BLOOD AND BONE | rewritten

9

"You ever seen a dead body before?" Jaxon asked Kane as they walked side by side down a hallway with a repeating pattern of archways. Their lone movements echoed off the columned walls. Everything was a perfect polished gold.

"Yes," was all Kane said. But they were not like the one he'd seen today. They were all young enough for the puppy fat of their faces to offset their rigid bones, even in death. He would never forget how wrong the fly-infested wounds looked in their unblemished skin.

"As bad as the one earlier?"

"Worse."

"Cool." Jaxon gave an appreciative nod. "You're sure you didn't cause any? Not even a little bit?"

"I'm sure." Kane had enough wrong with him as it was.

Jaxon made a hum of disapproval, but didn't try to converse further with Kane's brick wall of a personality. It was better he let Jaxon down now than later.

Jaxon was going to be the one doing the heavy lifting; Kane was only there as backup. Stepanov claimed she wanted him to accompany Jaxon to spy on the autopsy in the case that any involved parties took personal liberties. Kane knew that meant she sent him to keep Jaxon in line.

Why did she send him? Did she think Kane was more trustworthy than everyone else? She must not have sensed his willingness to sell everything in her palace for just a few sheets of drug money.

"Starting here, we should be invisible for the rest of the way," Jaxon informed him. "Give me your arm."

Kane physically recoiled. "No."

"What, you'd rather I hold your hand?" His dark eyes rolled. "I've only done this once before. Humor me."

Kane's brows furrowed as he repeated, "Only once?" They were going to be found out. They were going to be found out, and if there were conspirators in the autopsy room as Stepanov suspected, things would get very complicated.

"You think I won't be able to do it?" Jaxon's voice still had the usual devil-may-care lilt, but it had deepened to reveal a coldness Kane hadn't known was there. Daring him to answer negatively.

Holding his arm ever so slightly from his side, Kane relented. He would rather deal with nonchalant Jaxon over whatever was underneath. His teammate slapped a hand to his shoulder, which was level with Jaxon's chin, and shoved Kane forward.

They were invisible. Kane looked down at himself, preparing for the horror of seeing nothing at all. But his body was there, as was Jaxon's, just dimmer and translucent, like their existences were merely a mirage. There was no pain or loss of feeling, but there was a distinct wrongness that flowed from Jaxon's hand on his shoulder to the rest of Kane's being. It was what he would expect being struck by a low voltage of electricity would feel like.

He marveled at the feeling the entire way to the room where the autopsy would take place. As Jaxon fitted the Minister-issued key into the lock, Kane envied the ease with which Jaxon could escape anything he desired. If he was uncomfortable, vulnerable, scared, or overwhelmed, he could be out of sight just like that. If Kane was him, he would never appear again. He was aware of how sickly he looked, but he was forever feeling like everyone was staring at his turned back, secretly judging the inner turmoil he'd unsuccessfully tried to keep hidden.

They were alone with the body. Kane didn't look at it, even as Jaxon pushed him forward to get a better look. He then yanked Kane back as the two coroners entered the room with an unknown Bereyski official. Their appearances were just as grim as Kane would have expected coroners to look.

"As you can see, the chest was split open by a serrated blade, which had to be at least fifteen point two four centimeters. We can see this due to the damage done to the sternum and..."

They were meant to listen to the entire report so that they could relay it to the Minister, which she would later compare to the write-up her official gave her. Though Kane and Jaxon would have little means of deciphering whether there was a cover up on their own, this might have been an interesting job-had Kane not been completely unable to focus. The coroner's voices just sounded like noise. He blinked twice, hoping it would clear his blurred vision. It did not.

Knowing Jaxon could still see him, he tried to appear as if he was paying rapt attention. Visage had a notoriously long and grueling withdrawal period that could last weeks, made more severe by the level of addiction. Kane's was monstrous.

The nausea and sleeplessness of the first few days had morphed into the constant sensation of needing to vomit, cracking headaches, and his heart pounding so fast he was sure it would tear an artery. Occasionally, he could ignore the symptoms. Speaking to Jaxon might have been uncomfortable, but at least Kane's social awkwardness temporarily overrode his symptoms.

Once again, Kane did his best to listen. He really tried to care about the words and what they meant. But his sabotaging thoughts drifted to the body. The bone-chilling stillness took root in his chest. Not because of the brutalized thing itself, but because of who it reminded him of.

The body. Oh, god, the body. The tattered flesh. Eyes as glassy as marbles, widened in an eternal expression of shock. So distinctly unalive. Was that how his brother had looked?

No. No. Kane refused to be sick here. His chest was suddenly heaving. Through his haze, he wondered if his vomit would be invisible too. Likely not. What a cruel trick that everyone would have to see his shame at last.

Eons later, the autopsy report was over. Kane didn't take his eyes from the body, fearing the moment he did was the moment his bland Bereyski breakfast would be all over the floor. The coroners pulled a shroud over the corpse. Kane tried to summon his earlier discomfort at Jaxon's physical contact. Anything to hold him over.

They were barely back in the hallway, both ends devoid of people, before Kane wrenched his shoulder from Jaxon's grip and made a beeline for the restroom. He had no sooner shut the stall door behind him when he was bent over the toilet, retching. He allowed his body to rage at what he'd done to it.

He heard Jaxon's chuckle from the restroom's entrance, booming off the walls. He'd likely drawn the conclusion that Kane was too weak-hearted to handle the sight of a dead body. Kane was too humiliated to care. It was better for Jaxon to think he was a person with normal emotional reactions than just a pathetic drug addict.

Wiping his streaming nose, Kane sat back and prepared himself for the mortification of facing Jaxon outside the stall. He tried to rub the bleariness from his eyes. No one would know how badly Kane screwed himself over, how deeply he lusted for white powder. No one but himself.