The Wanted (The Woodlands Series Book 4)

by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

  I dipped my head and spoke to my mug. “He was almost unfaithful to me.”

  Her laugh ripped through me, pulling my clothes and leaving me vulnerable.

  “What the hell does that mean?” she managed through her giggling.

  I laughed too, in a false kind of way, because even though it sounded stupid, it didn’t feel stupid. It just hurt.

  I sighed. “He kissed another girl.”

  She took a breath and calmed herself, tapping her chin. “And this was when you were captured, when he didn’t know if you were dead or alive, when he was grieving you, apart from Orry too, just, well, completely lost and alone?”

  I nodded.

  She put her hands on my forearms and squeezed. “I could rip his lips off for you,” she said, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

  I grinned, covering my mouth, but it poked out both sides as if it were bigger than the room. “That won’t be necessary but thanks.” I loved his lips.

  “Okay, then you need to decide right now if this is something you actually care about. After everything you two have been through, together and apart, you need to decide what you really want and what you’re willing to lose.”

  Not him. Not over a kiss.

  She just stared into my eyes as I thought about what she said. What did I really care about? It wasn’t him kissing that girl.

  And the truth was that I didn’t need Joseph.

  I wanted him.

  It was a choice I had to make. I wanted love in my life, happiness, laughter, and warmth. Need could be a dirty, greedy little feeling. It was what drove Grant to do horrible things, and it may have been what drove Joseph to do what he did.

  But I knew he wanted me and only me.

  He was not why I lived. Without him, I would go on. It would be a sourer, hollower existence, but I could endure. Joseph was how I wanted to live.

  She cocked her head to one side and smiled at me. “So…?”

  “I don’t care,” I whispered.

  JOSEPH

  Boards creaked as a slit in the door revealed a bar of golden light. She barely made any noise as she padded to the bed. She didn’t get in on her normal side. Instead, she moved around to my side and crouched down. The moonlight streamed over her shoulder, her angles, so sharp and delicate at the same time.

  She flicked on the bedside lamp. It lit up her face in golden hues. It took my breath. She stole it and wouldn’t give it back. She could have it.

  I wanted to, so badly, but I was scared to touch her, worried it was the last time. My hands stalled, pausing on the edge of the bed. Lying there, I felt bare. Without a word, she turned back the covers and tugged at the hem of my shirt, pulling it up to my neck. I followed her lead. I would do anything she wanted. I took the collar in one hand and pulled it over my head.

  Her fingers danced along my scars as she whispered, “I don’t care.” Three words that could heal and harm me.

  I was too scared to respond. Scared she could see how broken I was. How much I’d changed and that what was left of me was wanting.

  She took my hand, guided it under her shirt, and pressed it to her warm stomach, forcing me to touch her scar. Her warm skin was strong, like everything I wanted. I closed my eyes as I let my fingers explore that new part of her. It was a rope, holding her together. It could bind us too. I fit my hands to either side of her waist and pulled her closer, my head, her head, hanging over each other’s shoulders. She gasped at our closeness.

  She murmured into my hair, “After everything we’ve been through, I just don’t want to care about it, Joseph. I won’t. It’s not worth us. It’s not worth losing us.” There was a small pain in her voice. I vowed to scuff away that sound, live through it until it was just a memory.

  But I’m lost.

  She pulled back, searching my face with her amazing, piercing eyes, and said softly, “You know, you were always so perfect. Too good for me.” I shook my head. If only she understood how wrong she was. “And I loved you for it.” She tucked her unkempt hair behind her ear and the earnestness in her expression jumpstarted my heart. She could see me. All of me. “And now you’re a bit broken, and I’ll love you for that too. And maybe, now that we’re both broken, we can kind of stick each other back together. You know, like glue.” Her face twisted adorably, and I could see her internally kicking herself for saying it like that.

  Something I thought was lost rumbled to the surface. “Glue?” I smiled. Then the rumble made its way to my mouth, and I laughed out loud.

  That beautiful pinch between her eyebrows appeared, and she threw her hands in the air. “Oh crap, I don’t know! I’m no good at metaphors. All I know is that I love you. I don’t care if you’re broken and stuck back together all misshaped with drips of glue showing through the cracks. Whatever happens, whatever it is, we’ll work it out. We always do.”

