Текст книги "The Wanted"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

ROSA

We were ordered to leave. Grant barked it like a dog. Camille jumped to his side, placed her jeweled fingers on his shoulders, and his hand reached up to pat her. The younger ones left. I understood his pride. He didn’t want his children or me to see him being carried to the wheelchair.

I was relieved. Dinner was over. I couldn’t have taken one more second of it before I jumped up on the table and kicked the plates into Grant’s face. I pictured it now as I leaned against the smooth-as-butter door of my bedroom that the guard closed and locked as soon as I stepped inside. I still wanted it. Pressing my hands into the reassuring timber, I took a breath. I imagined his face dripping with gravy, a mushroom stuck to his brow. He would kill me. No, first, he would smile, and then he would kill me.

“Ugh!” I banged the door softly. Scared to attract attention.

I still didn’t understand what the purpose of the dinner was. If it was meant to make me feel inferior, it did, but not in the way Grant would have wanted. I felt inferior to myself. Disgusted at my own behavior. If Joseph saw me now, he wouldn’t know me. I ran my hands through my hair and let my imagination settle on his face. My mind always went back to home. What was once my home. Joseph in a chair with Orry, sleeping, safe, warm. I reached out to touch him, to feel a curl of his gold hair in my fingertips. I tucked the memory under my skin. He was always with me. They couldn’t take that away.

I shook my head. At least they were both far away from here.

I moved towards my bed, kicking off my shoes as I walked. I paused, grunted in frustration, and picked them up, tucking them neatly under the chair by the door. I didn’t want to annoy Red any more than I already had. Well actually, I did, but I knew I shouldn’t.

Pajamas were laid out on the bed, pink and yellow, made of fabric as soft as a rabbit’s ear. Pink daisies spotted the pattern, and it made me sick. What kind of nightmare was this? It felt like they were wrapping me in silk only to light it on fire. This comfort was a lie, and I was deathly scared of what my true treatment would be. I picked up the pajama top. Its pink, daisy-shaped buttons were nauseating.

I got into bed fully clothed, ignoring the toothbrush and other toiletries that had been put on the bedside table. I kicked the pajamas with my feet under the quilt until they fell in a heap on the floor.

My one pathetic attempt at defiance.

My chest began to rise and fall more rapidly, and panic crept up my arms like spider webs and wrapped around my throat. My eyes darted to the camera trained on my wreck of a body. I was trapped. Turning my head, I screamed into the pillow. How was I going to get out of this?

Sleep played with me. I’d close my eyes to nightmares. Something hurt deep inside, and I couldn’t name it. I woke up in pain, and I slept in pain.

When the door opened, I was not surprised, as I’d woken up screaming so hard my voice was hoarse. When I saw who it was, though, I shrank back.

It was Judith. She walked in, barefoot, looking smaller, more fragile than she had at dinner. She rolled her head around, taking in the position of the camera, and then casually collapsed at the foot of my bed like she done it a million times. I immediately sat up and pulled my feet away from her.

“Ya don’t need to be scared of me,” she said, her words stretching out lazily, her hair falling in perfect waves over her shoulders.

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not,” I lied. She was maybe the scariest thing I’d ever come across.

“Dad sent me in to check on you. We could hear you screaming all the way down the hall.” Hall sounded like haul, and it was grating my ears. I tried not to cover them at the sound of her voice.

“What do you care?” I snapped. I stared down at her legs, haphazardly folded over each other like she didn’t know where they should go. She put her head down and stared at her hands. They shook, and she placed one over the other to still them.

“I care because I was told to care,” she whispered at her lap. “I’m supposed to make friends with you.” She tucked some of her golden brown hair behind her ears, and it fell forward again anyway.

She reached out to pat my leg awkwardly, and I sharply withdrew. I didn’t want her to touch me.

“Please,” she pleaded.

Her eyes were wide, blue discs of fear. A tear slid down her cheek like it didn’t want to be there anymore. Don’t feel sorry for her, I told myself. Look at her. She has everything. Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t let this girl in. It was too dangerous.

Judith withdrew her hand, put her orange-tipped finger to her mouth, and started chewing at her cuticles.

