One Wish, One Choice

by Abby Hope Patrick

  Carl aimed his gun, this time spinning it around on Anja. But before he could shoot, Kano was behind him, his foot connected with Carl’s head.

  Carl fell forward, the gun falling out of his hand. Kano rushed to pick it up. He fixed the gun on Carl, while Anja ran towards Rufus. Saskia was already crouched by Rufus’s side, her hands stained bright crimson. Miles had moved Rufus onto his back, his hands pressed to his stomach to stop the blood that was gushing out.

  Miles began yelling that they had to get him to the car, but the end of his sentence was cut off by another gunshot.

  They all spun around.

  Kano stood next to Carl, his head turned away. Carl let out a blood-curdling scream. The bullet wound in his leg began pumping blood out onto the marble floor.

  Kano turned his head, his eyes finding Anja’s. A tear slid down his cheek, though he quickly wiped it away. Anja knew he had to do it, to prevent Carl from coming after them, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness.

  “We need to get him out of here!” Miles insisted.

  Kano and Miles grabbed Rufus under his arms and dragged him along the corridor.

  Saskia and Anja started running after them.

  The boys rounded the corner. The girls rushed ahead, using their momentum to barge into the door. It burst open and smacked into the wall.

  The car park was large and almost empty.

  “Where is Faye?” shouted Miles.

  “Silver jeep, to your right,” Kano called back.

  They all rushed forward as the engine started. Faye was sitting in the driver’s seat yelling at them to get in. They piled in.

  Anja and Kano crouched by her brother on the floor in the back. Kano was still holding Carl’s gun. He shakily unloaded it before dropping it onto the floor.

  Kano’s hands pressed against the wound on Rufus’s side as Faye began driving out of the car park.

  Rufus’s painful cries filled the small space.

  Anja sobbed, her hand clutching her brother’s. Kano had taken off his jacket and was using it to try and stop the bleeding. His eyes didn’t leave the wound as he spoke. “I don’t think I can save him.”

  “You have to,” Anja pleaded. “He’s all I have left.”

  “I need more time, he’ll bleed out before we can get him somewhere safe.”

  Faye shouted from the front seat, “We’re almost out of the city, I’ll get us off the road as soon as I can.”

  Faye pulled over in one of the empty fields that surrounded the city.

  They all rushed out of the car. Kano carrying Rufus like a sleeping baby. He moved carefully to keep Rufus’s head from bobbing around too much.

  She hadn’t dared to look at the obvious wound beneath his shirt. During the ride, as she had been holding her brother close, blood had soaked into her clothes. With the amount of blood on both of them, she knew it was a bad hit.

  Kano placed Rufus up against a big oak tree. Anja ran to her brother, leaning over him. Her tears fell fast.

  “You’ve got to be okay,” she told him, one hand clutching his, the other on his shoulder.

  Something burned her chest and she looked down through her tears and saw the pearl around her neck.

  The necklace!

  The old man had said it would save her life.

  Could it save him?

  She couldn’t bring herself to speak. Rufus’s breathing was shallow and she knew his body was failing.

  The necklace began to burn her neck again. She tugged it off and it lay in her sweaty palm.

  This had better work…

  She placed the necklace over Rufus’s heart.

  Over and over, the same desperate, incoherent phrase consumed her entire being.

  Save him… save him… save him.

  At first, nothing happened. But then a white light burst from the necklace’s centre. It grew stronger, spreading like a web of rippling light over Rufus’s entire body. It was the same glittering magic the old man had used. The threads of light entwined.

  And then it stopped. As it began to fade, Anja moved nearer, her whole body shaking.

  Rufus wasn’t moving.

  “Rufus!” she yelled into the empty field beyond his broken body. “Rufus! Rufus!”

  She screamed over and over until her voice broke.

  Kano held her tight and she fell into his arms, her tears uncontrollable. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess. Her vision clouded. Her arms wrapped around him. Her head on his chest.