  She loves me. Nothing I knew or would ever know compared to that realization.

  My laugh grew. She had cracked me open, or glued me back together because I was hysterical, and I could feel myself letting a bit of all the bad things I’d been holding onto go. I stopped hesitating and reached for her scowling body, pulling her onto my chest. Her heart beat strong over mine.

  I calmed myself enough to say, “No. Glue is good. It’s perfect.” Perfect. We were broken and perfect.

  She smiled and thumped my chest lightly with her fist. Her hair fell on either side of me, blocking out the world. All I could see was her dark face, her pointed nose, and proud cheekbones that held up even prouder eyes. She dipped her mouth to mine and our lips touched. It was the beginning. It was a promise. I let the moment roll through me, existing only in this point in time. Not looking forward or backward.

  She drew back and cocked her head, a delicious revelation of a smile dancing across her face. “You’re an idiot,” she whispered.

  I nodded, trying really hard not to kiss her again, and gave up.

  I knew she meant it, but I also knew she loved me for it.

  ROSA

  He is dented, golden light. I am light, redder than blood. Always, we will come together, strike orange flame, and sink below the clouds with the sun.

  ROSA

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  The Woodlands was a beautiful idea, twisted into something gnarled and rotting. Because a settlement based on the rings of tree trunks should have grown. Each ring marking a passing year, new leaves and branches spreading past the trunk, touching other branches like resting arms.

  What happens when you control a tree’s growth? Its roots either become so netted, so wrapped around each other, that it dies… or one finds that tiny crack to push through and breaks free of its containment

  The four of us looked up from our breakfast at the timid knock on the door. Rosa-May was the first one up, rushing to the door and swinging it open. Odval stood in the entrance, a shy smile on her face. Her baby was strapped to her chest in a complicated sling.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “Pelo is watching the other two back at home,” she answered. She had her hands full with the three lost children from the nursery she had adopted. Almost every Survivor had taken in a child. We had a few here until they were found permanent homes. Plenty of hands had gone up to take them.

  This was the beautiful mess we lived in. Four free towns. Four under extremely shaky Superior rule. When they showed Grant’s video, it had the opposite effect to what they had hoped. It had enraged the people. Superior Judith Grant was ‘stood’ down, and now only Poltinov and Sekimbo remained.

  “Matthew has asked me to pass on a message to join him at the break this morning,” Odval hummed.

  “Now?” I asked with a mouth full of cereal.

  “Yes, now.” Odval nodded solemnly.

  Joseph chuckled lightly, quickly clearing the dishes. “You heard the lady!”

  Odval lingered in the doorway. “I love what you’ve done, Rosa…” I waited as she formed her request. She didn’t need to be weir
d about it. “I don’t suppose you could come help Pelo and me finish off our extra bedroom? Three children in one room… it’s getting rather cramped,” she asked quietly.

  I laughed as Joseph’s arm snaked around my waist. “Of course I can!”

  We stepped out of our newly built cottage and I closed the heavy, wooden door behind us. Its solidity reassured me. I’d wanted to be near Pau but not inside the walls. I just couldn’t go back in there after what happened to my mother. I couldn’t make Rosa-May go back in there either. Cottages spotted the woods like they’d always been there. A lot of the citizens shared our feelings on living inside Pau Brazil after Ring Two was destroyed.

  Joseph batted at Rosa-May’s legs. “So Posie, you want a ride?” She grinned. She was still mostly silent, but a new word appeared every few days or so. I understood. She kept them treasured and secret. They were her one way of controlling things, and I wouldn’t push. I wouldn’t take that away from her.

  He swept her up and hoisted her onto his shoulders.

  Orry and I held hands and swung them high as we found the new road that led from Pau Brazil to Bagassa and walked towards the break in the wall.

  We approached the gathering crowd and like a bright torch in a tunnel, my vision flicked to one glowing image, a personal, everyday moment that meant so much more: Their foreheads touching gently, brushing like bending bows. Deshi then lifted his face and kissed the top of his son’s head. There was a small explosion in that kiss. Healing stars that spun out and spread. They told me that with time, with love, any relationship could be repaired. It was a hope I held for all of us.