“Dad says you won’t break easily,” she said with a mouthful of picked-off skin. I suppressed my gag reflex.

“He can’t break me,” I whispered, searching her eyes for something other than preened, parrot-like features. “I’m already broken.”

She was so anxious, shaky… but there was something in there, maybe something I could use. Her face changed like someone was arranging her facial figures for her, from sad, to amused, and my hopes dashed against the wall and shattered.

She lulled me. I bought into her delicate, scared routine, then she said, “He will enjoy trying though,” and I saw her father in her.

“Get out of my room,” I said, glaring, willing her to move. She didn’t. “Get out!” I said louder.

She went back to nervous, flustered by my temper. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice sawing my nerves as her eyes fluttered up at the camera purposefully.

I got to my knees, shuffled towards her, and shoved her shoulders. She flew backwards, her flannel-clad legs pointed to the ceiling, and she landed on her butt.

She sat there, propped on her elbows, breathing hard for a second. She shot me a disapproving stare, her face tight, her lips pouting. I growled like a feral animal, leaning over her from the top of the bed.

“You don’t get it,” she said, her voice snapped, full of haughtiness as she got to her feet. “You do as you’re told. I do as I’m told. You don’t have a choice!” She stormed away from me, her arms folded across her chest like she thought that was what you should look like when you were angry. She was as unreal as a mirage. As any vision I had of Joseph breaking this door down and taking me away from this place.

The problem was I knew she was right about doing as I was told. As she padded out of my room and closed the door with a clap, I whispered to the depressing air, to my prison, my words coming out like a thin stream of vapor, “I don’t know how.”

ROSA

Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with Joseph’s arms around me. He’ll nuzzle into my neck and kiss me. I’ll swat him away half-heartedly because I want him just as much as I pretend not to… no… much more.

Orry will be asleep in his cot. His curls falling around his face like a lazy crown. He’ll snore, stir, and smile in his dreams.

I’ll be whole. Broken, but whole. Pieced together from heartbreak, from torture and love.

This mattress wanted to swallow me, its comfort of no comfort at all. I wouldn’t know it was morning. When I swept back the curtains, I was staring at another manufactured view. The only way I knew was by the sound of Red, pushing her way through the doorway and screaming at me for—

“How could you treat Miss Judith that way?” she yelled, her eyes as red as her roots. She stomped her foot like a bull and charged at me. Taking one look at the pajamas on the floor, her nostrils flared. She grabbed my arm and wrenched me out of bed. I tried to pull away from her grip, but she was too strong. She pulled my cardigan from my body, ripping it, and threw it on the floor, dragging me to the bathroom.

“She was in tears when she came to me. She has a bruised… a bruised…” Red’s lipstick clotted in the corners of her growling mouth.

“Butt?” I said through a wide grin before I could stop myself.

Red made a high-pitched noise, gasping in shock, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

She grabbed at me with chubby fingers trying to pull my shirt off, but I hugged it tight to my body. Each grab was like a punch. She was as strong as the ox she was acting like. Her curves were so tightly bandaged in her tight suit that she resembled a chunky, carved table leg. She kept hold of me with one hand while she turned the knob on the shower. There was no steam pluming off the tiles. I shivered and braced myself.

She kept pecking at my clothes like a nervous, lead-beaked bird, but I wasn’t giving her my shirt. When she realized this, she threw me under the water, my back crashing into the tiles, my body making a hollow thud like a lonely drum. My muscles tensed at the shock of ice-cold water, and I spat as it ran down my face and over my lips.

“Clean yourself and change for breakfast!” she snapped. I heard the bathroom, then the bedroom door close and lock.

When I was sure she was gone, I turned the hot water tap on and removed my clothes, letting the hot water attempt to thaw my frozen body, inside and out. I tried really hard not to think of my last shower, with Joseph, in Este’s house, but the memory was there, inside of me, and my body remembered before my brain caught up. My cheeks flushed red and I ran my finger over my lips, trying to bring back that last kiss. His arms wrapping me so tight because we knew it could be the last time. I turned off the taps. Drips of water ran down my nose and over my mouth as I let out a small cry. It couldn’t be the last time.

He ruined my heart. But in a good way.

