls wearing mini skirts and hanging all over boys who will get them pregnant and leave shortly thereafter. Judah chats cheerfully next to me, but I don’t hear him. I turn down Wessex and pull into Delaney’s driveway. It takes all of five minutes for me to drop his bags off at the front door and help him into his chair.

“Come inside with me, Margo,” he says. “My mom would love to see you.”

I shake my head. “I have to head back,” I lie. Before he can say anything else, I’m back in the Jeep and backing out of his driveway. I don’t go to the eating house, even though I can feel it calling to me. I pull into Mo’s driveway. He must have been standing near the window, because as soon as he sees my car, he comes outside, his eyes narrowed. When he sees it’s me, his shoulders lose some of their tension.

“Well, well … look who’s back,” he says. He’s not smiling. My stomach does a little turn as I slam the door and walk up the drive.

“Hey Mo.”

“What you want, girl? You never been the drug type.”

I grin. “I came to see Little Mo, actually.”

He looks surprised. “Yeah, he’s in his cage. You can go in. Want to watch him for a bit. I have some business to take care of.”

“Sure,” I say. He doesn’t even go back inside the house. I watch from the open doorway as he drives off in his Lincoln. Mo has never invited me into his house. I suppose he’s desperate enough to let his former neighbor play babysitter to his motherless son. Little Mo is playing with a set of plastic keys as he sits in a stained pack-and-play in the living room. His face is smeared with chocolate, but other than that, he looks fine. When he sees me, he smiles. I can’t control the utter happiness I feel. We spend the afternoon together, and when he naps, I walk around the house and look in Mo’s drawers. I find tiny baggies of cocaine under the bed he shared with that child-beating whore, Vola. I empty them out one by one into the toilet, then I re-fill each bag with flour and replace them. When I drive out of the Bone, long after the sun has gone down, for once I feel refreshed. I haven’t thought about Leroy in hours. My mind is a clear sky.

A WEEK LATER, I drive to the Bone to pick up Judah and deliver him back to SeaTac airport.

“How was it?” I ask as we cruise onto the highway. The air is warm, and my hair is whipping around my face.

“Good. I’m ready to come back.”

“Great,” I say. But it’s not great. Judah going back to the Bone feels like a bad omen. If the Bone can call him back, what can it do to me?

“You don’t mean that,” he says. “You hate that I’m going back.”

“Yeah.”

We don’t say much after that, but when we cross the water into Seattle, he asks me something that makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

“Did you do something bad? Is that why you don’t want to go back?”

“Why would you say that?” I narrowly miss hitting a car and swerve back into my lane. I press my foot against the accelerator.

“When I asked you about it in California, you ran. Didn’t even say goodbye.”

“There’s more than one reason I did that,” I say, thinking about Erin/Eryn/Eren.

“Margo, tell me what you did … also, you’re going really fast.”

I change lanes, then change again. I can see the tension in his upper body. I cut off a semi and the driver blares his horn.

“I killed Vola Fields and Lyndee Anthony. I killed a man in an alley who was trying to rape a girl.” I hesitate for a moment before I add, “And then I tried to kill Leroy Ashley.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Traffic gathers along my exit. I slow down, but I want to keep driving, keep going fast.

“Who is Leroy Ashley?”

“A rapist,” I say.

“But, you haven’t killed him yet?”

I glance at him, and he’s looking at me.

“No.”

I see the relief.

“How do you know?”

“How do I know what, Judah?” I flick the hair out of my eyes, annoyed at his questions.

“That he’s a rapist!”

“It’s a long story,” I say. “But, I know.”

He’s rubbing his jawline, looking out the window then back to me. If he had working legs, I wonder if he’d already have asked to be let out of the car.

“Why, Margo? Why didn’t you go to the police?”

I laugh. “Are you kidding? After what happened with Lyndee? Judah, why are you even saying this to me?”

“Why did you have to kill them? You could’ve…” He’s focusing on the women, not Leroy. Maybe because I haven’t killed him yet.

“What? Sat them down and had a nice little chat with them about what they did?”

“Maybe … it seems more reasonable than taking someone’s life.”

I think about this. Possibly for the first time. Why did I have to kill them?

“I had no proof,” I say. “The police wouldn’t have done anything. I believe in swift justice.”

He slams his fist on the dash, and then keeps it clenched as he speaks to me through his teeth. “You are not the law. You do not get to administer your own brand of justice on humankind. How could you be so stupid?”

“Stupid?” I sound distant when I say it. My tongue is fat with the confessions I’ve just made. I never considered what I did to be stupid. I never considered what I did. I just … did what my body told me to do. I moved like a person who has cut ties with her mind and was relying on the guidance of some deeper force. A possession of sorts.