  That was when she heard it. A rasping breath from her brother’s direction.

  She turned towards him, reaching out to grab his shirt and dragging it up. She stared at the torn flesh where the bullet had pierced his body. Blood stopped seeping from the wound as it began to close up. His skin sealed itself, slowly knitting back together.

  “Anja?” he whispered hoarsely.

  She looked down as Rufus’s mouth said her name again. Her head spun.

  He’s alive!

  His eyes fluttered open and Anja gasped. His irises were white and glowed exactly as the old man’s had during the fight. But then Rufus blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they were the same shade of green that they had always been.

  Slowly, stiffly, Rufus sat up.

  All she could do was hug him and cry into his shoulder. As she held him, she could feel the change. His body became less brittle. His skin regained some colour, his eyes were bright and focused.

  But something else was wrong.

  Anja felt it when she’d leaned over to hug him. She pulled back sharply, wincing in sudden pain.

  Something’s wrong.

  Rufus’s eyes slid down to her stomach, where her t-shirt was soaked through with blood.

  Anja’s breath hitched. She could feel the pain now, the searing fire burrowing deep inside her flesh.

  She lifted her top, the blood was hers now, coming from a wound that had appeared out of nowhere.

  The world was swimming around her.

  Her brother’s face went in and out of focus.

  She felt the others around her, saw the blurry outline of Kano as he lunged towards her.

  Anja twisted back to Rufus. He was the last thing she saw before unconsciousness dragged her under.

  II

  The Choice

  Chapter Sixteen

  Anja didn’t want to be dramatic and say that everything hurt, but when she tried to find a part of her body that wasn’t searing with pain, she failed.

  Her eyelids stung as they opened. The room around her took a while to shift into focus. Then a figure moved into her line of sight.

  Saskia.

  “You’re awake!” she shrieked. She moved to hug Anja, but at the last moment pulled away, thinking better of it. “Stay conscious. The others need to know you’re up.” Saskia sniffled, tears running down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” she said, before turning and rushing out of the room.

  Anja tried to figure out where she was, but the room didn’t give her any clues. The mucky windows kept the sunlight and fresh air at bay.

  Her head pounded as she tried to sit up. Immediately pain flooded every nerve in her body, radiating from her right side.

  “Whoa…” Kano rushed in, rolling up his sleeves. “Don’t move, or you’ll tear the stitches.” Dark circles lined his eyes.

  Anja was preparing herself to speak when Rufus, Miles and Saskia ran into the room. All their words morphed together into a jumbled mess of sentences, but Anja didn’t need to hear what they were saying. The relief etched on all of their faces was clear enough.

  Kano moved back so Rufus could kneel by the bed. He grabbed Anja’s hand, squeezing tight.

  “How?” Anja whispered. Her eyes refused to focus. She tried to add more to the question but her throat was too dry. She coughed, then winced in pain.

  The others pressed in around her. But with a small wave of her hand, she reassured them. She lifted the edge of her shirt and stared down at the bandage that was
wrapped around her stomach.

  Her eyes returned to her friend’s faces, asking, without words, for an explanation. Miles cleared his throat,

  “We’re all okay, yes, even Rufus. Something happened by that tree and Rufus’s gunshot wound is now your gunshot wound.” He frowned. “You’ll need to explain that witchcraft to us somehow. Anyway, we are currently in an abandoned barn on a farm Faye worked at for a few months before she blessed Okland with her presence. Kano, being the perfect human he is, was able to patch you up. It was super gross. There was blood everywhere, which got on my t-shirt, so you better buy me a new one.”

  Saskia hit her elbow into Miles’s side and gave him a pointed glare. Anja nodded at Kano, hoping that he understood how grateful she was, even if she still couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “And I think that’s pretty much it.” Miles rambled on, “Oh, and I did a doodle of two stickmen having a laser fight.” He proudly held up an old notebook.

  Anja’s laugh cut off as fresh pain flooded through her body.

