Текст книги "The Wanted"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

JOSEPH

Maybe burying is the answer. Maybe if I pile enough earth, blood, and experience on top of them, I won’t be able to hear them screaming or hear the ‘ha’ that forms around her last breath.

A weak ping rang out far below. Elise grabbed my arm and squeezed. “What was that, was it a…?”

“Gunshot,” I replied, straightening and leaning forward.

Several shots fired close together. We couldn’t see much from here, just a cluster of black, bobbing heads atop the wall, crossing under the spotlights. The lights moved frantically over the grey ground around the base of the walls. I caught what I thought were two people, running away. But I couldn’t be sure, the light moved over them so quickly.

Another shot.

I strained to see, both of us leaning dangerously close to the edge.

“Do you think they’re…?” She sounded alarmed, the pitch of her voice creeping up higher and higher.

“No,” I grunted, “but let’s go back to the others. They might need our help.” I held out my hand, which she gripped tightly, and helped her climb back down to the cave. We slid down the rocks, tripping over each other as we went. I kept my eye to Radiata. The lights danced across the dirt. Then very suddenly, they turned inwards. I tightened my fist and pumped it once. They did it. Something was causing a disturbance inside the walls.

We swung into the cave, and everyone was getting ready to go.

“Did you hear the shots?” I said, out of breath.

Gus nodded, his voice as calm and blunt as ever. “We did. That’s why we’re leaving.”

Desh’s arms went slack by his sides, his face tangled in confusion. “What about Matt and Ermil?”

Gus shook his head. He did, for once, look truly sorry. “We can’t risk it.”

I moved right up to where Gus was standing, looming over him. “The lights turned inwards. I think the video is working. They might not have anyone following them.” Gus looked up at me in annoyance, and I took a step back. Then he dropped his head and swore.

“You go then,” he ordered, flinging his arm out towards Radiata. He picked up a backpack full of medical supplies and shoved it at my chest, avoiding my eyes.

“Take this, you’ll need it. We’ll wait for you five miles south of here.”

I held the pack against my pounding heart with shaking hands. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“We can’t wait for very long, Joseph,” Gus said, his voice full of regret.

I could feel Desh’s eyes burning into my back. “I’m not coming with you, am I?” he said to the back of my head.

I shook my head. I wanted him to come but it would just be risking his life so I didn’t have to be alone.

His hand clapped my shoulder. “Be careful.”

Rash brushed past and stopped suddenly, turning to glance up at me. His eyebrows drew down, his anger hiding for the moment. “Yeah man, be careful.” He then threw over his shoulder, “If you die, we’ve lost our punchline.”

Gus grumbled and searched the back of the cave, singling one person out.

“Elise, you’ll go with Joseph,” Gus ordered.

“What? No!” I protested

“She goes or you don’t go at all,” he growled.

She grabbed her own pack and strode out of the entrance to the cave.

“Don’t slow me down,” she snapped as she quickly descended, her white blonde hair glowing as she skidded down the mountainside towards Radiata.

I jumped over several packs and followed her. “I’ll see you soon, Desh. Don’t worry, ok?” I pleaded.

Elise was quick on her feet, moving from stone to stone, avoiding the slippery parts that were mostly gravel and watery mud. I struggled to keep up, but I wasn’t going to ask her to slow down.

“If they’re injured, it’s probably gunshot wounds. Have you ever treated a gunshot before, Joseph?” She clasped a small tree trunk and paused, turning towards me.

“No. But I’ve studied them,” I replied between breaths.

She snorted. “Not the same thing, honey,” she puffed as she started running again.

I couldn’t even be offended by her patronizing comments because she was probably right. Setting my lips together, I chose silence for the rest of the way down, running over procedures in my head and praying Matt was all right.

The sirens grew in volume and frequency as we descended.

The steep hill flattened suddenly, and we slowed our pace. Charred trees poked out of the ground with tiny, struggling branches pushing their way through the ruined bark. Life always finds a way, she would say. I ran my hand over one of the delicate new branches, feeling it bend between my fingers.

I heard a groan. In the half-light, trees looked like men stuck in the ground. Elise paused and we searched for movement, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise.

An arm moved.

“Hold on, Erm, just hold on,” a voice whispered.

