The woman raised her head from where she was kneeling with her hands folded on the back of her head. “Our soldiers?”
Her dark blue eyes were wide with concern. “Your soldiers will live,” Gus grunted. She hung her head and sighed with relief.
I ran my hands through my hair, confused by what was happening. This was not like any fight I’d been in before. Where men threw themselves at me, where they attacked first without thought for their own safety.
Gus’s attention was on Pelo, who was stalking up to the wall when he said, “Find some rope and tie them up.”
Rash jumped into the chopper, the whole thing jerking and tipping as he rummaged around in the cabin. A coil of rope sailed through the opening. His muffled voice flowed out of the door. “This is so cool, man. You have to come see.”
I ignored him as I bound the soldiers’ hands behind their backs with my eyes on Pelo. He hugged the shadows—almost as thin as one. He quickly dug at the dirt, his hands scurrying between his legs like a dog. Pulling out the bomb, he pushed the button and buried it, running like hell away from the wall. He must have pushed the minute button.
Bracing myself for the explosion, I squatted down with the bound soldiers.
I knocked into the female soldier, and she grunted but made room for me next to her.
I looked sideways at her curiously. “Why did you surrender so easily?”
She frowned, her face creased with confusion at what her mouth was about to say. “We were taught to use force when necessary, to be unforgiving in the face of defiance. But this… not one of us wanted to be a part of this.” Her eyes were distant as she stared over the wall to some unknown point.
My heart picked up a new, frantic rhythm. “Part of what?”
The bomb detonated, making words impossible. I covered my ears as the wall split open and debris spewed across the ground.
But then the ground shook under our feet. It didn’t just rumble. It quaked. Metal creaked in agony and screams. Screams came from everywhere, like the Rings were acting as a megaphone, amplifying peoples’ pain for the whole forest to hear. This wasn’t just our blast. Something had happened inside.
ROSA
The ground hummed like the leftover sounds of a twanged rubber band, a sharp vibration that traveled up our legs and into our mouths. I swallowed. A puff of dust like two giant chalk dusters being smacked together appeared several hundred meters down the street. A rumble made us stop and attempt to brace ourselves against… nothing. The earth started to shift under out feet. I stopped breathing, willing myself to be weightless, to take my sister and the others and just float away.
The noise was alien, a loud pop! And then screams. Endless screams.
I turned to my mother as the ground tilted down. “We have to get to the gate,” I yelled, though she couldn’t hear me.
She was frozen, listening to the mouths screaming in wide-open horror, feeling the earth destabilize. I shook her shoulder violently. “Move. Now!” She nodded minutely and shuffled towards the gate.
A bin rolled past me on its side, tumbling and clanging down as we ran up a sudden incline. I couldn’t look, but I could hear the sliding, the metal creaking and fighting against gravity, and thousands of people holding on and losing. Somehow, the world was crumbling, the roads were tipping, and everything and everyone was fighting against slipping into the ground.
We were so close now, the black gate shone like a dull beacon. Freedom. Locking us out of freedom. Hundreds of people were cramped around the locked gate. Ring Two was the Ring for young families. There were children and young people, clinging to each other in fear. So many tears and cries for help, even the sound of buildings being crushed and smashed against each other couldn’t drown them out.
We thudded against the edge of the crowd. There was nowhere to go. People were wedged against the locked gate like scavengers, beggars. I looked through the bars and more people crowded on the other side, hands reaching through the gaps, fingers grazing against desperate fingers. I turned around and wished I hadn’t. Two houses on opposite sides of the street had collided and had momentarily jammed the mechanism that was pulling the floor out from under us. Once they fell, we would fall.
My mother reached forward and tapped a large man on the shoulder, her voice loud and strong. “We need to get the children over the gate first.”
The words spread like a secret and soon, everyone was saying the same thing. Parents locked their arms together as the ground crumbled not fifty meters away.
I looked to my mother as she stepped back. Grabbing at her, I missed her shirt by an inch.
“No. No. Don’t give up. Mother, please!” I croaked.