  “Idiot, stop making her laugh,” Saskia snapped.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help being a comical genius.”

  Throughout the whole conversation, Rufus had remained still, holding her hand so tightly that she’d begun to lose feeling in it. Kano glanced between them, then addressed the others. “We’ll go and get Anja something to drink.”

  “It doesn’t take three people to get a glass of water,” Miles protested. Saskia dragged him out, huffing dramatically.

  Rufus took a big breath in, his hand shaking in hers.

  “I’m so sorry, sis.” She had almost forgotten what his voice sounded like. “I got us into this situation, but you’re the one suffering.” He offered a watery grin. “That doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed that you took the spotlight from me when I was shot. Having a scar like the one you’ll have is a huge chick magnet.”

  “You can take it back if you want.” Anja smirked, painfully.

  “Ah,” Rufus sighed, “I wish I could, but to do that, I’d need the necklace.”

  She frowned, “You don’t have it?”

  Rufus’s cheeks turned pink. “I may have… left it in the field.” Anja opened her mouth, ready to yell at him. “Wait, before you begin a long rant, just remember that you were spilling blood everywhere and I thought you were going to die, so my mind was a little preoccupied.”

  He fell silent.

  “What happened to us, Anja? How did it all go so wrong? We planned everything.” Anja raised an eyebrow. “You planned everything,” he corrected, a small grin lifting his lips.

  She spoke, her voice hoarse and croaky,

  “I believe,” she breathed through the pain, “that it was when you decided to try and take down the entire government with your stupid article.”

  Rufus glowered. “That was a great article!”

  “Yes, but it almost got us both killed.”

  The door was kicked open and Faye strode in, a glass of water in her hand.

  “The others wanted me to give this to you.” She slammed it down on the bedside table before storming out again.

  Anja grinned, but Rufus looked angry,

  “How can you let her be so rude to you?”

  In between gulps of water, Anja replied, “I know she loves me really.”

  “No, I do-on’t,” yelled Faye in a singsong voice from outside the door.

  This only widened Anja’s grin.

  * * *

  She had been lying awake staring at the ceiling for half an hour when Kano visited. He passed her a handful of pills. “These should help with the pain. But it’s not going to heal anytime soon, not without taking you to a hospital.”

  Anja nodded. “Can you help me sit up? This bit of ceiling is beginning to bore me.”

  It took them a while to slowly move her into a sitting position and arrange pillows behind her back so she was comfortable.

  Kano said, “I’ll try my best to keep the others out so you can get some sleep.”

  She nodded, but before he shut the door, she whispered, “Thank you.”

  Kano smiled, his face brightening. But his eyes still showed his exhaustion as he slipped out the door.

  * * *

  After three days of nothing but rest, Anja was beginning to go mad in the room she occupied at the top of the barn. She always had company except in the designated ‘rest times’ Kano had set for her.

  Saskia and Kano woke up early that morning and headed out into Okland on a food run. No one dared to mess with Saskia when it came to food, she took her role as the group’s chef very seriously. When they came back Saskia went to visit Anja. She sat on the side of the lumpy bed.

  “It was super scary, you know,” said Saskia, recalling what had happened after Anja had used the necklace. “Everyone was shouting. Faye was yelling about getting you to this barn, Rufus was only half-conscious, and Kano…” She stopped. “I’ve never seen him like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was so quiet. He was the one who held you in the car, while Faye drove like a madwoman to get here. I just remember seeing the pain on his face and thinking that it meant you weren’t going to make it. It’s an odd thing to see a person fall apart in front of you. At that moment I pitied whoever’s responsible because I knew if we lost you nothing in this world would stop him from going after them.” Saskia pulled herself out of the memory. “It’s a good thing you’re a fighter.”

  Anja certainly didn’t feel like one.

  “Anyway, I need to go put all this blooming shopping away.” She rose from the bed, leaving Anja alone.