We ran towards the sound, our feet squelching in the puddles as we approached. I grabbed a flashlight from my pack and flicked it on. It swished over an agonized face, eyes tightened against pain.

Matt sighed in relief. “Joe, thank God it’s you.”

I kneeled down and swept the torch over where the two men were sitting. Ermil lay flat on his back. Matt had wrapped his shirt around a wound in Ermil’s calf and was shivering uncontrollably in the cold while trying to apply pressure.

Matt’s other hand was clenched in a fist. This hand had blood seeping out from between the fingers like he was squeezing a sponge.

“Oh Jesus, Matt, what happened?” I took off my jacket and placed it over Matt’s shaking shoulders. He opened his hand; it was a mess off torn skin and blood.

“F-flesh wound,” he stuttered, “s-superficial. They were following us but then got called back. R-riots.”

Elise stood over me with her hands on her hips, triaging. “Right. Wrap a bandage around Matthew’s hand to stop the bleeding. We need to look at this guy’s leg,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I carefully wrapped Matt’s hand, pulling it tight.

“My fingertips are numb, Joe,” he said in a broken voice.

I knew he was thinking nerve damage. I knew he was thinking he may not be able to operate again, but I just placed his bandaged hand in his lap and said, “You’re just cold, that’s all.”

He nodded in thanks. There was no point in worrying about it now.

Matt held the torch while we laid out our instruments and moved Ermil’s leg over a sterile sheet of plastic.

We cut his pant leg off until the wound was exposed. Ermil was lucky; the bullet had gone straight through the fleshy part of his calf. It hadn’t hit the bone, which meant he would heal better. The problem was that it had left a giant hole that was pouring blood, making it very hard to see what was going on.

“Lift his leg above his heart level,” Matt instructed. We rolled the backpack under the plastic and then under Ermil’s leg.

“Pressure,” I ordered, my voice tight as a coil, my brain doing what it loved, what it knew.

Elise nodded and grabbed a gauze pad, pushing down on both sides of the wound. Ermil moaned in pain as she applied pressure.

“You’ll have to stitch the artery,” Matt muttered in our direction, hoping Ermil was too out of it to hear him.

Ermil’s head snapped up suddenly. No luck there. “Are you serious?” he said through gritted teeth.

All the doctors’ eyes connected knowingly.

Elise held the torch over the wound as she removed the gauze. Blood bubbled up. “Hold it still so I can find the source of the bleeding,” I said, my eyes connecting with hers.

Matt shuffled closer and dabbed as much blood away from the wound as he could. I sterilized my hands with hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes, pushing my fingers into Ermil’s calf. He started to scream, and Matt put his hand to Ermil’s mouth.

“I know it’s hard but you have to be quiet, so they won’t find us,” he whispered.

Ermil’s eyes were bugging out of his head but he managed to nod, and Matt released him. He gripped Matt’s leg desperately, searching for comfort.

“It’s going to be ok, Ermil. We won’t leave you,” I said quietly.

Warm blood ran over my fingers as I fished around for the torn artery. It was a strange, reassuring feeling: The flesh under my fingertips, the work that needed to be done. This was part of me.

I thought I could feel it and I moved upwards, tracing the artery, and then pushed down hard to stop the blood flow.

“Suction,” I said automatically.

Elise laughed.

Matt understood what I meant and dabbed at the blood to see if it had slowed. We all relaxed a little when we realized it had.

“Quickly, sterilize your hands,” I said to Elise.

“Already did, Doctor.” She anticipated what I needed and moved her hand over to where mine was, sliding her finger into place behind mine and pushing down.

“How long before they take their fingers out of my leg?” Ermil gasped to Matt, his face sheened with sweat, his skin pale as the moon.

Matt flipped open the suture kit with his good hand. “You’ll have to tie it, Joe. I can’t,” he said, holding up his injured hand.

Everything fell into place. My actions, my breathing, my timing. It was natural. I tied the artery easily, swiftly. I was at home with the needle in my hand.

I leaned back on my heels and stared down at the wound.

“Ready?” Elise asked all of our intensely focused faces, lit up by torchlight.

I nodded. “Do it.”

Elise lifted her fingers, and we waited for blood.

Matt dabbed away at the wound again. It seeped a little, but it wasn’t pouring anymore.