She shouted out to those closest. “Please help my daughters.”
Someone took my arm and pulled Gwen, Rosa-May, and me up over the heads of the people. They’d formed a human hill and children were being passed up to the gate and over it. Gwen grabbed the hand of a small boy and hoisted him over the gate in front of her. Denis had two children under each arm and he used his taller frame to hoist them higher. My eyes frantically searched for my mother as I reached the points of iron. On the other side, people had stacked tables, chairs, whatever they could find, to try and breach the gate. Now that most of the kids were over, adults were following. Mother’s face was determined. She tracked me with her eyes, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I saw her working her way closer. She was going to make it.
The buildings streaked against each other, a shrieking, shredding sound as the walls tore open like a paper bag. The ground rattled, and the mound of people slipped. I slipped. My hands gripped tighter around my screaming sister. Someone above shouted, “Throw her over.” A man, standing atop a pile of broken, teetering furniture, his hands just grazing the top of the gate. I put both hands under Rosa-May’s butt and pushed with every ounce of strength I had. She tumbled through the air and landed on the man’s chest.
She was safe. I got her out. My lips pressed together to suppress the panicked howl I wanted to loose. I spun around to tell mother, but she was lost in the sea of slipping, desperate people. People who were now truly panicking. People I was standing on top of.
The houses finally gave way and smashed against each other, a large section of wall shooting up like a buoy released from deep underwater. I clung to the gates as it sailed passed me and hit the wall to my right. Gwen and Denis stood on the other side, their hands wrapped around mine. My face creased with exertion, my breath stinging like pins in my throat.
“Just jump,” Gwen screamed over the crashing. But I wasn’t a grasshopper like her. I wasn’t strong enough. I held fast, unwilling to let go as the world suddenly dropped beneath me. Someone grabbed my leg like it was a rope. My limb stretched and strained as I wound my arms around the gate bars and locked them together, my skin tearing as the weight dragged me down the rusted iron. The person slid down, pulling my sock and shoe with them. My leg felt like it would pop from my hip socket at any moment but then my shoe slipped off my foot, and the weight was gone. My floor of people was gone.
She was gone.
A tight sob caught and made a nest in my throat. One I would never dislodge.
I closed my eyes tight. If I looked? If I watched the source of what was ringing and slicing at my ears? I might as well let go.
The camera above me zipped and focused in on what was beneath me.
I clung ten feet up a gate with nothing but air below me. A neat circle of metal lined the crumbling dirt like a cookie cutter. Water rushed below, the screaming had stopped behind me, but was only just starting on the other side of the gate. On the safe side, where children had watched their parents disappear into the ground.
My arms pulsed. I couldn’t hold on much longer.
I’d lost my mother.
Lost her.
Rosa-May’s screaming pierced my ears and I opened my eyes, searching for her in the crowd. People were running scared. They didn’t know it was just Ring Two; they could
probably feel the earth about to dissolve under them. Gwen had been knocked back by the crowd, but she had Rosa-May safe in her arms. Safe.
I’ll keep her safe for you, Mother. I promise.
My thin knees pressed between the gaps of the bars, the cold, and the pain of everything trying to engulf me like the yawn of a lion. Slowly, my body slackened. My arms couldn’t hold on any longer. My fingers loosened. Gwen stood beneath me, screaming, with a small child clutching her who looked just like me but with warm brown eyes. I couldn’t even see Denis.
“Here.” A warm voice, so familiar it was like a blanket thrown over my shoulders. It was a ratty chair I sunk into, arms I sought forever. “Rest your knee on my shoulder.”
I looked down, to see a round, muscled shoulder pushed against the bars. I let my knee fall to rest, my muscles screaming relief.
Old eyes blinked up at me, green eyes with flecks of gold in them. Rippled, golden hair with streaks of grey. A perfect, unbroken nose. The eyes crinkled into a smile and my heart opened, filleted and bared.
“My name is Jonathan,” he said, deep and rumbling, and I almost slid off the bars because I was melting.
