I shuffled closer to her and tried to restrain the desperation in my voice. “If that’s true, why wouldn’t you tell your father of his plans?”
“I have plans too,” she said, picking at her nails and not meeting my eyes.
I returned to my bed and let her simple words roll over me. Redness creeped up my neck and crowded my cheeks, my breath coming in short, painful bursts.
Could I do it? Could I help them plan a murder?
Could I trust them?
Did I have a choice?
I knew the answer. It dinged inside my chest like a dull bell. No. I didn’t have a choice. If I had a chance to take Grant down, I had to take it.
I let her words sit in the air. I wasn’t giving her anything just now. I didn’t trust Denis wholly, and I definitely didn’t trust her. Standing up, I twisted my hair in my hands.
“So what are we supposed to do now?” I asked.
She lifted her eyes to mine, her lashes crimped and unnaturally curly. She reminded me of one of those blinking dolls that you flipped the head back and forth to open and shut the eyes. Orry had one back at the Wall. Its lips were rubbed off and its hair was missing in most places except just over its ears like a balding man. I shuddered.
“We get ready for dinner,” she said as she grabbed a hairbrush and approached me like it was a knife in her hand.
The next morning, Denis accompanied me downstairs like he had for the last few days. He coasted slowly next to me, his feet perfectly placed one after the other, his hand hovering near my waist but barely touching it. Then he broke from his normal behavior and dipped down to make eye contact with me. “How was your first night with Judy?” he asked.
“She snores, and she wears a mouth guard; it makes this horrible squeaaak when she grinds her teeth together,” I replied.
He laughed quietly and his fingers tapped across the small of my back.
The sunlight was white, cold. Sinister. It lazered my face and eyes as we walked past the windows. My body started to seize up the closer we got to the elevator doors. Once I passed through, all joking and pretending was over. I wasn’t relieved that at least this meant I wasn’t being terminated. How could you be relieved that your torture would continue?
The elevator ride would suck the smiles off our faces.
We reached the elevator doors and I slapped at the button weakly, but I didn’t actually press down. My lips trembled and my heart shivered in my chest. Every day it was harder. But I was getting harder too, my skin tougher, my eyes too used to violence, my body expecting pain and starting to understand it in a disturbing way. Denis went to push the elevator button, but I blocked his hand.
“I don’t think I can keep this up. How much longer do you think it will go on?” I breathed.
Exhaling, he leaned down to my ear. “It only ends when he breaks you or…” He let the words run out of air, his breath hissing between his lips in a tiny sigh.
“Or he kills me,” I finished for him. Breaking me meant me giving him the information he wanted. I would never do that. So death.
Then he did what I was hoping he would—he said the words that had rolled over and over in my mind all night as I listened to the squeak and grind of Judith’s sleeping. The thing I had convinced myself I could do. That I had to do.
“We could do it first,” he said so quietly I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t imagined it.
“Do what?” I mouthed, my hand still covering the button.
“Kill him. We could kill him first.” He put his hand over mine and pressed my palm towards the button. It lit up, blinking like a warning light I would have to ignore.
I didn’t say anything right away. I was silent in the elevator, my body straight, and my hands flat against my legs. He kept a distance. Two feet of solid air between us, piling up like concrete bricks. The doors slid back like a curtain to an operating theater and my fears were on the table, my life open and pinned back in gruesome positions for them to play with. I leaned back on my heels and then pressed forward, making my way towards the dreaded room.
One step—this was the man who stole me from my family.
Two steps—he drugged me, impregnated me against my will.
Three steps—he killed Addy, Apella, and hundreds of Survivors.
He was a bad man.
Four steps—he kidnapped Deshi, he took a father from his son… but then that was what he did. He took a sledgehammer to peoples’ families, yet here he was, living with a perfect little family of his own.
Five steps—he was going to hunt down Joseph, Orry, and everyone I cared about unless I stopped him.
Me.
Only me.
Denis’ hand gripped the handle to the black door. His eyes searched mine as his fingers threatened to push down. I put my hand next to his, grasped the brushed metal, and stared up at him.
“I know how,” I whispered, my eyes like two steel plates, my heart fighting against me as I said the words. I opened the door before he could answer and walked back into my torture chamber.
JOSEPH
“We’ll have to split up,” Gus announced, standing under a branch that kept waving in front of his irritated face. “It will be easier to remain hidden this way.”
No one argued.
I laughed when I heard him mutter, “Can’t believe we missed out on those pheasants!” as he waded through the group and separated them with his wiry arms. Chopping down on the space between us, like we were a pheasant to be quartered, and breaking us into four groups that would each take a different route to Palma.
I happened to be standing with Desh, Matt, and Ermil. Elise was right next to me, but Gus sliced us apart. I was relieved. Although flattering, her advance had made me uncomfortable. She didn’t seem to be offended that I had refused to kiss her though, which was good. When she was separated from me, she sighed and rolled her eyes to the sky, but gave me a brief smile. I hoped it meant she was happy to be just friends.
Days of walking agreed with me. I liked the soreness of my feet and the ache of my wounds. It stopped me thinking about what I wanted. It kept Rosa’s face at bay. I hadn’t let her go, I wasn’t sure that was possible, but she lived in the back of my mind at the moment. It was the only way I knew how to survive.
