The Wanted (25 page)

JOSEPH

She’s almost out of reach to me now. Slipping below the horizon like the setting sun. And I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. All I know is that it puts the pain on hold.

A helicopter passed over our heads as we walked away from Palma. I ducked instinctively, as if it were close enough to touch me. Desh laughed. There was an old memory there, but I didn’t even need to shove it down. It was already buried. My head still swam in what Elise called
hangover territory
.

“Shut up!” I said as I elbowed Desh playfully. His look was suspicious, and I knew what it was about. My smiles were an endangered species.
My smiles were a betrayal.

“Sorry, it’s just good to see you smile,” Desh said, slapping the tops of the ferns that whipped our legs with melting ice.

“We did good, didn’t we?” I grinned, thinking of Palma. The people had control. They were so ready for it. We didn’t even need to light the match, just give them the packet and let them start the fire all on their own.

Desh nodded. “That we did, man. Can’t believe the way those helicopters flew away from there. It was like, one look and they thought,
No way are we even going to try and go in there!
” He was giddy. We all were. We were floating on a high after the success of Palma.

I glanced up at the sky as the helicopter disappeared from view, wondering what we would find when we got to Pau. I knew it wouldn’t be like Palma.

A deep, dark wish had been working its way to the surface like a splinter as we got closer—I could find my parents. The other, even deeper wish was maybe I could find
her
mother. But that was a small wish. The problem was the more I thought about it, the more I started to chicken out. Seeing my parents meant facing what I’d done. I wasn’t sure I could handle it or them.

I frowned, my headache pulsing in my temples like a heartbeat.

“Yeah, that’s the face we’ve come to love,” Desh joked.

Elise sidled up next to me and smirked at Desh. “You just don’t know how to bring it out of him. The guy just needs to relax a little.”

Rash snorted ahead of us. “Yeah, I bet you know exactly how to
relax
him!”

Desh strode closer to Rash and opened his mouth, ready to shout highly intelligent abuse at him.

I stopped him. “Leave him. I know he’s full of it, so does everyone else. I’m not going to let him get to me anymore, so neither should you,” I said.

“That’s the way!” Elise said chirpily, slapping me on the back.

I pulled in at the contact. “Did a mosquito just tap me on the back?” I asked.

She slapped me harder and a memory crept up and held me, angry, desperate hands trying to pull me down. Cuts, blood, fingernails digging, digging. I reached for Elise’s flask that she kept in her backpack pocket. I snatched it, and she turned around. When she saw the flask, she jumped to get it from my hands, which I held high in the air.

“Hey,” she giggled, her hair flapping up and down like a birds wings as she jumped.

I took a drink, letting it warm my stomach and calm my head. She was still trying to get the flask from my hands. I chuckled as she tried to hit me again.

“What was that? Oh wait, nah, it was just the wind,” I teased. Desh laughed along with Elise, but there was something off about it, strained.

“Here.” Desh offered his bottle of water. “Slow down.”

I took a large gulp of the spirit, ignoring the concerned stare coming at me from my other side and the water being tucked back into his bag.

“Give it here,” Elise said, taking the flask back.

Two drinks were enough for now—enough to keep bad thoughts in the background.

We stopped for lunch in a sheltered spot under cracked birches, shading large boulders. Thankfully, we’d been given ample supplies from the citizens of Palma. They’d refilled our packs and our flasks. I pulled my jacket around me as the clouds came over.

Gus threw his pack on the ground with a thump and turned to face me. Some of the others moved away from us like they were anticipating something. “Joseph.” he sighed my name.

I took a step backwards because I thought I knew what he was going to say. “What’s wrong, Gus?” My hands were two fists of rock.

Matt approached me, with Pelo shadowing him. Everyone else fanned out and away.

“We had a chat about your, er, situation…” My situation?
What did that even mean?
“And we’ve decided that you shouldn’t go in to Pau with Pelo. One of the others will go.”

My fists crumbled at my sides. “Why?”
I knew why.

Matt put his injured hand on my shoulder. “We’re just not sure you’re coping so well at the moment. We know how much you miss Rosa and Orry.”
Don’t say her name.
“We’re worried you’re not thinking straight. Grief is… well…”

I took a shaky breath and threatened Matt with my eyes to finish that sentence. It wasn’t just about missing her. It was about facing her.

Pelo put his hand on my head and patted me like a dog. “I’ll find your parents, I promise. We all feel that maybe you should sit this one out, son.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Did I do something wrong in Palma?” I asked, knowing full well there was no point in arguing.

Gus shook his head. “No, but this really is for your own good.”

I pulled my hands through my hair and exhaled. “Jesus, Gus, don’t talk to me like I’m a child.” I wanted to say more but I left it. Nodding, I walked away.

