The Wounded (The Woodlands Series)

by Taylor, Lauren Nicolle

  I felt myself flying open and slamming shut like an errant window in a storm. I couldn’t reconcile myself.

  I could hear the door open slowly, the air heavy and disturbed around two distinct bodies.

  “I understand it more now, you know, why she is…”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t understand how anyone could go through that and not be changed.”

  Steps came closer.

  “What do we do?”

  “This isn’t a we thing. She needs you. Tell her I’m outside if she wants.”

  The door closed and one pair of sneakers was left, peeking under the door of my stall.

  *****

  Relaxing my leg, I let it slide towards the gap under the door. I was exhausted and suddenly uncomfortable as the toilet smells wafted up my nose and I realized my hair was draped over the toilet seat.

  A lightly freckled hand wrapped around my boot gently.

  “Rosa. Are you ok?” His voice was soft and earnest, but I didn’t like the pity I thought I heard.

  “Well… now you know why I’m so damaged,” I said quietly.

  “I don’t think that,” Joseph said surely. I folded my arms across my chest, barricading my heart as he spoke. “I am amazed at you. You’re so strong. You survived all of that. I’m… I’m kinda humbled in your presence.” I could feel him smiling on the other side of the door, but I couldn’t quite believe him.

  “I don’t feel strong,” I said, edging my way backwards. “I feel like nothing.”

  “You’re not nothing.” He tightened his grip on my foot. “You’re everything,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, nothing,” I said resolutely. “How could I leave them there? I feel like I should have done something, done more.”

  Joseph stood up and pushed the door open. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. I didn’t want to look at him. A warm finger slid under my chin and raised my face. His eyes opened me up like nothing else. There was fire in them, calm and heat at the same time.

  “You couldn’t do anything, not then. But now you can. What do you think this is all about? We’re not watching this horror movie for fun. We are planning. This is where we get to be part of something.”

  I laughed a little. “You sound like him.”

  “Sorry.” He smirked.

  He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, kissing my forehead gently. I felt myself aching for more, but now was not the time.

  “You coming?”

  I nodded. “Yes, give me a minute.” He strode out, flipping back to me with a look of concern. I smiled weakly. “I won’t be long.”

  I splashed some water on my face and took a deep breath. What could I do? How could I help when just the images of that place sent me spiraling and scrambling to wedge myself between the toilet bowl and the wall? I had to find some way to pull myself together.

  It was funny how some things took forever to understand. Some obstacles were like mountains, they took years to climb and conquer. But I realized that what was shredding me, could also bind me. I could wrap myself up in this trauma and use it. I actually didn’t need any more time. More time was wasted.

  I walked out with a flimsy sense of purpose and straight into a mess.

  The film was over, and the images had not formed into some great plan. They had burned and shriveled like over-exposed film. Everyone was arguing, but mostly they seemed at a loss. What good did this all do? How could we use this information to free the people and take down the Woodland government? It seemed too big.

  Members of the group swiped their arms in the air angrily, like the whip of a blade. All these surveillance videos had done was upset everyone.

  One man, tall and thin as a pipe, with a hollow-sounding voice like he was shouting through one, yelled, “What if we tunnel under this building here?” He clicked the photos over to a schematic of one of the schools. We could fortify it, set it up as headquarters, and recruit citizens from there.”

  Another man shook his head, his cheeks wobbling with the flurry of it. “They would just destroy the building with us in it. We have to remember who we’re dealing with. They place no value on human life. They won’t think twice about killing us all.”

  Pietre, who had been sulking in the corner, yelled, “We should just blow them all to hell.”

  To which some people cheered, but the majority of us found the idea deplorable.

  The three leaders were standing now, looking down on us from the stage, trying hard to follow the spits and spatters of conversation and suggestions ranging from massive scaffolding, to getting large numbers of Survivors over the Wall, and to capturing soldiers and brainwashing them. We were getting nowhere, and the ridiculousness of the plans pointed clearly to how lost we were.

  The female leader, all golden curls and pink cheeks, stomped her foot impatiently. Everyone stopped and turned their gaze upward. “We have the information. Stop and think. Take your time. What can we do with it? How can we use it to our advantage?”

  Everyone sat down and took up various poses of introspection. I was agitated, my thoughts shaking around like a paint can in a color mixer. There was something nagging in the back of my mind. Brainwashing soldiers was impossible. They were too far gone. Convincing the citizens to take up the cause seemed impossible. They were too afraid and too protected. What would be the motivation for fighting? What meant something to them?

  The quiet had quickly degraded into arguing again. I stood and left the group, feeling Joseph and Rash’s eyes on me. But I wasn’t running. I was chasing an idea. I ran my hands over the carved, wooden armrests, picturing films being watched here, the rancid butter smell transformed into something fresh and delicious. Such a different world. Mine was small and considered; theirs was so big it invited ruin. Who stood and fought back then? What were they even fighting about?

  My thoughts trailed to when I was still living in Pau Brazil. Had I ever seen any semblance of emotion, of defiance? Twice. Once when the one-child policy was first introduced and a father argued against them taking his child, and the other was when Paulo’s brother hid his son from the authorities. Both ended in bloody confrontations...

