His finger rose and punched a button with a sharp tap. The glass coffin lifted, and the seal between the world and me broke with a clean suck. The cool air wisped at my bare arms and something feathered over my body, raising goose bumps on already shivering skin. I drew my knees up and covered my chest when I realized it was my clothing that had just slipped from my body. My hands brushed over a thick, plaited scar crossing my stomach. I shuddered as I remembered the knife going in and my life bleeding out so fast, the feel of being sliced open.
My clothes were torn from someone making way for all the needles. They were also somewhat singed, and when I drew my arms up, the fabric slid off me like pieces of burned cardboard. I was shedding my skin like a cricket. The image made me cringe.
When the glass lifted, I glanced around. A blood-soaked curtain splayed dramatically on the floor like a fan dipped in paint. I made a move towards it, but the tubes and needles twisted and splintered in my skin, halting me. With my spare hand, I started pulling the needles out with little ceremony, small, red dots forming all over my skin. I pulled a long one from my scalp and Grant winced slightly, but he made no move towards me. If anything, he was avoiding looking at my thin, naked body, my dark, legs swinging over the edge of the metal table like an underfed bird ready to take flight. When the needles were out, lying in a circle around me, I reached out to grab the curtain as I teetered on the bench. A spasm flowed through my arms again. You’re going to die.
Grant cleared his throat and I snapped my hand back to my body, unsure of what to do.
“By all means, please, cover yourself up. No one wants to see that,” he said, waving his hand at me as if I were a dead animal you stepped over and tried not to look at. He held up one knobbly finger, and I expected him to pinch his nose.
“I warn you not to run, child. The guards are outside the door. And I may seem incapacitated, but I am not. Dear.”
The ‘dear’ part was spat out, flung at me with as much condescension as he could manage.
“Oh… kay,” I mumbled, my fingers gripping the edge of the table as my body rolled and rippled.
I moved mechanically, grasping at what little control I had. My arms and legs were spastic with energy, shivering and wobbling like a newborn fawn. My eyes darted to the open window. A chill waved in with a misty rain. My feet hit the cool floor and I wanted to flee—kick his chair over and catapult through that window—but my body couldn’t do it. Not now. I was too weak. And definitely too naked. I wouldn’t survive the cold. I shuddered and bent down to scoop up the curtain. Before I could grasp my fingers around the corner, Grant was in front of me, handing the heavy fabric over with his eyes averted. I cautiously took it, so heavy in my hands.
This was my chance to take the pills. I turned away and brought the curtain, all crusted and wet in places, around my shoulders. The cold blood kissed my bare skin and my stomach rolled. With my back turned, I tried to lift my hand to my mouth to swallow the pills, but he clamped his hand over my arm and swung me around to face him. I snapped the curtain closed around me, and my body convulsed. I tried to contain it, but my limbs flung out, my hands opened, and the pills fell. His eyes were on my face, eyebrows arched. The pills landed in a fold of the curtain, out of sight. My mouth went dry as I started to panic. I had a minute or two at best.
Grant gripped the arms of his chair in alarm at the way my body was behaving, almost like he wanted to get up and help me. “Are you all… right?” he asked carefully.
Think. I bowed my head, feeling the poison churning through my veins, turning me blue from the inside out and eating at the lining of my body. I hunched down, pulling the curtain closer, the pills rolling under the cloth and to my feet. “I… I just need to use the bathroom,” I stammered, my voice crackled and burnt.
He sighed with confusing relief, and his wheels creaked away from me. “Guards!” he barked.
As Grant turned his head and yelled, I picked up the pills, slammed them in my mouth and swallowed, my eyes watering as I forced them down my throat.
The door crashed open like they had been waiting for him to shout out. Grant groaned in irritation. They moved swiftly towards me, grabbed me under the arms, and pulled me to my feet. I coughed from the sudden movement, the bitter taste of the pills grating the inside of my mouth.