Everyone was a bit annoyed, a bit uncomfortable, and it spurred our feet to move faster like we could escape it. The happiness from Palma seeped away as we neared Pau. The small chatter leaked to nothing as we headed towards the railway track.

By nightfall, we’d reached the rails and decided to camp in a tunnel. It didn’t worry me like it once would have. I was numb to memories. I wasn’t allowing anything past the solid barrier I’d built.

A small fire kept us warm and we hunched down over the tracks, the cold biting into our butts. A bearded man nudged me.

“I don’t know what Gus is on about,” he muttered. “You did a great job in Palma.”

I shrugged. The decision had been made and in a way, I was grateful for it being out of my hands. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in, and now I didn’t have to. I tried not to examine my reasons too closely. Packed it away with the other feelings that kept trying to drag me down. I shivered as a cold blast of air shot through the tunnel and put my hands out to the fire to warm them.

The bearded man handed me a bottle, its contents sloshing around the bottom. “This will warm you up.”

I put my hand up to decline, but then changed my mind and took it.
What did it matter?

I caught Rash’s eyes across the fire, and briefly, I thought I saw something other than anger in his eyes. It looked like pity, which was so much worse.

ROSA

Today I’m going to be brave. I am my only chance. I am strong. Today, I will turn every slap, every break, every time they shake me and turn me upside down to see what will fall out, into bloody action. There is no choice.

I wound my strength tighter. Turned it over and over like a bandage in my hands, until they were wrapped like a boxer’s. They didn’t think I would do this and that was where they’d fail. I was bigger than stunts and stupid outfits. I could be bigger than all of them.

Denis led me downstairs. I talked as I normally would. I snapped at him. In the elevator I said, “Well, at least I don’t have too much more torture left to deal with, huh?” Denis’ shoulders pulled in, and he stared at the door. Yeah, guilt was an uncomfortable feeling, it dug in, constricted you like a too-tight, high-necked jacket, each regret pulled the buckles and straps tauter, each wrong action dragged the zip nearer to your throat. He had a lot to feel guilty about.

My thoughts were not on Grant. They were with Gwen.
Save. Gwen’s. Life.

You can do this.

The doors slid open and I walked through the garage with Denis close to me, his hand always hovering at my waist. My eyes glanced at the dark door, the one that opened into nightmares. My body twitched like someone flicked a switch inside me, sending a sharp slap of pain up my spine and out my nostrils. I looked away and turned in on the one thought I had to sustain.
Do it
.

We took two more steps and my desperate eyes found what I needed, lying there like a cut snake, silver, heavy, perfect.

I pretend to trip, knelt down, and snatched the piece of metal from beneath the front of the gleaming, green car. Denis leaned down to help me, and I swung around.

I hate the noise. I hate it.

The ‘crack’ as I hit Denis as hard as I could burrowed into my head and made a nest so it could stay there.

He appeared confused. His eyebrows drawn down like brackets around his rolling eyes. He put his hand to the side of his head like he wasn’t sure if it was still there. Regret crept up my throat, but I swallowed it. I searched his pockets and found what I needed, his handheld. He resisted me but softly, flopping around like a fish on a jetty. I grabbed his wrist and pulled back his sleeve, quickly taking a photo of his wrist tattoo. He didn’t make a sound. Staring at me with urgent, weeping eyes, he mouthed, “Run.” Then he rolled to his side and coughed.

I slammed the handheld into my pocket and ran.

All I could hear was my own breath and the crunch of ice beneath my feet. All I could think about was Joseph and Deshi running just like this, hearts pounding and breaking together.

I arrived at the gate to Este’s compound and fumbled around for the handheld. I knew they would be able to track me, that didn’t matter. I knew they would catch me. I just needed to get there a few minutes before they did.

Pulling up the photo, I prayed it would work. I held it under the scanner, turning it back and forth, trying to get that beep. My body was ready to press itself through the wires if it didn’t hurry up.

Beep!

I exhaled in absolute relief and pushed through the gate. It locked after me. I took a rock and smashed the scanner on the other side, hoping it would slow them down.

Please let something be on my side today.

Quickly, my toes pressed down in their shoes and I sprinted for Este’s house. Crunching. Sweat dripped down my neck from fear, from exertion, I wasn’t sure. I let the cold air in like it was medicine. It was. It filled me with lost freedom. With hope.

As I rounded the curve, Este’s home came into view. The giant, two-story stone villa looked different in the light. Beautiful and too old for this world. I hugged the zoo wall and waited for the guards to pass the gate. There was just one. He strolled down the drive rather than marched, casually arriving at the iron bars and grabbing a set of keys from his pocket.

I felt like slamming my head through the concrete wall of the zoo. A lion roared and echoed my frustration.
The padlock.
I’d forgotten about the padlock.