I was a patchwork of wounds and scars. He was the glue that held me together. And now, he was gone.

I pressed my palm to the tiles and waited to wake up from this nightmare.

When I got out of the bathroom, another hideous outfit lay on the bed. I put it on this time, grimacing at the purple blouse with diamanté buttons and the black skirt that flared at the knees. The sleeves were puffed and when I saw myself in the mirror, I couldn’t help but laugh. A pair of blue contacts sat on the bedside table. I ignored them and sat down to wait for the guard. My hands were clasped neatly in my lap, mostly to stop me from throwing stuff.

The knock on the door still startled me. The politeness seemed so out of place.

“Come in,” I yelled through the solid timber door.

The guard stepped in, giving me a nervous smile as he looked down at me through the light brown hair hanging over his eyes like vines over a cave entrance.

“Your presence is requested at breakfast,” he said eagerly.

I rolled my eyes. “Faaantastic!”

The guard frowned. “You’re lucky.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m about the unluckiest person you’ll ever meet. Don’t get too close. I’m pretty sure it’s contagious,” I said, scratching my arms like I had a rash.

His eyebrows rose in confusion but he didn’t say anything except, “Follow me,” smiling with his arm extended.

I followed him down the long, curved hall. Large rectangles of light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, stretching across the carpet and creeping halfway up the walls. The timber glowed like amber honey under the sun. I paused to watch the tiny dust motes flying through the air in the clean-cut rays. They swirled and danced, landing on my arms. The air was thick and warm in here, artificial.

This was the first time I’d seen Grant’s grounds in daylight. It was different to Este’s in a lot of ways. Still vast, open, and stupidly luxurious, but everything outside was sharp, softened only by the light covering of snow, which a servant was busily dusting off with a hand-broom. Spiky, inhospitable sculptures made from concrete and rusty metal were scattered around the lawn. They were beautiful and raw, but frightening in their harshness. I imagined if you touched one that you would cut yourself, and then I shuddered at the thought that Grant would probably enjoy watching me bleed.

“Ahem,” the guard coughed. I jumped. From here, I could see the outside world and my eyes, my heart, didn’t want to leave it.

“It’s alright, Harry,” a cool voice spoke behind me. “I’ll take her in.”

Harry, the guard, grabbed my elbow and steered me towards Grant’s son, Denis, letting him take me, or my reins I guess. Harry winked at me and said, “Enjoy your meal, miss.” I smiled awkwardly. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

Harry walked briskly back the way we had come, disappearing around the curve.

Denis’ hand slid around my waist, barely touching me, just kind of hovering there with a millimeter of air between his hand and my body.

“Shall we?” he asked, looking down at me from his very tall height, his eyebrows raised in question. I noticed a scar wrapped around the end of his eyebrow like a crescent moon.

The earphones dangled from his shoulders again. I stared at them too long, and he noticed.

“Do you enjoy music?” he asked. For him, this seemed to be a very serious matter.

I wondered whether I should lie, but then I thought, What’s the point?

“It’s new to me, but yeah, I do,” I replied.

He tipped his chin. We hung around the door to the dining room. I didn’t want to go in.

He put a hand on my arm so gently he could have been a mosquito resting there. “Don’t worry. You have some time before…” His eyes moved to the tip of the painting next to us. A small camera buzzed on the frame like a housefly. Denis turned so his back faced the lens, his whole long body shadowing my own. “Don’t show fear,” he whispered.

His hand left my arm, raking over my skin like a breeze. His touch was so light but strong at the same time, like everything he did, he meant to do.

“Wait,” I hushed, my lips barely moving. “Why should I listen to you?”

His mouth turned up in one corner, a crooked smile almost there. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

I huffed and pursed my lips. My instincts pushed me to trust him. They were all I had left, and I needed to believe in something.

“Okay, tell me one thing,” I said, looking up into his strong face.

It creased momentarily with irritation, his hand clenched around the handle. “Quickly,” he hissed.

“What did you mean by replacement?” I said, leaning on my tiptoes to get closer.

His eyes closed briefly like he was remembering something unpleasant. When they opened, they were ringed with sadness.

“Let’s just say, I’m not the first Denis Grant,” he muttered impatiently. His words were quick and tinged with warning.

