Текст книги "The Wounded"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Joseph nodded, but I took a few steps towards Matthew, my eyes wild. “What? Just say it, please. I’m thinking the worst right now.”

“It’s what I’m thinking too,” he said sadly as my heart and my lungs turned to liquid and drained away.

Joseph gripped my wrists fiercely and pulled me into his chest. He cursed into my hair and I tried, as hard as I could, to remember how to breathe.

Apella entered carried by Alexei, my father sneaking in behind them. She connected with my eyes briefly, sadly, but once put in her chair, she wheeled straight over to Matthew. He said something to her, to which she shook her head in response. He sighed deeply.

It had been hours, and Orry had seized twice in that time. We were in a pattern of barely contained panic to absolute panic every time it happened. Joseph was nodding off in the plastic chair next to me. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything. I was useless in this situation.

Matthew appeared to steel himself, and then he strode over to the two of us. The teenage parents. He sighed again. I blinked up at him, the white lights blinding me. I smacked Joseph’s chest. “Wake up.”

This felt like getting my allocations, reading Joseph’s letter, waking up pregnant, and Joseph dying in front of me all rolled into one.

“Come with me,” he said

The others waited near Orry as Matthew brought us into another room at the end of the infirmary, a solitary desk strewn with paper with a microscope its only adornment.

We sat down and he sat on the edge of the desk, leaning towards us, his face a crumpled mess of emotions. He swiped his forehead with his hand and said, “I’m sorry.”

Joseph stood up suddenly and punched the wall. I jumped in my chair. “Sorry for what?” I asked stupidly. “What’s happening?” Matthew put his hand on my shoulder, and I shook it off. “What’s wrong with Orry?”

Joseph rubbed his fist with his hand and came to stand behind me, his breath hoarse.

“I don’t know why, but Orry’s blood cells are exploding in his body. He is anemic, and his liver is not coping. His cells are just expiring,” Matthew said, exasperated. I leaned back into Joseph’s stomach, the up and down of his erratic breathing matching my own.

I gripped the arms of the chair. “Damn it, Matthew. Don’t talk about him like he’s a tub of old yogurt. That’s Orry out there.” Oh God, my baby.

“Is there anything we can do?” Joseph asked hopelessly.

“I’m trying. I’m searching everywhere for a treatment, a solution. And I’ll keep looking.”

My head snapped up. “Hessa, where is he? Is he ok?”

“That’s the thing, Hessa’s fine. Apella explained to me that she was in charge of Hessa’s development, but Este had already taken over the reins when Orry was made.”

Made, development, what horrible words.

“How long do we have before…” Joseph couldn’t complete the sentence, and I was glad he didn’t.

“At the rate his cells are degenerating, I’d say, a few days at most.” Matthew was trying to keep it together, but a couple of tears made their way down his cheeks. “We’ll keep him sedated and feed him via tube for now.”

I stood and faced Matthew. “You’ll find a way.”

*****

You’re so small. So unknowing. You don’t know how you were made, only that you are loved. You will be loved. Forever. You are the best part of me. If you go, I’m nothing but rust and rags.

Deshi, I’m glad you were spared this. This feeling inside that you might lose your child was like a spinning spur in your guts. It was cutting, slicing, and shredding me to a pulp.

Joseph and I clung to each other like we were drowning. I would be strong for him as he would be strong for me, but strength was useless in this fight. Only science could win.

I pulled my chair closer to Orry’s bed. His chubby little body was wasting away already. His skin was pale, with his tiny lips pursing like he was displeased about something. One hand curled up, the other flat like a star. I smoothed his curls from his face and waited for the flinch, the suck of breath when I disturbed him, but he didn’t move. He wouldn’t move at all, and I wanted to shake him.

Matthew pulled the curtain back and took in my grief-stricken face. I gazed up at him like a starving child. “Take something out of me and give it to him,” I begged, gripping his shirt desperately. “Please. I can’t do nothing… be nothing.” He took my hands in his and just watched me with miserable eyes. I couldn’t look at him, at any of them anymore.

What could I do?

Nothing.

I slid back from the bed, stood carefully, feeling myself slowing erupting, a flood of panicked tears rising from my feet to my head until I felt that I might turn to water. I moved deliberately, mechanically, to the door, Joseph’s eyes tracking me. My hand shook as I opened it. Pelo looked up, smiling inappropriately. Apella tried to speak but only managed to cough. I turned my back to them, and I ran.

Hands reached for me, pleading voices asking if Orry was ok.

No.

I was fast. I knew he was following me, but I didn’t look back. I ran past the station, the screaming monkeys, the city streaking in my vision as my lungs burned, but I couldn’t stop.

The trees closed around me suddenly, calmly. They embraced me with their scratchy arms. I grabbed one trunk with both hands, I looked to the sky, and I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs, and collapsed in the dirt.