I summoned my strength, pulled my foot up to his shoulder, and stood. “You’re Joseph’s father,” I whispered in wonderment. Was I imagining him?
He wobbled a little in shock, and I leaned away from the gate. Strong arms grabbed my ankles.
“You knew my son?” he asked as he helped me climb over the gate.
I love your son.
I reached the top and between bursts of shocked breaths and tears, I managed to say, “I know your son, Jonathan,” as I flopped over the top of the gate and landed on him.
He laughed, and I found it hard not to hug him. To let the warmth of his laughter cover and protect me.
A small, gentle voice came from behind him. “Jonathan, we need to leave.”
He pulled me up to standing, and I rushed to Rosa-May and Gwen. I tugged on her little arms, checked her legs, and squatted down to dust the tears from her face.
“I’m your big sister. My name’s Rosa too.” She nodded shyly, her plump stomach swinging back and forth under a tight grey jacket. “I’m going to take care of you now.”
“Where Mama?” she asked, though I think she knew.
My heart sliced into a thousand pieces, and I handed one large part to her to keep. “It’s just going to be you and me for a while, but I promise I’ll look after you,” I said, barely managing to speak. My eyes connected with Gwen’s, who mirrored my sorrow. But the strength behind them was burning.
“Do you think they’ll follow through with the plan?” I asked.
“They always do.”
Jonathan stepped forward. “What plan?”
“Our friends and your son are going to free us from this place,” Gwen announced.
My eyes followed the streams of fleeing people getting further and further away from us.
The woman tugged on Jonathan’s large arm. “Jonathan, even if it is our Joseph she’s speaking of, we still need to leave right now,” she urged. Her eyes flicked to me briefly. “Please girls, come with us but come now. It’s not safe here.”
“Wait Steph,” he said, putting his hand up. “What does she mean by free us?” he directed to me.
“There’s a lot to explain, too much, but for now… just follow the people,” I said, pointing towards the last stragglers running away from the shattered Ring.
I picked Rosa May up and swung her onto my back. Her wet face rested in my hair. I swore I would find a way to ease her tears but right now, she had every right to them. I dried my own and walked towards the outer Ring. My eyes to the sky.
ROSA
I’m too used to grief. I expect it. It’s a sad friend that wraps itself around my ankles and makes me drag it through the streets. These empty, ghost-like streets.
Back in this grey world, I felt like a child.
“He’s gone, Rosa,” Gwen said lightly, like she knew it would happen.
“Huh?” I could barely concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.
“That Denis guy, your friend.” She swept her head back and forth, her plait snaking up and down her shoulder, an offered rope of safety withdrawn, her eyes running over empty doorways and doors half-cracked. She winced every time she saw a body in the street. Trampled. I swung Rosa-May to my hip so I could shield her eyes.
“He wasn’t my friend, not really.” He used me. I used him. I wasn’t surprised that he took off.
Rosa-May kept saying Mama over and over again as we passed through gate after gate. It was like a steady flow of small punches to the stomach. I crumpled deeper at each repetition.
Joseph’s parents were quiet in their horror. Several times, Jonathan ran to a trampled body to check their pulse. Every time he returned, shaking his head. Steph kept her hand over her mouth like that would stop fear from winning, horror from slipping out. Pau Brazil was now a hollow shell. Footsteps sounded like single stones falling from the sky. Solitary, too loud.
Everyone was gone.
Everyone.
I checked every few paces, but the sky remained clear. The Survivor’s video hadn’t started, and I worried something had gone wrong. That he wasn’t here. That they got to him first. My feet sped up, my leather shoes squeaking on the stones. Gwen and Joseph’s parents kept pace with me and soon, we were running. We caught up with the noise, the panicked screaming, and were sucked into the thrashing fishtail end of thousands of people fleeing the compound. They had to be heading somewhere. I jumped up to try and see over the sea of heads, but I was too small. Jonathan stood behind me. He shielded his eyes with his hand, the sun casting a plane of light right into his face.
“There. Up ahead. I’ll be damned. Someone’s blown a hole through the wall.”