I blinked up at him. “That’s not an answer. I’m going to need more than a cryptic sentence and a look,” I whispered boldly.

He craned his head up to the ceiling and exhaled in exasperation. Licking his lips, an answer forced its way between his rigid, set mouth. “Dad has had several offspring ‘made’ as back ups. When one of us misbehaves or displeases him, we are ‘replaced’. I have many brothers and sisters I will never meet. The photos on the wall are a warning,” he said grimly, and sympathy sketched its way through my mind briefly.

Before I could respond, Denis turned the handle. When it coasted open, his demeanor stiffened. He bowed slightly and allowed me to pass through first.

Grant was in his wheelchair, rolling himself past a low bench laden with breakfast food. I tried not to drool at the smell of bacon and eggs.

When he heard the door close, he spun around slowly, a plate balanced across his knees. He didn’t look at me, only at his son.

“Leave us,” he ordered, holding up his hand.

No don’t, I thought. But before I could blink, Denis was gone.

Grant wheeled himself to the table and placed his plate on the glass tabletop with a clang. “Would you like some breakfast, Rosa?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure.” His face twitched at my response, but he nodded and wheeled himself back to the bench to serve me a plate.

“Sit down please,” he said with his back to me.

I sat down like an obedient dog. He had this power over me, and I hated it. I clenched my teeth, fighting the words that wanted to spew from my mouth. I hated his control, his weird politeness.

I knew it had to end soon.

“I suppose you’re wondering what you’re doing here?” he asked, drawing out his words painfully as he took his place at the table and placed my plate in front of me.

I stared down at the steaming plate of scrambled eggs, the crispy bacon shining with fat, and sucked in my bottom lip. All of a sudden, I felt nauseous.

“I know you want information,” I said, my voice as dry as cracked wheat, “but I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know what they’re planning.” I lied unconvincingly.

He smiled at me, and I wondered if he knew how to smile for real or if his smile was only used to unnerve and threaten.

“Oh, we’ll figure it out eventually. I’ll figure you out eventually too,” he said, winding his fork in the air at me. “The ‘how’ I figure you out is up to you.” I placed a hand over my stomach protectively. He eyed me like a present he’d like to tear open. “How about I let you ask me a question and in return, you allow me to ask you a question that you must answer truthfully?”

I picked up my fork, pushing the eggs around the plate. This was a game. I could play a game. Jabbing the fork in his direction, I watched as his jaw clenched. “How could you be so selfish? Do you really think you’re worth all those lives you took to get the healer?” I asked, my voice wavering with nervousness.

His fingers spread out and then clenched into a tight fist. “Yes. I’m worth ten times the number of lives I took,” he stated. It was a stupid question. Of course he thought that. “My turn.” He took a sip of his coffee and breathed in and out several times, making me wait.

“Do you really think your cause is worth all the lives I’m going to take in response to yours and your comrades’ actions?” His tone was mocking, as if my cause were a childish faze.

My chest felt like ice. I tried to breathe, but there was something in the way. Guilt.

“No,” I answered. “But the life you’ve allowed us in the Woodlands is not a real life. They’ll see that.”

He seemed extremely unsatisfied with my answer. His eyes rolled over me from head to toe, and found me lacking.

“You’re a foolish girl. You think you’re strong. You think I won’t win, but I will always win.” I was getting to him. The victory was small, but enough to fuel me, until he squashed it.

He composed himself quickly and said, “It is clear to me that you require a firmer approach.” He rang the bell by his coffee cup with a sharp twist of his wrist and picked up a document next to his plate, running his eyes over it, and ignoring me. We were done.

Red appeared in the doorway. She grinned at me in a sick kind of way.

“Rosa here has chosen not to do as she is told,” Grant said without looking up from his paper.

“Wait!” I said as Red gripped me under the arm and pulled me from my chair.

Grant raised his eyes to meet mine. My promise echoed in my head. I promised I would live.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’ll do as I’m told.” I dipped my head down, in apology. My head felt like it would explode at the words. Every part of me wanted to scream.

Grant smiled, his teeth glinting under the slowly waving pendant light that hung over the table.

