Текст книги "The Wanted"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

JOSEPH

I’m clinging to the end point of a snowflake, spinning round and round.

“Just let go,” she tells me. “Just let go…”

“Hang on, Joe. Damn it. There’s a lot of blood. Should there be this much blood?”

My legs were warm; my chest was cold, wet. Every bump felt like my skin was peeling away from my body. I opened my eyes to slits. Warm spots of light hovered over my head.

I wasn’t dead.

I was flat on my back, my body sailing unevenly though the air. Up. Rocks slid and people stumbled. My leg fell off the stretcher, and I pulled it back up with a lot effort. I could use my legs. A good sign. They hurt like hell, but I could feel them. Someone’s hand wrapped around my own. It was soft, delicate. I squeezed. I didn’t open my eyes. It could be her. I’d keep them closed, and it would be her.

A smooth, feminine voice spoiled my delusion. “Hang on, Joseph. You’re going to be ok.” The voice was worried, but sure. So I believed it. I hung on. Until my mind slipped from consciousness again. But this time I knew I’d wake up.

Smooth fingers glided across my forehead. I flinched and opened my eyes. Staring back at me were two perfectly symmetrical, almond-shaped eyes, light green ringed with a darker green around the outside. She blinked and so did I, trying to change the picture. She smiled and ran a cloth over my chest. I shivered.

“Sorry,” she murmured, shyly, as she ran the wet cloth over my wounds, her gaze on my chest rather than my face. “I need to clean your wounds.” She pursed her pink lips and concentrated on her work.

I grabbed her wrist and stopped her hand before it touched me again.

“Who are you?” I asked, looking from left to right and searching for a familiar face. We were still in the woods. It was dusk or dawn; either way, the sun was leaving or returning and not giving much light. People moved around me, talking.

“Whoa there, Joe. She’s trying to help you,” Desh said, his face coming into focus behind this girl’s halo of short, blonde hair. She smiled at me again, her small freckles dancing over the bridge of her nose. I narrowed my eyes.

“Who is she?” I said, coughing.

She held a bottle of water to my lips. “Drink,” she whispered, her brow furrowed.

I snatched the bottle and regretted moving so suddenly.

Desh came to sit by my side. “Joe, this is Elise, the Birchton Spider. She saved your life.” He grinned and patted my leg. I winced. I was covered in bruises. I took a small sip of water. It slid coolly down my throat.

“You make me sound much more important that I am,” she said, shaking her head and muttering, “The Birchton Spider… sounds like the title of a bad book.”

I pulled myself up to sitting, the sudden movement making me dizzy.

“Book?”

Gravity caused blood to seep from the deep claw marks on my chest. The girl put both her hands on my torso and pushed me back down gently.

“You need to rest.” She rolled up a jacket and placed it behind my head.

Desh’s head bobbed up and down. “It was amazing Joe. After the blast, that thing, that huge, white bear came at you. Everyone was trying to get your attention, but you were totally zoned out. It jumped down on your chest and went for your neck. Elise ran out from behind a rock, slapped its big, white butt with a tree branch, and it just ran away.” He was breathless from excitement but managed to calm down and look at me seriously for a second. Poor Desh, I’d put him through hell. “What were you doing out there, Joe? It was like you wanted it to kill you.”

Did I? I wasn’t sure, maybe for a millisecond.

Elise started spreading gauze over my chest and taping it down. I caught her eyes. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

She shrugged. “Don’t mention it. It’s what I do,” she said casually.

I groaned as she pressed down on my skin. Her touch wasn’t reassuring; it just felt alien.

“You routinely slap bears on the ass?” I asked quizzically, raising my eyebrows.

“Ha!” Desh spluttered. “At least now we know he’s not brain damaged!”

Rash shouted from across the campsite, “Based on current evidence, I’m gonna need further proof.”

Desh shot him a warning look and I snorted. That was kind of funny.

Elise laughed lightly, ignoring Rash’s comment as she tossed her head back to get her hair away from her face. “No. I’m Medical. Saving lives is what I do.”

“Oh, right. Me too. Or at least I was. Medical.”

“Shhh!” she said, putting her finger to her lips. “Get some rest.”

Her face faded to a pale blur for a moment, and I shook my head. “Where are we? What happened after the blast?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

Matt’s warm voice sailed in and his face followed. “How’s the patient?”

“Superficial wounds to the chest and legs. Bruising to most of the lower body and also to the left eye,” Elise replied, running her little finger down the side of my face. I jerked away from her touch.