My shoulders sank a few inches, my body relaxed. Elise threw an arm around my neck and pulled our heads together so they knocked. “Well done. We make a good team.”

Matt smiled. “You certainly do.”

Ermil even managed a half-grimace, half-smile. “So I’m not going to die?”

I chuckled, something warm and unfamiliar growing in my chest, blotting out the sadder feelings. “Not today.”

Cleaning his wound, we wrapped it tightly. We would have to carry him up the hill, but he would live. He would walk. We did that.

It was an amazing feeling.

Misery had been following me. I had been uninvolved and uninterested in everything around me.

No more.

As I packed up our gear, tumbling the bloodied gauze and dirty needles into the plastic sheeting, she came back to me. I tied a knot around the top and shoved the waste into a hole at the bottom of a tree, my hands scraping on the charcoal and coming back all black and slimy. I hadn’t thought of her through that whole process. And I was ashamed to say that it felt good to forget.

“You coming?” Elise asked, turning around with Ermil’s arm over her shoulder as she supported his weight.

I smiled a genuine smile at her. “I’m coming.”

She seemed surprised but she returned my smile with a toothy one of her own, her freckles pushing high up under her eyes.

The sun rose over the peaks to our right. Shafts of light slipped through the crags of rock and poured through the brittle trees as I jogged to catch up to them. I slung Ermil’s other arm over my shoulder, and Matt took my pack.

We did a good job last night. Apella would have been proud of me.

We saved someone’s life. That had to count for something, push the peg forward one short inch.

I left any other feelings behind, jammed into that tree with the blood and contaminated instruments.

ROSA

I wish I could hate you. I want to hate you for leaving me here.

I HATE you.

I love you.

I love you.

The door eased over the carpet. My face pressed against the floor, my knees folded over as if I were praying. I focused on the tiny little threads, bending, waving like red grass as the wood swept over the top. I would hold my heart hostage to lie in grass right now. I wanted the frozen spikes digging into my back. I wanted the melted snow to seep into my clothes.

I didn’t want to feel dead, to relive dying.

A polished shoe wedged in the gap and Red’s legs, body and face appeared. She glowered from her position above me. I hadn’t moved in hours. It had taken me this long to remember how to breathe properly, to pull myself from a very real nightmare.

“I have to take you downstairs,” she whispered regretfully, her countenance changing. Pity grimed the corners of her mouth. I had no energy to dislike her face. I was stretched past caring.

I turned my forehead to the carpet, rubbing it back and forth slowly. “Where’s Harry?” I murmured, my lips picking up pieces of carpet fluff.

Red’s voice was warmer than I expected, but disappointed as well. “Harry has been repurposed. He, er, wasn’t suited to this position. You need to get up, Miss Rosa. I have to take you downstairs again.”

Again.

I blinked, and tears met the carpet.

“You’ll have to help me up,” I whispered. I couldn’t take another step. I couldn’t willingly walk back in there.

She knelt down, a ladder in her stockings stretched wide over her knee as her weight pressed into the floor. She hooked her arms under mine and pulled me up. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t answer. Most of me was still on the floor.

I love you.

Don’t forget.

Please don’t have already forgotten.

They strapped me down in the chair again. They asked the questions again. I refused to answer them again. They pressed play again.

My soul coiled inside my body, winding round and round in a tight dressing– protecting me, shielding me.

Este’s voice, high and shrill, squawked from the screen, her thin frame teetering in those red heels. “I d-don’t want b-b-blood on the carpets.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the rest. I knew it by heart now. This was unnecessary. These images would never leave me.

“What have you done?” Joseph asked. I opened my eyes, waiting for the screen to go black and start at the beginning again.

But it didn’t. This was the after part. The part I didn’t remember because I was already gone.

A squeal, hard and piercing. Este stood on the tiles, her hands straight at her sides, her fingers anchored to her thighs. So taut, so distressed. Joseph leaned down to my body, his hands shaking. Before he could touch my neck to check for a pulse, a guard jumped on his back, his arms wrapped tightly around Joseph’s throat.

My head shook from side to side as I watched in dismay. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Joseph had been dead this whole time. The bottom fell out of everything. The floor rocked, the air swirled, and I knew I was going to be sick. But I couldn’t stop watching.