I squeezed Jonathan’s arm. “He’s here.” The words a balm, a medicine to keep me from liquefying into a pool of sadness.
I clutched Rosa-May tighter, grabbed Gwen’s hand, and moved with the crowd, losing Joseph’s parents in the throng.
JOSEPH
After the blast, Pelo made it to us and we crouched down behind the chopper. Waiting. Watching for people to start coming over the rubble and into the open. A lid flipped open near the nose of the chopper, and the little guy with the case popped his head out of the ground like a mole. He took one look at the wall blown to pieces, swung his head to the chopper where he saw us crouching over the bound soldiers, and disappeared back into the ground before we could really register his presence.
In the other towns, people had warily picked their way over the broken wall and peeked their heads out like nervous mice. They tested the air. Sampled the freedom. Some had retreated. Some had stepped over carefully and wandered out. My eyes rested on the pile of rubble, anticipating the same kind of reaction.
A bald head poked its way up from behind the hill of twisted iron and concrete dust. Eyes squinted and blinked behind round glasses. The old man put his hand to his brow, searched the horizon, and was flattened. I surged forward but Gus grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me back. Hundreds of people flurried over the debris, trampling the man. Desperate, dirty faces, women clutching children to their hips, others chained to each other by tight, clasped hands as they pulled loved ones through. They poured over the breach in the wall like an avalanche. People tripped, their legs getting stuck in the gaps between the rubble. They were run over before I could blink.
I tensed and clenched my teeth. What the hell had happened in there? These people weren’t just escaping the compound; they were running away from something. Running for their lives.
A young woman with golden brown hair scrambled over the edge of the debris. People streamed passed her, yet she held still. Another girl came behind her and put her arm on the woman’s shoulder, pulling herself up and passing her a small girl about Orry’s age. I squinted. I knew that face.
“It’s Gwen,” I said to Gus, elbowing him.
; Gus shook his head in disbelief and whispered, “It can’t be…”
My excitement overcame any other panic. We’d found Gwen. I rose from my crouch.
“Joseph, look…” Gus said, pointing at the woman standing next to Gwen. She still wasn’t moving, standing atop the pile of rubble, looking down at the small girl who clung to her leg. She leaned down, spoke to the girl, and then she flipped her hair, put her hands on her hips, and smiled wide.
The sun crossed her face and those eyes… those eyes I’d wanted for so long, flashed defiantly. A revolution standing in front of me. Rosa.
ROSA
This was what I had wanted. To stand atop the crumbling wall and watch the Woodlands disintegrate before me, turned to dust. But not like this. Terrified people clipped my shoulders, and I struggled to hold my ground. I clung to Rosa-May, keeping my body rigid, a barrier between her and the crush of the crowd. She wouldn’t stop crying, that sticky, hick, hick, hick, hitching her breath. I had run out of tears. I was an empty drum with salt lines running around my walls.
Gwen spoke, though I could barely hear her through the screaming. “They have to be here. Let’s go.”
Rosa-May’s perfect little jacket was smeared with dirt and blood. I leaned down and dusted it off, carefully checking her for injuries. My heart broke as I said, “It’s okay, little sister. Hold tight to my hand. Don’t let go.” I was all she had left. I tried to smile for her sake.
Gwen tugged on my arm, but I wasn’t ready to tumble into the crowd and lose my perspective. From here, I could see for miles. I put my hands on my hips and scanned the area, a smile still stuck to my face so Rosa-May wouldn’t be scared. They had to be nearby.
My heartbeat grew steady as I took in sections of the forest. Like the pie of the Superiors’ compound. I broke it up and searched each piece thoroughly. The black rocks were clear, the forest line seemed clear, although they could have been hiding behind the bushes. A soldier shoved past me, scrambling down the rubble and knocking others out of his way as he went, his uniform in tatters. Someone had pulled all the gold decoration from it, and now he looked like an urchin. He disappeared into the crowd. He was just the same as the rest of us in this situation, frightened, trying to survive.
The Wanted (The Woodlands Series Book 4) Page 26