“How far now?” Desh whined, finding a tree and collapsing against the trunk dramatically. None of us were good hunters. We’d been eating rationed bread and dried meat for days, and it was affecting our strength.
I paused and pulled the handheld out of my pocket. “Can I?” I asked Matt. He nodded. I quickly turned the GPS on, Orry’s light was still blinking in the same position it had been last time I checked. Still mountains and rivers between us. The handheld told me we were only half a day’s walk from Palma. It felt like the trudging would never end, I felt like I could barely lift my legs. Raising my foot, I stared down at my heavy boot print and scuffed it up with my toe. I turned to the men, “We need to tread carefully.”
We walked, quietly, lightly, turning circles through thick brush for hours. Brambles snagged our clothing and scratched our skin, but we were hiding our tracks better.
A thick wall of blackberry bushes crossed our path. It tumbled and rolled on itself like a prickly wave. Frozen berries glistened from the middle, the ones closest to the outside picked clean. A group of deer startled to our left, their muzzles stained purple from the berries and, before we could stop him, Ermil limped forward, pulled out his gun, and shot at them. The bullet ripped at the bark of a tree and they cantered off, unscathed.
“What the hell did you do that for?” I whispered tersely.
“What? I’m hungry,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and spitting on the ground. “What’s your problem?”
I shoved his shoulder gently, although I wanted to shove him harder. “Because according to the handheld, Palma is right on the other side of that blackberry bush.”
We scattered, finding hiding places and awaiting the swarm of soldiers that was sure to come fo
r us.
We waited for four hours.
Crouched down in a bush, my pants soaked in muddy water, I watched as Desh stood up and ran his hands over the bark of a stark-looking tree, its branches like the bronchi of an unhealthy lung, covered in dark brown lichen and scars.
“What are you doing?” I asked in time to see him hoist himself up into the fork of the tree. He looked out of place up there. That was her spot. Desh was more at home on the ground, surrounded by cables and computer screens.
“I’m tired of waiting; it’s ridiculous,” he muttered. “I want to get a better look.”
Curious and with aching backs and legs, we emerged from our hiding places and crowded around the base of the tree.
“What do you see?” Matt called up.
Desh’s legs were precariously spanning two thin branches as he strained to see over the giant blackberries. “There’s a break in the blackberry bush about a mile down, um… I’m not sure I can explain the rest.”
I groaned. “What?”
He wobbled and I threw my hands out like I would catch him, which was stupid. His hands skidded down the branch, and he steadied himself.
“It’s just, well, it’s very different from the others.”
“What do you mean?” I asked impatiently, my neck getting sore from staring up at him.
“I think it will be easier if you come see it for yourself.” Elise’s smooth voice sailed over my shoulder. I jumped, turned around suddenly, and bumped right into her. She threw her arms around my neck, pulling me into an embrace.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” she whispered, smiling broadly. I patted her back awkwardly, shuffling out of her hold and into a circle of the rest of our original group. We must have arrived last.
“Stop playing around and get out of that tree. Let’s get on with it,” Gus grunted up at Desh.
Desh slipped down the trunk, and we followed them to the break in the bushes.
The gap was narrow, my shoulders covered in thorns as I bristled through sideways. Purple streaks ran across the arms of my jacket as I collected leftover berries every time I snagged. Elise walked in front of me. Being thinner, she wasn’t catching every single branch like I was. She stopped suddenly and reached her hand into the thicket, retrieving a single berry. Turning around, she held in front of my eyes.
“Here, try this.”
I held out my hand for her to drop it into my palm. She reached for my lips. My cheeks went red. I grabbed the berry from her hands and stuffed it in my mouth, embarrassed. Someone shoved me from behind.
“Keep moving, jackass.” Rash’s irritated voice pelted me with disapproval.
I stumbled forward, Elise giggling as she strolled forward too casually.
We walked a few more meters and broke free of the bushes. The group squatted down in the high grass, leaning against fencing wire, waiting for stragglers. Olga waddled through the opening last, looking annoyed, her face covered in tiny scratches. We were huddling at the fence of a large field. A field that looked organized. Wire dissected it into neat squares. A frozen crop jutted out of the ground, seemingly snap frozen mid-grow. My eyes struggled to take in all the unexplainable images, particularly what appeared to be a road. A road that led directly to a gate. A gate in the side of the wall of Palma.
I gasped despite myself, crouching closer to the ground.
“Yep. See what I mean.” Desh elbowed me in the side. “Different.”
“We knew it would be different, but not quite like this!” Pelo announced, his eyes shining the way they used to, before Rosa.
“I don’t get it. Look at the guards.” I pointed to the soldiers stationed on the outside, the outside of the concrete walls, in surprise. Their large guns were slung over their shoulders. Bigger guns than I’d seen before.
We observed silently, passing water between us and waiting. The sun shifted from overhead, to bobbing above the tops of trees.
Pelo shifted on his long legs and whispered, “What are we waiting for?”