“It doesn’t feel very superficial, Matt,” I said, managing a smile. “Now tell me what happened after the blast?” I insisted.

He nodded and faked a smile. “Nothing.”

I clenched my fists and pulled my head up so I could see him better. Smoke from a campfire whirled around our faces and stung my eyes. “What do you mean—nothing?”

Desh patted my arm.

“Nothing yet, anyway. We always knew Birchton and Radiata were going to be a harder sell. We’ve left two of our own back there to wait and see. We do know people reacted to the film.”

I glanced around the camp. Gus squatted down near the fire, poking the coals under a tin of beans. Rash leaned against a tree, quietly seething.

“Where are we now?” My voice was dry.

“Between Birchton and Radiata; we have two more nights before the next show,” Desh replied, spreading his hands out and wiggling his fingers.

I chuckled despite myself. “Man I’ve missed you.”

He grinned, his dark eyes flashing concern. “It’s good to see you smile.”

Elise stood up straight, and she was almost as tall as Desh. “I’ll leave you boys to it.”

Desh raised an eyebrow as she walked away. Matt’s gaze followed her. I’d never seen him staring at a woman before and it made me laugh, which hurt my chest.

Desh elbowed him. “Like what you see, eh?”

I rolled my eyes.

Matt blushed and smacked his arm. “She’s a little young for me.”

I grimaced from pain and being uncomfortable. All this smiling, laughing, and joking was too much. I didn’t like how easy they could pretend, or maybe they weren’t pretending. All I knew was I didn’t like it. I didn’t want them to be sad all the time, but when they were joking like this, I saw her, or almost the absence of her. Like someone had cut a hole in the air in her exact shape, and I was just waiting for her to fill it.

I sighed loudly.

“You ok?” Matt asked, reaching for my wrist to check my pulse.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, the pressure on my chest feeling heavier and heavier. “Seems like you are too.”

Matt and Desh avoided my eyes. I knew I was being a jerk, but I couldn’t stop myself. “How long do I have to lie like this?”

“Another day. At least until the bleeding slows.”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at them. It was a reminder. The last thing I heard was Gus discussing the next move.

“If it goes the way I think it will, we won’t be able to stay.”

ROSA

There was no clock. But there was ticking in my brain anyway. I counted the little bursts of movement from the camera in the corner. It told me it was after midnight. It told me I wouldn’t sleep tonight. My hands ached, and my heart ached. My eyes were like two purple, velvet pincushions.

At home, there was never a quiet place, no stillness where my body used to lay. Now silence smothered me like heavy-fogged poison. It pushed at me from every angle. That peace I thought I needed, that I craved, was all around me and I couldn’t stand it. What I truly needed was gone. The slip of sheets moving across bodies, the clang and thud of metal, wood, stone. Gone. I wanted it now, more than anything else.

I pulled at the sheets in my clawing hands, wondering what I could throw at the cameras. A metal bowl grinned at me from the bedside table. I reached out to grab it, sliding my fingers along the cold surface, but once they made contact, they retreated. I had to be good. Obedient. To stay alive I had to not… be… me.

I drew my hand in under the covers and shivered with the need to break something.

The latch clicked and a slice of light cut the floor. A tall, long shadow wavered in the entrance like heat, and then moved towards me.

Immediately, I clicked the lamp on, lighting up a calm, young face.

Denis.

I slithered up to sitting and watched him as he carefully approached me. Never not moving, but going so slowly that it was agony. I wanted to jump up and get behind him to shove him forward. But he continued in his sloping, loping way of walking. Like he was picking out each spot he was going to put his foot on before he stepped on it, the angle he would place his foot at, and how much noise his shoe would make. I ground my teeth together in annoyance.

He lifted his head slowly and connected with my eyes. “Look scared,” he whispered, his deep blue eyes ringed with darker circles like someone had taken a pen to his irises. I was kind of scared but mostly impatient. If he was coming in to hurt me, I wished he would get on with it. I nodded, which he seemed to be irritated by. So I clutched the sheets in my fists and tried to look wide-eyed and scared.

He was wearing just pajama bottoms and no shirt, which could have been intimidating if not for the old man slippers. His body was toned but childish, as if he’d never seen a hard day’s work in his life. Nothing about his demeanor suggested harm.

He stood two steps away from me. I found myself staring at his feet, trying to guess where he would step next. Left, left, right.