“Good girl.” His voice was quietly satisfied. “Tell the others they can come in now,” he said to Red. She looked put out by the change in events but left, returning with the rest of Grant’s family.

I ate breakfast quietly, avoiding eye contact with Denis, who was staring at me like I’d killed his pet rabbit or something, and Judith, who was pouting.

What was I going to do?

The only answer was to play along, give them some of what they wanted but not everything. Ride it out and hope they didn’t kill me.

It didn’t seem like a very good plan.

ROSA

I bang against the cell bars. Gripping the iron, I hold on so tight my knuckles turn white. I’m slipping away, a new, different person taking my place. Someone I don’t recognize. Someone who’s supposed to save me but is killing me at the same time.

If I do this? If I stop being me? What’s left if I manage to survive?

This was the second day of interrogations.

My fingers ached. They did small but painful things. I’d been warned that it could be a lot worse. If I didn’t cooperate, the torture would be worse. I wasn’t sure I cared. I’d lost myself. I’d retreated. There was a cage around me now.

I was bearing it. Just.

I scratched at the edge of my bandages as Harry stood next to me in the lift. He kept his eyes forward on the door. I looked up from my hunched position, the blood seeping around the edges of the white cloth like red ink blots. They were going to pull them off anyway so I removed one, inspecting the pink, raw skin around my nails. Harry flinched at the sight of them.

I held it up to the metallic light, the elevator humming in the background. “It hurts worse than it looks,” I shot at him with a wink.

He grimaced, sighing in relief when the doors opened. I stepped out and he followed two steps behind me.

I distracted myself by taking in the details of the cars on either side of me as we walked through the under-house garage. Three red cars, one green, two black, and four silver. I breathed in the smell of motor oil and damp. Four convertibles, six hard tops. The chrome detailing glinted and winked at me. I gripped onto the wide headlights, shining like forced-open eyes. I wanted to be as vacant and empty of thought as the cars. I didn’t want to go in there. I suppressed the panic as we reached the end of the line. Even if my brain was pumping its hands and calming me, telling me I could handle it, my body wasn’t ready for this. I stalled. I couldn’t take another step. But then I thought of Orry and I edged closer to the door, leaning into imaginary hands that were pushing me forward. The big, black door howled hollowly.

“Miss?” Harry asked questioningly, a hint of sympathy in his voice.

I put my hand to my chest, blood pulsing in my fingertips, the rest running away from my center. “Just give me a minute.” He moved towards me, and I caught his eyes. “Please,” I pleaded with a finger up as I bent over and tried not to vomit.

“One minute,” he agreed.

I tried to slow my breath, compose myself. I had to take a few steps back into myself. It was small bites of pain, but it was constant. And I was afraid.

“Can he drive these?” I asked, attempting to sound light when my breath felt like coal bricks stacking on top of each other in my chest.

The guard stood straighter. “Yes, Miss. Some. But after the procedure in a few weeks, he’ll be able to drive all of them.”

I did a series of small nods, talking myself into moving. “Ok. Let’s go.”

Harry opened the door for me, and I stepped into my tiny nightmare.

My eyes adjusted to the darker room, the color of midnight. Navy with cold white stars.

Mr. Hun tottered over to me and took both my hands in warm greeting. “Sit, sit,” he said, his round, dark face squishing into a smile.

He was a hessian sack with eyes, his dark skin rubbed and worn; his body low like his whole weight was sagging to the ground because his short legs couldn’t hold him up. Small tufts of hair like those on old potatoes sprouted from the top of his mostly bald head. If you met him in the street, you’d think he was cute and completely unthreatening. But I knew better now. I hesitated but then the two guards leaning against the wall gave me a look and pointed to the camera that was always watching me.

Oh God.

Just breathe. Breathe…

I sank into the black, leather swivel chair and watched Mr. Hun sort through his various instruments lovingly. He picked up a small piece of metal the size of a toothpick and eyed it closely. A light attached to an arm was brought closer to my face. Mr. Hun dragged a stool in front of me and sat down, the air leaving the seat with a sad whistle. I allowed him to tie my arms to the chair and then he pulled my bandages from my fingers one by one, his face creased with concern when I winced at the cloth sliding over my newly scabbed skin.