The guard opened the gate. I prayed he would forget to lock it after him, but he didn’t. The lock clipped back into place, and my hopes were squashed and splattered all over the gravel. I inched closer, my eyes squinting for another way in.

The guard stared at his feet, hands behind his back, bored from what I could tell. My foot slipped along the gravel, the grazing sound causing him to look up. I sighed. It was over. My short escape was pointless. Gwen would die and I would be executed for assaulting Master Grant.

The guard took a couple of steps in my direction and froze, his warm eyes meeting mine in recognition. Harry. He glanced away just as quickly, reached into his pants, and got some gum. The keys fell from his pocket and hit the ground, heavier than an asteroid. He didn’t retrieve them, though he must have heard them fall. He put his hands behind his back and sauntered around the corner away from me.

I didn’t think, I sprinted for the keys, scooped them up, and collided with gate, which shuddered from my impact.

As I flayed the keys and picked, one red ribbon rippled across my eyes and slid down my arm. Death markers. I remembered them from Pau. When someone died, there was no funeral, or occasion like the Survivors had, but people would tie red ribbons to the tree in front of the deceased’s house as a show of respect. You’d think a Superior’s house would be drowning in ribbons, but there was just this one. I picked it up off the ground where it lay like a streak of blood and wound it through the bars.

After three keys, the padlock opened.

The sound of footsteps shoved me in the back and urged me to keep moving. I slammed the gate shut and locked it, throwing the keys in the rambling garden. As the group of guards came around the curve, I managed a grin through the bars and then I took off.

Este’s house was a tomb. As I approached the door, the soundlessness of it hit me. The place was as empty as a robbed grave.

I didn’t even bother trying the door. I picked up a rock and smashed a window to the right of the giant, wooden entrance. Instantly, alarms squealed like an arrow shot through my ears as I turned to see guards shaking the gate and yelling at me to let them in.

I screamed, “Jump up and down four times and turn in a circle!” Which made them pause for a second, before rattling the great gate again. I slipped into the darkness of a home deserted, avoiding the broken glass, and ran to where I remembered Deshi’s office to be. My hands clapped over my ears, which felt like they must be bleeding.

This was the site of my death, the undoing and breaking of so many things. I drew my breath in small, panicked bursts as I crept across the rug. I had minutes, at best, before they got another set of keys and came after me.

I left the room and entered the hall, my hands running along the tapestries, searching for pictures I remembered. I poked my head down one hall, and it didn’t look familiar. Sweeping my finger along a dark, mahogany hallstand, I was surprised how much dust gripped my fingers.

I turned again. This house was a maze of halls and doors.

The alarm sound switched from squealing to a low whooping noise.

I moved faster, my head snapping back and forth, searching. And then I caught it—a flash of white snow, brown-grey fur against burdened pines. I ran to it like I could save its life.

The deer in the snow.

I was close.

I couldn’t stop to stare. I cut a sharp corner, my shoulder bumping hard into the stone wall, and was faced with Deshi’s office door. A dead space, echoing voices of the ones who left me behind.

The keypad blinked in front of me. I punched in the only code I knew that would mean something to Deshi—Hessa’s birthday.

The green light gleamed happily, and I felt like laughing hysterically. Pushing inside, I locked the door behind me. I switched on the light and the scene flickered to life. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like the air was not mine to breath. I climbed onto the wheeled stool from his desk and stretched to pull the camera from the wall, though it didn’t look switched on.

I took one very brief moment to be shaky, to miss them and want them and then, I ransacked the office.

I emptied the drawers and tipped them on floor. Papers covered in numbers and symbols I would never understand rained down and covered the entire floor. I pushed at the ceiling squares and pulled down the piping that wound its way between the metal support bars. Reaching my arms, I desperately flapped my hands over the top surface of the bars, hoping he’d taped them up there, but there was nothing. Nothing.

Damn it.

“Damn it!” I screamed and kicked the stool across the room.

It landed on its side, the wheels swinging uselessly back and forth, trying to grip the air. I pulled at my hair in frustration, tears burning. These would be my last tears. Gwen was going to die. I would never see Orry or Joseph again.

I walked over to the stool and picked it up, slamming it down on the floor in anger. Over and over. “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” I screamed until my voice felt tiny and wasted.

As I slammed it again weakly, my anger giving in to fear, the wheels cracked. I lifted it up to throw it and one wheel fell out of the leg and onto to floor, a small tuft of plastic protruding from the hollow leg. I teased it out. Little white pills danced before my eyes, and I cackled like a crazy person.

Bang!

“Miss Rosa, open the door immediately!”

Bang!

I took four pills from the plastic bag, shoved the rest back in the leg, and replaced the wheel. Placing the pills in my sock band, I rolled it over, shaking my pant leg down to cover it.

Bang!

I righted the stool, placed it under the desk, took one deep breath, and opened the door.