Finally, he reached me and I huffed. He kneeled down, neatly folding his legs over each other like a collapsible pram. Carefully, he put one hand on my shoulder and the other over my throat. I would have screamed but he wasn’t really touching me. His eyes bounced to the camera and he shifted his head so he was blocking my face from its view. His held me down with one hand and the other was like a collar, taut and straining but hovering just millimeters from my skin.

“Wha… what?” I whispered. His eyes screwed shut, and he shook his head to the left.

“Look frightened,” he whispered more urgently.

I was starting to be.

“Better,” he said with a slight, lips-pressed together kind of smile. He stared down at my own lips, and I started to feel uncomfortable.

“I’ll scream,” I threatened half-heartedly.

“No, you won’t,” he assured me. And he was right. I wanted to know what this was all about.

His hand still fluttered above my throat, and then he pressed down a little. My breath caught as it tried to move past the blockage.

“Stop playing along,” he whispered so quietly it was just air and small noise passing his lips. “If you keep doing as you’re told, he will kill you.” I raised my eyebrows. “The minute he thinks he’s got you figured out, that he’s broken you, you’ll be executed,” he said, his voice a whistle through his teeth.

I was about to nod, but he stopped me. “Don’t nod, throw your head against the head board in three… two… one.” I did as he said, and the hand on my throat moved with me but never pressed too hard.

Unfolding his knees, he stood with controlled movements. He turned his back to me and walked slowly out of the room, my eyes drilling into his back.

As soon as the door closed, I turned my head into my pillow and smiled. Grant’s son had just told me to stop obeying, to stop being the opposite of me.

I picked up the metal bowl and flung it at the camera. It cracked deliciously and fell off its perch, hanging by a single wire like a hung prisoner. The bowl slammed into the dresser, teetering and scraping until it came to rest, hard and unforgiving against the polished wood.

ROSA

Apella rattled the bars of her cage, the tidy place I’d made for her and the others inside. She warned me not to go too far. Patting my chest, I shook my head. I never listened to her when she was alive, and I wasn’t going to start now. It will be okay, I told my ghosts and myself.

Today would be the same. Breakfast. Escorted to torture. Lunch in my room. Dinner with the ‘family’.

I took a deep breath in and flipped through the pile of clothes placed neatly on the chair by my bed. A lavender cardigan with blue flowers embroidered into the collar. I looked down at my pajamas and smiled. The devil had a hold of me today.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I sang loudly.

Denis’ long leg slipped inside the door, followed by the rest of him. He eyed me and touched his finger to his forehead, rubbing it back and forth. “You ready for this?” he asked evenly. “It’s not going to be easy.”

I nodded, pulling my toes under my feet nervously.

He loped towards me and held out his elbow, casting his eyes up to the broken camera. “It will be fixed by the time you return, you know.”

“I’ll break it again,” I muttered.

“Mhm.”

I took his elbow to steady myself and followed him to breakfast.

The rest of the family was already seated when we arrived.

Judith looked up and huffed in my direction, “Why does she get to wear pajamas to breakfast?” she whined.

I steeled myself for the reaction, watching Grant carefully exhale through his nostrils like a horse that had just galloped a mile. There was heat in his eyes when he glared at me.

“She doesn’t. Rosa, return to your room and change into appropriate attire.”

I let go of Denis’ elbow and collapsed in my chair. “I can’t. My clothes are… er… damaged.”

Grant ignored my comment and took a deep, impatient breath. “Why do you refuse to wear the contacts you were given? You are my guest and are expected to adhere to my rules and traditions.”

Regression. All of my childhood was coming out to dance with me today. I covered my brown eye, letting the blue one gaze at the table. “Is this better?”

Grant frowned so hard his lips were close to leaving his face. His arms pushed back from the table. I smiled at him, big and toothy, still holding my hand over my brown eye, truly hoping that Denis was right. That the minute Grant thought he’d won, he would kill me. That this was the only way to survive.

I could almost hear Grant gnashing his teeth as I rubbed my hands together and said, “Food smells great!” I smacked my lips, grabbing forkfuls of bacon and piling it onto my plate. His anger was swirling around me in fronds. Any minute now, he was going to explode. The other members were glancing at each other nervously. Camille dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and cleared her throat.

“Coffee?” she asked, lifting the pot towards my cup.

I put my hand over my mug. “Ew! No thanks. That stuff tastes like crap!” I watched my hand vibrating, so shaky over the delicate porcelain cup ringed with silver, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to lift the food to my mouth. Keep it together. Don’t let him see how scared you are.

Denis let out a short laugh, covering it by taking a sip of his drink. And I started to wonder if this was a trick.