Grant growled at the guards, who both stood to attention as he spoke. “Be careful with her. She is not yours to harm.” My stomach flipped, and my heart joined it.
“Wait!” I said around the bile pushing its way through my teeth. The men paused as I hung between their arms like a coat on a hangar. Grant stared at me incredulously but if I was going to die, I needed to know one thing, “The babies… are they okay?” Grant smiled, sharp like it was drawn on, turned away from me, and said nothing. My body jolted from sadness and nausea. “Bathroom,” I pleaded desperately to the guards as I tried to suppress the heaving inside. The blue liquid was trying to leave my body the only way it could and if they saw me vomit blue, they would know something was wrong.
The guards dragged me down the hall, my feet galloping to keep up with their haste. It was darker than a secret in this part of Este’s compound. The lights lit up as we walked and turned off after we passed under them. Strips of deep red and gold shone from the carpet as my body crimped and straightened like a cooked and then uncooked noodle. Hold it in, I warned my stomach. It shook its head in reply and folded in half inside me. I let out an anguished moan as the cramping worsened.
At this, the guard jerked me up close to his face and I thought he was going to hurt me, but he whispered in my ear, his breath hot and smelling of stale coffee. “He saved them all.”
Then he suddenly let me drop, my knees burning as they dragged me across the carpet.
The last light clicked on over a gray metal door. One of the guards slammed into it with his shoulder so he didn’t have to let me go, and then they hurled me into a bathroom stall, the curtain flying off as I tumbled towards the porcelain toilet bowl. I put my hands out on the seat before I hit my head, grasped at the curtain, and pulled it under the door. I kicked the door closed with my bare foot as I pulled the velvet around my shaking body and vomited blue.
Grabbing some toilet paper, I wiped the blue stains from the corners of my mouth. I searched out every blue splatter and quickly mopped that up too, flushing the toilet as the guard opened the door, his cheeks red with embarrassment at my pathetic state.
I stole a deep breath and tried not panic. My chest tightened. My heart was elastic, stretching thinner and thinner with every step Joseph took away from me. I knew I’d done the right thing, the only thing, but it didn’t stop the aching, the fear of being left alone in this place, with these people.
JOSEPH
I hadn’t moved since I told them what had happened to Rosa. My back was against a tree, my body tense and rough. I pictured her blinking her beautiful eyes open to the white light, cold and stark over her bare skin. A lonely light. It would drive in the realization that I abandoned her. It would tell her—in certainty—that I wasn’t coming back. I could feel her devastation. I could hear the empty sound of the glass moving away from her body. Exposing her, leaving her to fight without my help. I should be there.
My sighs lacked breath.
After a few pats on the shoulders and small bursts of tears, everyone had started to busy themselves. Move around me. But I was waiting for something, though I didn’t know what. When they did look up from the ground, from their packs, which they were mindlessly rearranging, it was too much. Their eyes were red. Wet. Angry. I banged the back of my head against the trunk harder than I should and watched the sky, clouds tearing open to reveal the stars. My tears had stopped but the raw, empty feeling was only beginning. I wanted to wish for something, anything. A different outcome, a way through, but there was nothing. Just the bruises on my back and the blood on my hands.
Rash was missing, my fault as well. After Pelo pulled him off me, Rash shoved him too and ran deeper into the
forest. They were sending someone to get him. I would have volunteered, but he didn’t want to see me.
I wish I had the option of escaping myself like he had.
A shirt landed in my lap. “Put this on, you must be freezing, man,” Desh said, attempting to sound light and failing.
“I’m not cold.” I’m as cold as stone, but I can’t feel it because I’m not here. I wonder if I’m dying inside?
“Please, Joe, you’ll get sick,” he said quietly. If I were myself, I would have told him people didn’t get sick from being mildly cold. Cold was a state, not a sickness. But I was a man I couldn’t recognize, so I sighed and pulled the shirt over my head.
Desh held a cup in front of my face. “Here. Drink.”