Joseph’s hands scrambled behind him, batting, grabbing, scratching at the guard. His eyes. They weren’t his eyes. They were hollow, angry, absent. He got a grip on the guard and threw him to the ground. I watched as the guard skidded backwards over the tiles and his head hit the wall. I would have heard a crack, if there weren’t so many other noises fighting for attention. Guards were coming at Joseph from every direction. Clawing, hitting, trying to pull him to the ground, but he was like a raging bull, his strength inhuman as he fought them off.

When his face flashed towards the camera, his eyes were still empty, and my body shuddered like a rickety shed in a storm.

A guard lifted the knife from the floor and held it out in front of him, my blood spitting from the end in splatters as his hand shook. He lunged at Joseph’s side but accidentally slashed at the forearm of the guard holding Joseph by the waist. That guard dropped to the floor, screaming, gripping his arm over an open wound that was spurting blood like a sprinkler. My stomach crept up into my mouth at all the blood, the violence that seemed endless. The guard with the knife didn’t seem to notice what he’d done and lunged at Joseph again. I gasped at the disconnection of these men grappling at each other, fighting for their lives, and Joseph, a body separate to his spirit, a hulk, a mass of rage.

There were two guards down. Este’s piercing-as-a-bullet squealing was a constant musical backdrop to the scene.

A shot cracked the air, and Joseph ducked down. But it was nowhere near him. It came from somewhere else out of frame. The squealing ceased like someone had pressed the mute button, and Este lay across the couch like a dismantled puppet.

It dazed the men for a second and then I lost them all in the mesh of muscle, weapons, and blood. Joseph held onto a guard’s hand tightly or around something… something black. I dug my nails into my palms, my body leaning forward and nearly pulling my chair over. I was a bird ready to take flight, straight into a wall.

Crack, crack, crack…

It didn’t sound like it should. It sounded like a whip, like lightning. I could almost smell the singe, the burn, and see the scalded earth. But it was not something natural; it was something men made to undo men.

I searched the pile of bodies, slumped in a circle around him. Joseph was covered in blood. He was breathing like he couldn’t get the air in quick enough, hunched over as if he were a seed that wouldn’t grow. The gun lagged in his hand, and then it dropped to the floor with an isolated, lonely clang.

What did I make you do?

I pulled at my restraints, thinking I might scream but knowing no one would come to my aid.

“What have you done?” Deshi asked in the screen, in a video I was struggling to believe was real, as he stood behind the bodies.

Joseph was lost. No color in his beautiful face save the color of others’ blood. He moved to my body, silent and motionless through the whole thing, and collapsed. I watched and felt every punch, every splinter as he beat the tiles over and over again with his fist. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to cry out, I wanted to reach inside the screen and hold him, but I couldn’t. I was lying there dead, and he was broken.

I broke him.

Everything shattered. A million tiny shards of ceramic the color of gold and dust rained over me.

I let out a moan. A shallow sound that was nothing. Nothing.

Mr. Hun pushed the door open. My eyes squinted at the light from the garage that didn’t belong in here. I wanted to steep in darkness. Disappear.

His voice was soft and sure. “See, dear. You’re protecting a murderer. Are you ready to talk now?”

My chin touched my chest, and I exhaled my soul in one breath. They would get nothing from me today.

I was done.

ROSA

I fell in the hall on the way back to my room, my limbs so wobbly I could barely stand. They folded under me like poorly made chair legs and crumbled together. Red sighed and nudged me with her toe. I felt like any touch would disintegrate my form. I was a case. Inside me were dust, un-smelled air, and waves of sadness. I pulled my legs under my body sluggishly and whimpered at her impatient prodding. The pain I felt was scattered over my skin, like a lagging electric shock.

I could feel her body warmth closing in, looming, ready to grab me and jerk me up. She’d had her one sympathetic moment. That was probably all I was going to get. Besides, they were always watching and she couldn’t show weakness.

A cough.

“Let me take her, Mrs. Kelly.” A calm voice, slow like lava, but warm, bordering on hot.

Red’s foot tapped once in front of my eyes, and then disappeared.

Lips close to my ear whispered, “You need to get up.”

I can’t.

“Get up.” Strong fingers found my chin and forced it upwards. “Now. He’s watching you.”

Okay. Move your limbs. Pull one part in front of the other. Follow the thread of life left in you.