Grant picked up the bell next to his plate and rang it once.

Harry appeared in the doorway, his horrified expression showing what he thought of my behavior. “Sir?”

“Harry, please escort Rosa back to her room.”

I grabbed a handful of bacon. “Some for the road.” I smirked, winking at Judith, who looked like she might actually dissolve into a puddle of shock right in front of me, her mouth agape like she could swallow her whole plate in one gulp.

Harry ripped me from my chair, pieces of bacon flying through the air and landing in a greasy pile on the carpet.

“Ha! Whoops, sorry,” I managed with my mouth full of fatty pork. I saluted the rest of them as I walked backwards out of the room with a fake grin plastered on my face.

As soon as the door closed, I started to shake.

Strength, find me. I know I’m not built for obedience, but this goes against what seems like the smart thing to do. I can’t revel in this because I’m too scared.

Harry rattled me by my arm like he was trying to see what was loose inside. Everything. Everything.

“Not that I care, but what were you doing in there?” He was trying to sound angry but wasn’t quite pulling it off. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

I sucked in my lip and scrunched my eyes, trying to decide if it was worth answering. But there was no one else. My words, my resolve, didn’t mean much if no one heard me or believed me.

“No. I’m trying to live.”

He let out an exasperated sigh and held me to his hip like a laundry basket while he punched in the code to my door. When it opened, he threw me to the floor and dusted his hands off like they were contaminated.

“If you keep this up, you won’t,” he warned as he slammed the door shut.

I swallowed, hoping he was wrong.

I shuffled backwards until I was leaning against the bed, but I didn’t get up. I just sat there and swirled my finger through the plush carpet. Red like blood. I wrote my name and stared at it, then swept it away. Then I wrote down the names of all my family, ending with Orry. Twelve names. Twelve people who loved me and were counting on me to survive this hell.

There was no knock this time. The door swung open, and the edge of black rubber wheels appeared. I stayed where I was.

Grant wheeled into the room; his sinister expression, a lesson he was about to teach me.

“It didn’t last long, did it, Rosa?” He waved his hands around the room. “I tried to be civil, tried to be charitable…” He paused, gazing down at me. “I like you there on the floor. It’s where people like you belong.”

I shrunk back, but something was pushing out of me. “Well, it must be rare for you to be able to look down on people from your reduced height,” I quipped, my chin proud.

He slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair hard. “That’s enough!” he yelled. Spit flew from his mouth, his eyes wild with rage. “You can’t beat me, child.”

Anger pressed out of me from every angle. He was trying to carve me away until I was small enough, weak enough, to crush. I had to resist.

“Why don’t you walk over here and do something about it?” I challenged. “Oh that’s right, you can’t.”

He combed his hair back with his hand, menacingly slow. “I will get what I need from you. And I will walk. You’ll see me walk and once I have what I need, I will stand over you as you are executed.”

I breathed in and felt the threat wrap around my chest and tighten, squeezing insolent words out of me like wood glue. “Can’t wait!” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

He laughed in a small, mean way. “Oh, me neither.”

When he was gone, calm left me. I breathed too fast and too hard until pain spread throughout my rib cage, and I thought my heart might stop.

I ran to the bathroom and retched, the panic flooding my body. Gripping the sink, I waited for it to pass. I needed to claw my way out of this if I was going to make it, but at the moment, it was hard to see a way through. I splashed some water on my face and promised just to get through the next day. Tomorrow could be a year away.

A knock at the door signaled the next part was starting.

“Miss Rosa, I have to take you downstairs.”

JOSEPH

With every movement, my wounds grazed their loose dressings like I was wrapped in sandpaper. I touched my fingers to the edges of the tape, checking for heat in my skin. The last thing I needed was an infection. My skin was reassuringly cool. I pulled the blanket up, the cold eating at my fingers.

Elise appeared beside me when she noticed I was awake, running her hand over the old scar on my forearm. Her touch was light, a doctor’s touch. Her eyebrows rose at the slightly caved in look of it. I never noticed it anymore, but every now and then, I’d catch Rosa looking at it, her eyes distant. I knew she was playing an image in her mind of me collapsing in front of her, dead, and was beyond my reach. I wondered whether history did repeat itself or we were just unlucky. I wanted to believe it was luck, and that it would change.

“How’d you do that?” she asked, blinking her green eyes. Her hooded, fur-lined jacket framed her face and made her look like a well-groomed cat.

“Spider bite,” I grunted.