He placed his warm hands over mine and patted me gently.

“Make sure you put some antiseptic cream on these afterwards.” I nodded, a few tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. I squirmed in my chair.

“Ok, where were we…?”

A deep voice sounded behind me. “Her friend, the other escapee, sir.”

Mr. Hun smiled kindly at me, his crinkled skin puckering around his mouth. “Oh yes, right. Now, Rosa darling, tell me about Careen.”

I stared down at his fingers holding the metal toothpick. “Careen has red hair, she is about five foot eight, and she is my friend,” I whispered, my voice rising in panic. Retreat. Go somewhere they can’t find you, my mind whispered.

Mr. Hun held down one of my straining fingers and placed the toothpick under my nail. “What else?”

“I don’t know where she is.” Which was the truth. Mr. Hun pushed the toothpick under my nail.

“Ahh.” It hurt so much the meager contents of my stomach were hurtling towards my mouth. I swallowed and dipped my head to my chin, struggling to focus. My hair fell around my face. He pushed it in harder. Think of trees spotted with lichen, pale green and white.

“More,” he said, his voice losing its softness.

I tried to pull my fingers in, but he held them down hard. “She… she… is a hunter. Her baby died. She is in a romantic relationship with a Survivor.”

“Who?” Mr. Hun urged. I gasped in pain as he took my next finger and drove a metal pin halfway under my nail. I screamed. “Tell me his name, dear.”

The forest is warm, that springtime buzz of bees and pollen surround you. The trees are bending to tell you secrets. Arms wrap around your waist and you laugh.

I looked up at the ceiling. The black, padded walls that kept my screaming in seemed to expand like a pillow ready to smother me. Don’t let them see how much they’re hurting you. Feel your bare feet pressing into the mud, the squelch of it seeping between your toes.

“Pietre,” I panted. Their list was growing. So far, I hadn’t given them anything of consequence. But I didn’t know how long I could hang on.

I closed my eyes and thought of Orry in their arms. I thought of stars, of green. Of fresh meat and fires.

Mr. Hun took my pinky finger, pulled it up at an angle, and held it that way, straining on the edge of breaking. My head flopped forward.

“Bring me the screen,” he asked patiently. A guard walked forward and handed him a large reader the size of a book.

It was already paused on a video. He pressed the triangular play button.

Give me the pins. Give me pain, shredding hot pain. If the plan was to hurt me, then you’ve found your method.

The film was clearly taken from one of the many surveillance cameras placed around a Woodland town. I could see the images in the sky blocked slightly by people’s shoulders, but they were looking. Gasps emitted from the crowd. Sighs of shock and rumbles of anger. A name was cried out, and then the camera focused on people’s damning feet as they surged towards a group of guards.

Shots fired, and people screamed. The feet ran harder. The shadows of boots stomping furiously into the solid ground dispersed, and a circle of space opened up over a small child. His eyes were closed and his clothes dirtied—his body motionless. Trampled.

More shots.

Then an explosion.

It cut to another camera, one over a Ring gate. It followed a trail of smoke to a birch tree, alight. Its leaves curling and crackling. Chunks of concrete lay in the street. People screamed, pushed, but not to get out. They were running away from the wall. I didn’t understand it. My eyes blinked several times, trying to take it in. They were afraid of us.

Mr. Hun handed the screen back to the guard, who put it on the desk and pulled it back to the image of the child in the street. Lying there, curled protectively over himself like he was hiding something, a secret he couldn’t tell. The image shone bright in the dark of this tiny room.

Mr. Hun let go of my pinky finger, which was just about breaking, and I remembered pain. One by one, he pulled the pins from my fingers, cleaning them with alcohol wipes and placing back on his tray of instruments. He patted my cheek with his warm, dry hand and left me.

They all left me. To stare at the lifeless child whose death was partly my fault. They wanted me to take it. The responsibility. And I did. This hurt me more than all the small pains they had inflicted on me so far. I tried not to let it show. But as soon as the door closed, my mouth broke into a torn-up sob, my heart seized, and my head fell.

“No,” I whispered. To myself. To them. To the child.

They were chipping away at me, wearing me down to a splinter they could flick to the floor. I couldn’t let them win.