I heaped myself towards my door, moving like a kicked heap of wet towels.

Denis opened the door and walked straight into my bathroom. Pulling myself from the floor, I went inside, closing the bedroom door behind me. I heard a slight metallic clink, and then the taps running. Without even looking into the bathroom, I seized and shuffled into the corner with fear.

His concerned face appeared in the bathroom doorway, and I pressed closer to the wall. When he saw my expression, his eyebrows rose in alarm and he pumped his hands in front of him.

“No. I’m not going to hurt you, I…” He ran a hand over his close-cropped, spiky hair and sighed. “Have a shower, Rosa, take some time,” he urged seriously.

I just stared blankly, not understanding anything. My mind was walled in on all sides by screens playing violent acts over and over. Then he checked himself, checked for cameras, and leaned in, kissing me briefly on the forehead.

“Let this be the last time you allow him to hurt you,” he whispered, his breath a flush of peppermint on my aching skin.

Tears cascaded over my eyelashes and flooded my cheeks, a waterfall of disbelief.

He pulled back suddenly, as if he’d surprised himself, and backed away from me, opening the door behind him and slowly leaving the room. His eyes intense. His face finally showed some emotion—concern, but also… a challenge.

I waited until the door clicked and then rushed to the bathroom. Sitting on the basin was a candy-colored music player, the white earphones wound in a circle. The song was paused.

I traced the title with my shaking fingers, my head splitting with bullets and blood. ‘The Work’ by Catie Wings. It didn’t sound like a real name.

I placed the earphones in my ears and pressed play, looking up at the girl in the mirror. She looked harrowed, hollow, wide eyes in a thin face, eyes as large as bowls and just as full. Full of more trauma than she could handle and struggling to get back to herself. To remember herself. I gripped the sides of the sink and listened.

If this was more torture, that would be it. I would wash down the drain.

The music was haunted. A floating voice sailed in the spaces between what I’d learned was piano. A dull thud. But then the vulnerability, the stress of the first words, hit me and I dissolved. My fingers slipped and I pressed them deeper into the porcelain. I watched the ghost in the mirror react and tried to recall that it was me.

“Clasp hands, you’ll survive.”

Her voice wavered as if she weren’t sure of her words, the fear in there, the loss of something real.

“I’m on my own, looking in,

On the strife,

On the chaos.”

I couldn’t understand the next part, but her voice had me anyway. Something was over, she sung. It was about things that were out of her control. My tears fell into the basin, just water.

Insubstantial water.

Powerful water.

I can do this. I have to. My heart burgled all the strength it could. My head fell as I watched tears pour down the drain, my hair, waving, glowing light and wrong.

“Fate’s taking the last of your strength,

But I know you’ve got a lot of fight left.

Fate’s taking the last of your strength,

But I know you’ve got a lot of fight left.”

Something was stuck in my throat, heaving panic. Let this be the last time.

“I can’t cry for fear of what it means.

I can hope but it leaves me undone.

Regrets keep me standing alone.

Wondering what I could’ve done.

Wondering if I gave you enough.”

There was more than just tears burning my throat; something else was stuck in there, my heart, my soul. I was trying so hard and then, I stopped. This will be the last time. Make it count, I thought. I eased myself down to the floor, the damp bath mat cool on my legs, the player pulling over the edge and landing on the floor. I wrapped my arms around my legs to contain the shaking.

“Please, my love, change this time, change this place.”

She wailed, she pleaded. But it wasn’t going away.

“Take this pain away.” She threw the words at me, threw them into the atmosphere, and offered them to anyone that would have them. And I wanted to take the pain for her. I wanted to be stronger.

Grant. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I let myself feel it. I let the tears run over my lips and into my hands. I held them there.

“Leave me my memories.

Leave them here with me.”

She asked. She told. She demanded.

I thought, They’re mine. You can’t take him from me. You can’t change my mind about him. I won’t.

I let the words roll over and over like racing clouds heavy with destruction. They floated in front of my face; they sloped over my forehead and smoothed down my hair.

“Fate’s taking the last of your strength,

But I know you’ve got a lot of fight left.

Fate’s taking the last of your strength,

But I know you’ve got a lot of fight left.”

I knew.

This would be the last time I let him hurt me.