She pursed her lips. “Ooh, must have hurt a lot.” Like hell. Her forehead creased as she investigated me like a body to be autopsied. She moved her hand and pointed a finger at the top of my heart surgery scar. “And this one?”

My scars were not something I cared to notice or talk about. They were signatures of the past. Things we’d moved away from. Under her hands, her gaze, I was captive and I didn’t like it. I wanted to say, stop touching me, but she saved my life. So I guess I had to be polite.

“Open heart surgery,” I muttered. “Performed by Matt.” I pointed to Matt, who was walking on the other side of my stretcher.

Sensing my discomfort, he changed the subject. “So did you see our operative Gwen last year?” Matt asked as they talked over the top of my stretcher.

Elise shook her head. “No. They didn’t even make it past the second gate before they were captured. I’m sorry; I wish I could have done something.” She sounded genuinely sad.

Matt reached over me and patted her shoulder. “It’s ok, Elise. It’s not your fault.”

I closed my eyes and tried to pretend they weren’t there. I just listened to the frozen leaves grazing each other. Tried to boil my feelings down to simple things. The sun warming my body. The light stinging my eyelids. The blood pumping… faces, dead, scraped faces.

My eyes snapped open again. Elise placed a cool hand on my forehead.

“You all right?” she asked.

Her light hair fell down over her eyes as she leaned over me. From here, with the sun behind her head, I could barely make out her features. I squinted and replied in terse a tone, “I’m fine.”

She took off her jacket and shaded my face. “Is that better?”

“That’s not necessary,” I grumbled. “You’ll get cold.”

“I don’t mind,” she chirped.

I do mind, a lot.

I groaned and rolled to the side, shifting my weight and causing the men carrying me to stumble. It hurt like I’d been burned all over.

“I’ll just be happy when I can get off this stretcher,” I said. I thought, Happy? What a joke.

“One more sleep and you can,” she said, smiling, talking to me like a patient. It was a tone I had used many times myself.

After hours of walking, we left the dirt and the trees and descended, the rock rising higher on either side. We passed through a corridor carved from stone like someone had taken a log splitter to the earth and cracked it open. Tiny pines clung to little pockets of dirt in the cliff face. Sunlight streamed down from overhead as it was the middle of the day. I enjoyed the real warmth while it lasted because soon it would be freezing cold again.

Pelo stopped abruptly in front of us and leaned against the wall with his angular shoulder. Some of his movements were so like her because they were unpredictable, forceful. It was hard to watch. Pulling his reader from his pocket, he checked the time. He looked to Gus, who nodded. Everyone stopped moving and waited. Pelo switched on the GPS and immediately, it made a bell sound. A foreign sound. He held it away from his face, his eyes, her eyes, focused on the message. I propped myself up on my elbows and waited.

He cleared his throat.

“Get on with it man!” Rash snapped from his cross-legged position on the ground.

Olga waddled over to him eagerly. “Yes, Pelo, dear, tell us what it says,” she asked, pressing close to him and straining her neck to see the screen. Her eyebrows rose and her mouth quivered. I braced for bad news.

“Right. It says around three hundred men, women, and children breached the wall of Birchton. Soldiers have lost control. Chaos. It’s working … and…” Pelo paused, his eyes becoming wet. He blinked his dark eyelashes and swiped his face to clear the tears.

“And what?” someone asked.

His hand shook. Olga gently pried the handheld from his thin fingers.

“What does it say?” Rash asked impatiently.

Olga bowed her head as she registered the words. “It says: Praise Rosa.”

Everyone bowed their heads. Except me. I looked to the sky. The clouds moved fast, creating dark shadows that blasted over the top of us and then revealed the sun again. I wasn’t going to cry in front of them. I wasn’t going to mourn her. Not yet.

Elise bowed her head with a puzzled expression.

Rash said what I wanted to say. “She’s not dead. Stop bowing your heads like morons. Write back and then switch it off!”

Pelo oozed sadness. He was as dark as those clouds.

“What do I write?” he asked, sounding uncharacteristically unsure.

“Tell them to recruit able-bodied people to meet us at the designated place,” Gus said gruffly. “And er, tell them good work.”

“What place is that?” Olga asked, and Gus either didn’t hear her or ignored her.

“What about the others?” I shouted, my voice bouncing off the rock walls.

Gus shook his head. The man needed a shave; his beard was starting to look pretty caveman-like.

“We’ve started the fire, now they need to feed it.”

