After Grace

17. Xipe Totec

We were escorted through the camp like prisoners. All eyes turned to us and the sound of people working subsided, replaced by a never ending hush of whispers as they watched us pass through. Our weapons were taken to the reserve, only those assigned as guards were allowed to carry them within camp boundaries.

I had forgotten how small it all was. Though it was a different spot, they'd set everything up exactly how we had always done. I couldn't believe so many people lived in such close proximity to one another. What once gave me comfort was now suffocating.

Doctor Hamilton and with Mrs. Whitmore rushed out to us when they were told of our arrival. Both seemed ages older than I remembered. The doctor waved off our armed guard, the men left without protest. "They need water if you have it," Vicki told the doctor as he looked over the children.

"And Tom?" he asked, turning to me. I shook my head. His eyes drifted to the ground, as if trying to read the dirt.

"Come on, let's get that grime off your face," Mrs. Whitmore said as she took the children by the hand and led them to the medical tent.

"We should have helped you," Hamilton said looking up to me. "I'm so sorry Grace."

"Why didn't you?" Vicki asked, stepping between us. He turned to her in pained surprise.

"Vicki--" I said, but before I could finish, she pushed past us in a huff following the kids to the medical tent.

"Your face..." he said, putting his fingers on my chin and turning my scarred cheek toward him.

"It's fine. Don't even feel it anymore."

"Come see me when you can," he said and gave me a smile before turning to leave.

"We have to run," I told him. "It's not safe here." He looked back and considered what I'd said.

"Let me take a look at the children, then we can talk," he said and left.

I felt naked without my weapons. As I stood there, not knowing what to do with myself I began to feel their stares and hear their murmuring whispers. I crossed into the treeline and headed for the river. I took off my jacket and laid it on a large boulder on the shore. My hands were sprinkled in small cuts, my arms painted blue and black in bruises I didn't know I had. Sweat and dirt covered my hands like gloves. I dunked them into the freezing water. The hair on my arms stood up and the cold made me shiver, made my body want to fight. But I kept my arms in, I let the cold burn as long as I could before pulling my hands away.

My reflection burned orange on the water as the last light of sunset dipped behind the trees. For the first time I saw what Tamara had done to me. My eyes had sunk into my skull, my cheek bones cut sharp edges along my face. I was not who I remembered being.

"Grace," I heard a voice say behind me. It sounded like Joseph but deeper and raspier. Like me, he was thinner than when I'd left. His eyes took me in for a moment, not quite believing what was right in front of them. It took a few seconds before he truly recognized me. "I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"Not coming with you."

"It was my choice to go," I told him. "You've nothing to be sorry for."

"It's my fault you left, if I'd just told you--"

"I know why you didn't. I know I wasn't born here like you told me," I said. "I know what I really am."

"It doesn't matter where you were born, your choices are what matter."

"If that's true then I'm really in trouble," I said, turning my attention to the west where the sun had been a few minutes ago, there was no sign of it now. "I killed an unarmed man," I said. The words had been sitting like heavy stones on my stomach, I thought when I said them out loud they heaviness would fall away, but it didn't.