  Matthew stood in front of the break, scratching his leg nervously, the breeze causing the thousands of red death marker ribbons to wave and jump from the twisted concrete like they were alive. Survivors crowded around closest to him. The citizens of Pau formed an outer shell. Except for where Gwen stood, surrounded by kids from the Classes. They pierced the unspoken thin-film barrier that stood between Survivor and Woodlands Citizen. They padded after her and hung off her every word on music and culture, and she loved it. If they ever reopened the Classes as a university, whatever that meant, like Matthew wanted, she would make a great Guardian.

  When Matthew saw me, he smiled and ran over, pushing his way through the crowd.

  “Look at Gwen,” I said. “Wouldn’t she make a great Guardian?” She smirked at me and gestured to all the eager eyes on her.

  “If we manage to re-open the Classes as a university, we’d call them counselors, Rosa,” Matthew corrected. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care what word we used—I was counting on the meanings behind them changing.

  Matthew took my arm, his eyes widening in nervous panic as he took in the large group of people whose faces had followed him to me. “I can’t do this. I’m a doctor, not a politician.”

  “They chose you,” I said, sweeping my arm in an arc over everyone who had voted for Matthew, almost unanimously, to be our representative in the negotiations for peace with the remaining four settlements that would take place in the now-empty Classes compound.

  “I wish you were coming with me,” he said, pumping his injured hand to steel himself.

  I paused. He had asked. But I couldn’t leave my family again. He understood. I was helping here, doing my small part and stepping into the background, into the shade of the others who would lead. They didn’t need me. It was a wonderful, all-encompassing feeling of release.

  “You don’t need me,” I said, smiling, real face-full-of-teeth kind of smiling.

  Joseph leaned over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, sending that golden thrill through me that only he could, “I need you.” But I knew what he really meant was he wanted me.

  “You’re doing fine without me,” I managed, winding one hand through Joseph’s and pushing Matthew forward with the other.

  He nodded. “Okay. Thank you,” he said, bundling his nerves together and placing them in his shirt pocket.

  Matthew strode back through the crowd, climbed atop a broken slab concrete, and turned to address the watching eyes, the waiting hearts,

  “Citizens of the Free Woodlands…”

  Can't get enough of The Woodlands Series? Don't forget to check out Lauren's newest novella, The Willful! This is the first of several novellas that are to be released over the next year.

  This story is for the readers who have stood by the series and by me over the last two years. Without your encouragement and support I never would have got this far. You’ve been an inspiration and a comfort on those doubtful days. And lifted me higher on the joyful ones. Thank you.

  I’d like to thank my family, Michael, Lennox, Rosalie and Emaline for cheering me on, for being patient when I vagued out in the middle of conversations because I had disappeared into the world of the Woodlands. For understanding my need to finish, my compulsion to write and my crankiness at being interrupted. You’ve made it all worth it with your pride and belief in me.

  Chloe, my critique partner and dear friend, has been a constant source of help. She has worked through this manuscript and picked up all those little annoying things like punctuation and spelling that I’m terrible at (though I’m trying to learn). But mostly, I appreciate her for understanding my crazy.

  Finally, thank you Clean Teen Publishing. Courtney, Rebecca, Marya, and Dyan, you have been amazing to work with, you have assuaged all my fears about publishing, and made it an enjoyable experience from the first word to the last.

  Daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist father and an Australian doctor mother, Lauren Nicolle Taylor was expected to follow the science career path. And she did, for a while, completing a Health Science degree with Honors in obstetrics and gynecology. But there was always a niggling need to create which led to many artistic adventures.

  When Lauren hit her thirties, she started throwing herself into artistic endeavors, but was not entirely satisfied. The solution: Complete a massive renovation and sell their house so they could buy their dream block of land and build. After selling the house, buying the block and getting the plans ready, the couple discovered they had been misled and the block was undevelopable. This left her family of five homeless.

  Taken in by Lauren’s parents, with no home to renovate and faced with a stressful problem with no solution, Lauren found herself drawn to the computer. She sat down and poured all of her emotions and pent up creative energy into writing The Woodlands.

  Family, a multicultural background and a dab of medical intrigue are all strong themes in her writing. Lauren took the advice of ‘write what you know’ and twisted it into a romantic, dystopian adventure! Visit Lauren at her website: http://www.LaurenNicolleTaylor.com.

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