  It was about love and family.

  Even though parents let their kids go to the Classes, there was still love and hope that their children were going on to a better life. It was what we were supposedly guaranteed. But I saw it in their faces the day I left, reluctance, doubts.

  If they knew it was a lie.

  If enough people knew what was really happening to their children… If they knew what had happened to me, to Careen, to Clara, it could be enough.

  I knew it.

  I stormed back to the fighting, pushed past the people snapping at each other like ducks fighting over a crust of bread. I climbed the stage and stood in front of the group. My hands on my hips held me up. Don’t give in to fear now. The leaders coughed behind me, and I moved to the side, addressing them and the curious group below me.

  I searched for Joseph, we locked eyes, and he beamed at me. I felt myself grow. No longer holding myself up, I stood tall. I felt surer with every breath that I was right.

  I cleared my throat and spoke. “I think we’re looking at this wrong,” I said, wavering a little as everyone’s eyes turned to me. Joseph nodded, encouragingly. Keep going. “We’re trying to use the information in these images; we’re trying to find some flaw in the Woodlands’ security. I don’t think we’ll find anything.”

  Pietre glowered. “What’s the point in telling us what we can’t do?”

  I ignored him and continued. “The fundamental flaw of the Woodlands is their arrogance.” I felt like I was sixteen again, shakily holding my report in my hands and waiting for my teacher to stop me. But I wasn’t in the Woodlands now. Everyone was waiting. “They would never dream the people could turn on them. A while ago, I wouldn’t have believed it possible either.” I started to smile. It was coming togethe
r in my head. I could see it happening. “But now, as a parent, I understand something.” My eyes flicked to Pelo. He was looking at me curiously, like he didn’t recognize me. I leaned down, picked up one of the discs on the table, and threw it in the air, catching it and giving myself time to snatch a breath. “Instead of trying to use the information in the images, we should use the images themselves.” Someone let out an ‘ah’ of recognition. But everyone else still stared at me like I was from another planet.

  I held up the disc, turning it over in my fingers, thinking about the power of this tiny piece of plastic. “We have to show the people of the Woodlands what the Superiors have been doing to their children.”

  “How?” asked the man with the plait, his eyes narrowing on me like he was trying to tell if I was pulling his leg or not.

  Joseph said it before I could.

  “We need Deshi.”

  I had their attention now but my idea was just that, an idea, and I hadn’t had any time to formulate a real plan. I tripped over my words as I spoke them. “We, er… Can we adapt the projectors that hide our settlement to play moving images?”

  Matthew tapped his chin. “It’s possible but, yes, I think Joseph is right. We need someone like Deshi to accomplish this.”

  “Ok… so assuming we could somehow get Deshi… I think if we could stick these images into the projections and show them on a night where everyone is outside…” I said, pacing, feeling eyes on me.

  Rash jumped up. “Signing Day! Everyone has to stand outside for the piss-weak fireworks.” Mumbles and agreements vibrated across the room.

  Joseph excitedly called out, “Yes Signing Day, that’s perfect.” He clapped Rash on the back.

  My excitement was building, galloping towards the solution. But when a man stood and said, “Wait, wait, everybody slow down. This is all very well and good, but who is going to volunteer for this suicide/rescue mission?” Nobody said a word, and my body crashed into a brick wall of their fear.

  Pietre laughed at me, an unpleasant noise like he was coughing up a two-by-four. I kicked the side of his good leg as I passed him, which only made him scoff harder.

  The same man, greying and round, shuffled towards me and put his hand on my shoulder condescendingly. “I’m sorry, young lady. It’s a great idea; it’s just missing some key components to make it feasible.” I tried to sharpen my bones so he wouldn’t continue to touch me, but he kept his damp hand there as he shouted to the rest of the group, “We have just returned to a wounded and hurting settlement—do we want to leave on another mission? All in favor of continuing to search for a more plausible plan, hands in the air.”

  We were outvoted, overwhelmingly so. It seemed people were about as willing to take off on another rescue mission as they would be to jump into the crater with their fallen comrades.

  I appealed to everyone, my eyes searching for sympathetic faces. “But we can’t stay here, they know our location now. What’s to stop them from coming back and finishing the job?”

  “She’s right about that.”

  I waited for more but they turned inwards, playing with the projectors, trying to come up with a better plan. The noise swallowed my resolve; the bravery I knew the Survivors for was shrouded in sadness and loss and it was holding them back.

  And in the end, they gave up trying to find a better plan.

  They put it to the entire settlement.

  The decision was made to leave.

  The door rattled. I gripped Joseph’s arm, only half awake. A part of a familiar nightmare started to creep under my skin. He grumbled, but didn’t wake. It was still dark outside. I shook his shoulder. “Joseph, there’s someone at the door.”

  He slapped at my hand like it was a mosquito, rolled onto his back and started snoring.

  I peeled back the covers and moved to the rattling door, my imagination conjuring ghosts and demons, tigers battering my screen door with their enormous heads.

  “Rosa, let me in.” Careen’s shouts coasted through my early morning fog.