  She had just fallen asleep when she was woken up by the sound of Faye slipping, almost silently, into the room.

  “Be downstairs in ten minutes.” She paused and added, “Kano says you should come with us on the water run and get some air, but feel free to carry on being of no use to us, if you’d prefer that.”

  It took her longer than she would like to admit to reach the others, but finally, Anja made it down the barn’s stairs, clutching the rails as she descended.

  The medicine Kano had given her prevented reality causing her any more pain. They were all aware that Kano only had a limited number of pills. After he’d stopped Anja from bleeding out, both he and Faye had driven back into Okland at night and bought supplies from a small pharmacy at the edge of the city. But by the increased tension in Kano’s eyes, she knew that they were running out.

  Downstairs everyone was holding jerry cans and plastic jugs, and Saskia had a string of bottles hanging from a satchel around her neck. They were all by the door waiting for her.

  Rufus was staring down at his feet. His body still looked too fragile, his fingers stuffed into his pockets, his clothes loose around his body. She didn’t know how long it would take him to recover physically from what the government had done to him, let alone psychologically.

  She pulled her eyes away from him and onto Kano, who, even with the lack of sleep, seemed to look stronger. Behind the exhaustion lining his eyes, there was something else that hadn’t been there before, not a fire but a storm. Rage and anger were hidden behind his eyes, but not just that, there was also sadness. As he looked back at her she was sure that he saw those emotions in her eyes as well. They’d all lost so much and it was beginning to catch up to them.

  Rufus extended his arm to Anja and together they slowly walked out through the barn doors. The others followed, Faye moving to lead the way.

  Anja took a deep breath in, enjoying the fresh air. With all the drugs in her system, her body felt heavy and slow. She could hardly feel Rufus’s arm as he helped keep her upright. She promised herself that no matter how dizzy she felt she wouldn’t tell the others, otherwise, they’d insist she stay behind.

  * * *

  Finally, the group could hear the gurgling of water falling from a great height.

  The waterfall came into sight and Saskia gasped. It was beautiful, stretching high into the sky as the
water spilt over the rocks in a rush to reach the bottom.

  The forest that the group had spent the last ten minutes walking through sprawled around the lake on every side. The ground was covered in thick, luscious grass. Flowers bloomed around their feet.

  Saskia reached down and plucked a flower from the ground.

  “Murderer,” Miles whispered from behind her.

  They all stood next to the river and began filling the empty containers with water. Anja couldn’t bend without her side burning so she stood out of the way, staring at her reflection in the mirror-like water. She couldn’t remember ever looking so sickly. Her skin was dry and sweaty. Her hair was tied back, but after sleeping on it the front had fallen out of the band and was now tucked behind her ears.

  Saskia huffed, lifting a jerry can from the ground and moving over to stand beside her.

  “You can go in the water if you want,” Saskia said.

  “I’m not sure if I’m allowed.”

  “When have you ever asked for permission before doing something stupid? We could all use a quick break—and you could use a wash,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

  Kano was frowning from the bank, his hands still closed around beakers of water.

  Saskia pulled the water bottles from around her and began yanking on Miles’s arm, leading him to the water.

  Faye stood still on the bank, her arms crossed. Miles turned and splashed a spray of water in her direction. The water missed, but Faye’s lips curled into something that almost resembled a smile as she accepted the silent challenge. She waded into the water, splashing Miles back with a lot more ferocity. The three of them shrieked as the icy water was splashed back and forth.

  Rufus smiled as he looked on.

  “Go,” Anja said to him. “I’m going to go check on Kano.”

  He hesitated for a moment before he handed her his water bottle and joined the others.

  Anja slowly approached Kano.

  “Don’t drink that.” He nodded to the water bottle. “We need to add a splash of iodine first.”

  She smiled. “Good point. After everything we’ve been through it would be a shame to die from drinking dirty water.” She looked out at the lake. “So, what boring excuse are you going to give me for not joining in?”