I shook my head but took it. I knew he wouldn’t leave me alone until I drank, so I took a sip. It tasted like blood and bitterness, stinging all the way down to my empty stomach.
“It’s just water. Why the face?” Desh’s head leaned to one side as he blinked at me, confused.
A man I hadn’t learned the name of yet threw a metal flask at me. It landed in the dirt, the word ‘courage’ etched into the silver metal.
“Maybe he needs something a little stronger.”
I picked it up and smelled the contents. It was pungent, like sterilizing fluid mixed with honey. I replaced the cap without sampling it, holding it in my fist. Desh yanked it from my hand and threw it back to the man.
“That’s the last thing he needs right now!” The thick eyebrows skimming the mustard-colored beanie the man wore rose slightly, then he shrugged and put it in his pocket, patting it like an old friend.
I stared at my friend, kneeling in the dirt with concern plastered all over his face. It was hard to handle. I didn’t want him taking care of me. I didn’t deserve it. I planted my hands in the grass and eased myself up, looking left and right, but there was no direction I wanted to go other than the one I wasn’t allowed to go in, so I collapsed back down.
How would I get a grip on this? I was a father too. I had to be better, for Orry. I owed her that at least.
“The handhelds,” I whispered. Desh didn’t know what I was talking about. I rolled my eyes and searched for Matt, finding him stacking packs against a tree. As I approached, he stopped, still bent over.
“Where are they? Where’s…” Patiently, he waited for me to finish. Her name felt like a gravelly lump in my throat. “Where’s Rosa’s handheld?”
Matt’s face fell as he stood up straight. “We hid them, past where the wolf carcasses were hanging, where we’d arranged with you. You didn’t retrieve them?”
I stood very close to him now. “Does it look like I did?” I growled, my palms open and empty.
Matt put his hands on his hips and took a breath. “Right.” I thought he was going to tell me I couldn’t go back, but his kind eyes relaxed. “We better run then.”
Desh stumbled across the campsite towards us. “I’ll come with you,” he said breathlessly.
I shook my head. “You’ll slow me down.”
He looked deserted. Scared. She would feel deserted. Scared. I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the windmill of emotions that kept turning in front of my face, never giving me a chance to catch up.
There was no guarantee, but I said it anyway. “I’ll be back soon.” We emptied our packs and put a single water bottle in each.
“We won’t wait for you if you’re late,” Gus warned. He tapped his watch.
We nodded.
We wound through the black trunks of the trees, sprinting as though we were being chased. My muscles burned, but it was a welcome distraction.
Matt kept up easily, running next to me. He didn’t try to talk. I got the sense no one knew what to say to me anyway. It was just the sound of our feet hitting wet ground and our own breathing.
I tried to pretend we were rushing back to the compound to rescue her. But I knew that was why Matt was next to me, his concerned eyes glancing sideways in my direction. He wouldn’t let me do it. After what I’d done, they’d kill me before I reached her, but part of me just couldn’t care. We ran in the direction of the hanging wolves, giving the compound a wide berth. They might be looking for us, although given the chaos I left them with, maybe not.
We got closer and our shoulders collided as we slowed to a jog, our attention elsewhere. To our right, the glow of a compound that would normally be sleeping slowed our pace. Sirens howled. A yellow haze of artificial light hung in the sky.
Matt stopped and put his hand on my shoulder, panting. “I’m not sure this is safe. They must be on high alert searching for you.”
Between breaths, I said, “No. The place is in chaos. I think we probably have a good shot of going unnoticed tonight.”
Matt was just a shadow in front of the glow and the trees. “Chaos? What do you mean?”
The words didn’t want to come out my mouth. If I spoke them, it made them true. It released some of what was inside, and I wasn’t sure I was ready.
“We need to keep moving,” I said, taking a step forward and trying to ignore him.
He caught my shirt and pulled me back. “Joseph. What happened in there?”
Just say it. I killed Superior Este. I killed all of them.