  I pulled open the door, the faint glow from our living room pulling Careen’s face into fuzzy focus. She looked dark, her usually perfect face shadowed.

  I rubbed my eyes and yawned as she pushed past me.

  She slid across the floor elegantly, flicking on light switches as she went. My eyes followed, but my brain was struggling to keep up.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said, mid-yawn.

  The floor creaked and sighed under Joseph’s weight, and I turned to see him leaning against the doorframe to our bedroom, his hair raked up on one side. He looked adorable this time of the morning, messy with sleep. I tucked my hair behind my ears self-consciously and gazed at a knot in the floorboards. I knew I looked like a crow had made a nest on my head. Joseph folded his arms across his chest and said, “Careen, slow down. What’s going on?”

  Her eyes danced in excited panic. “Pack up your things. We’re going to the Monkey City.”

  Monkey city? I awoke like a shot of coffee, following Careen’s frantic movements as she picked up a pile of my clothes and searched for a backpack. “Why now?” I asked, my eyes hurting from following her around the room.

  She swung her head to face me, her beautiful hair sliding over her cheeks like silk. “I don’t know. I just know it was voted in this morning. I think… I think they just don’t want to stay here any longer. Too many people have died. It’s not safe.”

  I agreed with her there. “Uh, we didn’t get a vote.”

  She shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered. It was a huge lot of hands, you know, a minority,” she said, the cogs twitching and stalling in that strange head of hers.

  “You mean majority?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  Joseph chuckled in the background.

  “Joseph, can you help me get Pietre down to the train station? We’ll leave from there.” Her face was flushed like the pink graze on a peach from the movement.

  “Sure thing, Careen. Rosa, just throw some clothes in a bag for me, and I’ll meet you down there.” They strode out into the dawn, leaving me alone. My thoughts stripped like a birch at the end of winter.

  I nodded, moving mechanically, still a little shocked we were leaving. The decision had been made so quickly and without us. I packed a small bag for each of us, changed into jeans, a shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt, and laced my sneakers haphazardly. Outside, I could hear the collective voices of thousands of people moving through the streets. I placed a sleeping Orry in his carrier, put him on my back, and slung the packs over my arms.

  I thought of Addy and Hana and all the others we were leaving behind, and I worried we were running away from our ghosts. But I walked away from my cottage, my shell, and joined the padded footsteps of a wounded army, not charging, but retreating.

  Scanning forward through the trees, it would be easy to believe it was just Joseph and me, arms swinging, hand in hand, taking a stroll. But when I looked behind me at the endless line, the caravan of people walking with packs heaped high on their backs, I remembered we were fleeing. Leaving home and never coming back.

  There were so many missing, and the spine of the long line was disjointed by two stretchers, Apella and Pietre.

  I still saw Addy, rattling along, smacking the back of people’s legs with her walking stick as she passed under the canopy of brittle poplars that spread in front of us like an ancient avenue. The grey bark looked like the peeling skin of sunburn, bitten by frost and hungry deer.

  I felt her in the sharpness of the dried grass that grazed my claves. I saw her in the delicate coverings of the trees. And I missed her.

  Her wish was to be wrapped and tumbled down into the Hole with the rest of the dead Survivors. I didn’t go. I couldn’t watch her roll into the silty arms of the crater. I couldn’t watch a body that was once bursting with animation, advice, and sarcasm, skid down the edge like a stone.

  We walked with the men, Rash, Pelo, and Alexei, although one was
missing. Just like Addy, I saw Deshi in the land around us; he shot up from the ground in every perfectly postured, linear tree. I knew he haunted Joseph even worse.

  They took turns carrying Apella. Alexei cradled Hessa in one arm, or sometimes he sat on the stretcher with her flavorless body. I wasn’t sure how much she noticed either of them. Her eyes were planted in the sky, tracking clouds or wishing she were up there. It was hard to tell.

  She slept a lot of the time, her wheezing breath almost as loud as the endless boots crushing leaves and sticks underfoot. Alexei talked to her even when she slept. His grip on the rope of reality was slipping, his hands burning as he slid even further away.

  A flash of red hair streamed through the trees. I’d barely seen Careen since we left. Sick of the moaning Pietre, she had decided to take out her frustration on the poor wildlife that pecked or scampered around the edges of our caravan. She gracefully whipped through the background, occasionally throwing a spear or knife, and bringing armloads of small game in for dinner. I left her to it, as she seemed to need the solitude. I wondered if she felt it to. It didn’t feel like a good change. We were running away.

  I slapped out at a passing branch in frustration and sighed.

  “What’s the matter with you, Soar?” Rash said from behind me. Joseph humphed loudly, but we both ignored him

  “What? Apart from everything?”

  “Way to be positive,” Rash exclaimed sarcastically.

  “You haven’t been to the Monkey City, Rash. It’s so creepy. I’m not sure it’s any safer than what we just left.”

  Rash patted Orry’s head and smiled toothily. “You worry too much. It’ll be fine.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You worry too little.” I punched his shoulder. He shoved me back lightly, careful to avoid Orry, but I stumbled into a tree.