Gus, who was eyeing the gate like it was a deer he was stalking, lifted his finger to silence Pelo and then pointed directly at the gate as it opened and about ten citizens, dressed in colorful clothing, were ushered outside.
“That!” he said sharply.
We all peered over the tips of the grass in fascination. The citizens had baskets in their hands or on their heads. One of the guards shoved a woman in the back with his gun, and she stumbled forward. We’d all seen this before. A soldier hurting a citizen. I closed my eyes, awaiting the sound of gunfire. I waited a few seconds and when I heard nothing, I dared to open them.
“You watching this?” Desh whispered, elbowing me in the ribs. Our clutter of people was too close, heat and the smells of unwashed hiker wafted up my nose with the sourness of the berries.
I nodded and kept my eyes on the soldiers.
A tall, dark man with a bright orange and brown patterned shirt turned to the guard and yelled at him, pumping his fist. He received a gun butt to the head for it but the man got up, spat at the guard, and helped the woman to her feet. The guard hovered over the pair, but he didn’t shoot. I expected him to shoot.
Why didn’t he shoot?
The other citizens had paused and were watching the altercation, hands on hips, standing tall. Not cowering or running for cover. I couldn’t see their faces but I got the feeling their eyes were proud, unafraid, and it baffled me.
“Holy shit, that dude’s got some balls!” Rash muttered, shaking his head from side to side.
Gus actually laughed, well sort of. He held his stomach and coughed with a short smile on his weary face.
We watched the group dig in the frozen ground with sharp, metal implements, retrieving roots and putting them in the basket. When they finished, they got up and were escorted back inside. Just as the last man passed through the gate, I watched as a tall, lean woman, her bones jutting from her skin, offered the basket to the soldier. He rifled through it, took out a handful of roots, and then he pulled cash from his pocket and offered it her. She shook her angular head, and the man fished out some extra coins, dropping them in her basket. She bowed her head and walked inside.
My mouth hung agape, the cold freezing my lips open. What we’d just witnessed, apart from being contradictory, was extraordinary. This place was different in a way I could never have imagined. These people had some independence.
Desh tapped my chin, and I closed my mouth.
“You all right?” he asked, his tone more joking than I’d heard in a while.
“Um, yeah, just surprised,” I answered, my eyes scanning the top of the walls of the Palma compound, coils of razor wire crowning the wall. We didn’t need that kind of barrier in Pau. No one ever tried to get over the wall. The concrete also looked damaged and patched in places. I ran my hand over my jaw; the stubble was now long enough to be more of a sketchy beard now. I stared down at my other hand, pressed into the mud, and thought, Rosa would have loved to see this. And then I pushed the thought behind other things.
We retreated from Palma, creeping backwards slowly until we were at the blackberries, and then we moved quickly into the forest to a safe place. The big question pulsing through the whole group was—did this change our plans?
Pelo grabbed my arm excitedly.
“Did you see that? It’s change. Things are changing…”
I turned to face him, avoiding his eyes, my mouth not wanting to even utter her name. “From what I’d heard, Palma was always a bit different to the others.”
Gus joined us. “What have you heard?”
Desh stared down, his memories pushing up from the dead-looking ground.
“Clara, this was Clara’s home,” he muttered.
I didn’t want him to say it, Clara led to Rosa, and thoughts of her led me into darkness. A picture of her, slumped against a tree after Clara died, entered my mind, her thin arms wrapped around her tiny body, wearing nothing but her underwear as I washed her clothes of Clara’s bloo
d and wished I could wash her pain away with it. She didn’t shake with cold, she didn’t cry—her eyes were two wells of nothingness, empty of feeling, like Rosa had left her own body.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible but my feelings for her deepened in that moment. The way she loved her friend Clara so fiercely and the fact that she took it that hard when she died, made me love her so much.
I took a step back from the conversation and watched, unable to contribute anything useful as Desh explained who Clara was and what we knew of Palma. The Spider filled in some of the blanks, but he also said the gate was new.
“You ok, friend?” Elise asked, her eyes sincere, her hands hovering over my shoulder but not touching me.
I swiped the air like I could clear the vision like smoke. “Bad memories.” And good memories and everything I’ve lost rolled into one.
“Things have changed a lot since the retrieval mission,” Matt said. It became apparent our intel was pretty outdated after only twelve months.
The Spider from Palma smiled wide. “I didn’t know it would change this much. But I’m happy to see it!”
We listened. We voted. We decided it changed nothing. We would do the same as we had done in the other towns.
That night.
JOSEPH
The clouds moved in. Thin ones that weren’t about rain. They just kept the small amount of warmth from the day in.
The atmosphere at the camp was more relaxed than normal. Maybe we were getting used to it or maybe it was because we had more hope with this particular mission. Either way, we sat on rocks or in the dirt, surrounded by brittle trees with dresses of thorny bushes, making our plans. Some of the men pulled out their precious flasks and offered them around as we jumped from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. There could be no fire tonight as we were so close to the compound. Small battery lanterns or torches sat by people’s feet.
Gus flashed a warning stare in our direction as the flask flew around. “Take it easy, men. We still have a mission to complete.”
The Wanted (The Woodlands Series Book 4) Page 14