“Superior Este is dead,” I said.
Coward.
Matt’s hands fell to his sides. Even as a shadow, his body language was clear. Shock. “How?” he asked, his voice high with disbelief.
I shrugged, unwilling to admit it to anyone.
Matt ran a hand through his hair. “Was it Rosa? Is that why they have her?”
I didn’t answer. Which was as bad as saying yes. What was wrong with me? I was letting the girl who saved my life take the blame for my actions.
“Oh no,” he said. “I think we should leave.”
We were so close now. I could hear the red dot on that screen screaming for me. I needed it. Orry needed me.
“You can leave if you want. I have to find her handheld,” I whispered tersely. I picked up the pace, pulling away from the glow, from my crimes that felt like they were written in the sky. I needed to know where Orry was. He was my home now.
Matt lagged for a few seconds but caught up with me. We jogged silently, one ear out to the compound, ready to sprint away if we heard soldiers coming.
Cold air cleaned my lungs. I concentrated on the pain in my side and the burn of needing oxygen to feed my working muscles. If I could focus on the mechanics, maybe I could forget the unnatural tearing my heart was doing. Matt puffed beside me. Then he stopped breathing and moving. His hand shot out and pulled me down to the ground with a sudden jerk.
“Look,” he said mutedly, pointing his shadow of an arm. Twenty meters in front of us, torchlight crossed like swords in battle.
Loud voices whined through the dark. “This doesn’t seem important. Este’s dead for God’s sake!” a woman complained, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation.
“Mmhmm. Superior Grant wants everything back the way it was.”
Two women were tying the wolf coats back on to a newly raised line.
“Ugh! Who cares about this, though?”
“Maybe they will.”
“Who?”
The woman paused and teetered on her ladder. “The murderers.”
My throat closed, memories of loud shots and falling bodies clamping around me.
Murderer.
I gulped and tried to push it down, hide from it, until I could get out of there.
Matt signaled to me, pointing to a pile of rocks at the foot of the tree the wire line was tied to. My head rolled to the sky. Of course it would be there.
The women were still yapping as I crept closer, keeping my body low to the ground. One stood with the torch in her mouth, her hand clamped over the dried-up paw of one of the creatures. She put an iron peg in it and climbed down her stepladder. As she dragged it along the ground, I stole as close to the tree as I could. When they started talking again, I re
ached into the pile of rocks to find the handheld. My hand searched for something smooth and plastic and found nothing.
I turned back to Matt several meters behind me. He put his hands up as if to say, I don’t know. Desperately, my mind started to hope that maybe she had managed to get here first. I withdrew my hand carefully. It was shaking from fear and hope meshed together. The rocks tumbled, the noise seeming louder than a landslide, and the women stopped talking. Shit!
I picked up a stone and threw it across the gap in the trees where they stood, just as the handheld nudged my other hand, which was still braced against the pile. The stone hit a turbine, sending a gong-like sound up the tube, and the women turned in its direction. I grabbed the handheld and retreated slowly. Equally crushed and relieved at the same time… more crushed.
We crept backwards for at least another twenty meters, painfully slow, our knees squishing in the mud and leaves. Once we were sure they weren’t coming for us, we turned and ran back to the camp.
Running away from the compound a second time hurt just as much. It was final now. I would not be going back there, ever. If she were alive, she would have to find her way back to me. On her own. The words stabbed me—I was useless.
As we approached the camp a few hours later, I grabbed Matt by the shoulders to stop him from entering before I told him, “Don’t say anything about Este and Rosa, please.” My arm tensed at the lies I was telling, and I squeezed his shoulder too hard.
He shook me off. “I’ll tell them about Este but I won’t say how it happened, okay?”
“Thank you,” I said, with no relief.
We walked into the camp, and I went straight to Desh. I whispered close to his ear, standing over him like the menace I was. “Have you told anyone what I did?”
The Wanted (The Woodlands Series Book 4) Page 2