Pelo tapped out the message as I put my hand to my own face. I needed a shave too. He turned off the handheld quickly. We could only communicate once a day. Everyone got up and resumed walking forward.

Elise nudged me playfully with her elbow. “Cheer up, Joseph, it’s only one more night,” she said perkily. “Who’s this Rosa anyway?”

I didn’t answer. She was everything. She was mine. She was none of Elise’s business.

Matt answered for me as he took over carrying the stretcher for a while. “She’s one of us. This mission was her idea.”

They launched into a discussion about the mission and about Rosa’s brilliant idea. One more night stuck in conversations I didn’t want to be in. I sighed and closed my eyes.

At least tomorrow, I would see her face again.

They marched all day as I lay staring at the sky, watching the weather and wishing I were somewhere else. I was a burden. They scaled a slim path that led out of the ravine and into the valley where Radiata sat. The snow had melted under the glare of the sun but was fast building up now that it had disappeared behind the rocks and the clouds had gathered like conspirators.

We retreated into a cave, high above the town. From my position, I could see the sweep of torchlight, scanning the flat terrain around the outside of the wall fervently as darkness gathered. It seemed they were expecting us.

“We better just blow the wall and forget about the video,” Gus said, slapping the wall and wiping the pigeon blood from his hands on the rock in a grotesque finger painting. The bird crackled in the pan as the hollow sound of a gas cooker echoed through the tunnel.

“No,” I said. Not really knowing how to explain myself because I had selfish reasons for wanting them to play it. Everyone turned to me.

Gus paused for a moment but then turned away and started talking to the Survivors who were supposed to enter Radiata tomorrow. I propped up on my elbows and said, “Gus, listen, it’s not enough… you have to… she wouldn’t want it this way.”

Elise laid a hand on my arm, stroking back and forth with her thumb. I was exhausted, and I was too tired to fight her.

“What if you blew the wall and then planted the video amongst all the chaos? The explosion will draw people towards the outer wall. You could plant it near there so you don’t actually have to go inside the town,” she suggested.

Gus grunted. A good sign he was considering it. He yawned and conceded. “We’ll vote on it in the morning.”

Desh sidled up and slapped Elise on the back. “Nice one.”

She laughed nervously. “Thanks.” She nudged him with her elbow. He startled at the touch but smiled back at her. Desh was a bit like Rosa in that respect. He didn’t give his affection away so easily, and he didn’t like to be touched. The difference being, with Rosa, if you were one of those chosen few, if she allowed you into her space, she showered you with her touch, she slammed you with her smile, and she gave you everything she had. Inside her space was warmed by a bright sun. Now I was left out in the cold, in the shadows.

After we ate, we settled in to sleep. I couldn’t. Sleep came with nightmares. I shuffled back and leaned against the cave wall, my legs slipping out of my sleeping bag.

Desh crawled over the sleeping bodies to get to me. He grabbed the sleeping bag and tried to pull it up over my legs. “You need to stay warm.”

I scowled. “Yes, Mother.”

He grinned in the dark. “Give it up; that attitude won’t work with me.” Sitting next to me, he chucked his jacket over my legs.

“Thanks, man.”

“No, thank you. You didn’t have to come back for me,” he said, talking to the opposite wall, his face stiffly turned away from mine.

I replied to the wall. “Yes, I did. Hessa needed you too.”

Desh sighed sadly, his shoulders slumping. “He won’t remember me, Joe. It’s been so long. I don’t even know what he looks like now.”

I fumbled around in my pack and pulled out Rosa’s handheld. “Here, she took these just before we left because she knew you’d want to see him.” I flipped through to a photo of Hessa standing in front of a fire. Rosa’s hand was on his small shoulder, steadying him while she took the photo. I traced the curve of her dark thumb pressed into his knitted jumper. I remembered her touch with such an ache I thought I might be splitting apart.

Desh took the handheld from me. “Oh wow. He’s so big and is he… walking?”

I nodded, a sad smile trying to move my lips, my feelings trying to claw their way out and seek comfort. Somewhere, my son was learning, taking steps and viewing the world without her or me in it.

“I miss him so much, and I miss her, God, I miss her, Desh,” I let slip with some agony and pain I really didn’t want to share.

“I miss her too,” he said to the wall.

“I don’t just miss her, Desh. I’m dying without her,” I whispered.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “It might feel like that, Joe, but you’re not. You’ll go on. Eventually for yourself, but for now, keep living for Orry and for her, for what she did for you.”

I knew he was right but it was hard to do when all I wished, all the time, was that she hadn’t done it.