*****

He approached me like I was a wild animal. I snorted as I dug up clumps of soil in my hands and threw them deeper into the forest.

“You always were a bit emotional, just like your father,” he said, his fine brows arching and then falling quickly.

“Don’t say that,” I whispered. “Don’t talk to me like you know me.”

“But I do. I know you because you and I are so alike. I am your father, and I love you, Rosa. I love Orry too.”

He bent down to meet me. His eyes were so devastated that I almost believed him. “I don’t love you, not anymore,” I said. His stick-like body tightened at my words like a fossilized trunk. “At least, not the way I used to. You’re someone else to me now. And you’re wrong about one thing… we’re not that alike. I would never abandon my child.”

He nodded slowly; he took it, accepted it, but put in his pocket for later. Everything was too big, too much to deal with, without adding our father-daughter drama to it. He put his arm around me, and I leaned into him.

I lied. I did love him, but I was scared of him too.

“Do you want to scream some more?” he asked with a wink.

I shivered and shook my head, watching the branches sway in the icy breeze. They were calling out to me, thin and white-barked, their slender fingers tapping out the message that I’d already read.

Hessa was ok for one very simple reason—Apella.

I took the hand Pelo offered and stood. Resolve hardened my insides. I knew what had to be done.

Maybe that’s what family is. You’re there for each other. You do what is needed without being asked.

I didn’t need to say a word. When I returned, the bed next to Orry’s had been converted to a desk. Paper was stacked, the microscope and other medical paraphernalia loomed over her tiny frame, threatening her. A man walked in with yet another piece of equipment. My eyes found Joseph, and he grinned. “They’re raiding the hospital and bringing the brilliant scientist what she needs.” He gestured to Apella, who looked up, her face ashen, her arms shaky. But her eyes were hard. I knew she would find the answer or die trying.

“Thank you,” was all I managed. She nodded and returned to her work, coughing, wheezing, and spluttering like her lungs were trying to escape her chest.

I kissed her cheek and settled into a chair to watch.

*****

Hessa shoving a slice of sucked-on bread up my nose awoke me. People had been coming in over the last day, bringing food and words of comfort. But mostly they’d left us alone. It was too devastating for everyone. They loved Orry, and they seemed to understand that we couldn’t handle their sadness as well as our own. Right now, all anyone could do was wait. We were all waiting on Apella and physically weighing her down. She became flatter and thinner with every hour, until she could almost be confused with the fragile glass slides that covered her makeshift desk. I felt terrible but then I’d look at Orry, his tiny fingers peeling back, red and raw, and I knew this was the only way. She knew it too.

Behind Hessa, Odval stood with her hands clasped in front of her. She moved towards Orry and paused to look at me. “May I?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

When she reached him, her hand went to her mouth, but I managed to catch the words. “Poor darling child. You don’t deserve this.”

She was right. Everyone deserved this more than Orry did. My heart heaved in my chest, and my stomach growled. Odval pulled sandwiches from her bag and handed them around. She started to ask me how I was, but I just shook my head and put my hand up to stop her. There were no words left to describe how empty and useless I felt.

Apella lifted a piece of paper close to her face, peered at it for a long time, and then let it fall to the ground. Pure white on the shiny orange floor. The colorful curtains smiled sickeningly. Another dead end. I was trying hard, but a large part of me wanted to grab her ankles and snap her like a towel until the answer sprung from her mouth. But I clasped my hands together tightly and held it in. She was the only one who could solve this puzzle.

Odval made her excuses, scooped up Hessa, and left. I was sure she burst into tears as soon as the door sealed after her. We were running out of time.

As if sensing my rising panic, Joseph motioned to me from his perch. He’d barely left Orry’s side, same as me. We had both been parked on either side of his bed, sleeping in the chair or on the floor. We didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much to say.

I crept over to him and crawled in his lap, allowing his big, warm arms to encircle me. Once they would have been all I needed to keep calm, to stave off nightmares. Now they were just arms. Arms I loved, cherished, but our suffering was so deep that there was no escaping it, not even for a second.

Joseph’s voice rumbled, the vibration wrapping around my strangled heart and soothing it just a little. His voice was strong with cracks in it. “Tell me about our son’s first steps,” he said.

I took a deep breath and exhaled with a smile that felt awkward to get out but once I started talking, it stayed there, comfortably on my face. Thinking of and talking about Orry would always make me smile.

*****

I awoke in a hospital bed. The lights dimmed, shining like fuzzy stars. Orry’s breathing reassured me, and Apella’s juicy wheezing frightened me. I scanned the small infirmary, looking for Joseph. He wasn’t there. I kissed Orry’s red forehead gently and snuck out to find him. I stepped out and looked down into the base of the amphitheater. Small blobs of firelight glowed against the slimy, black stones. The water rushing, mixed with slabs of ice smacking together, gave me the chills. I hugged myself tightly and walked towards our living quarters.

“Ouch!”

Something soft and bony crunched beneath my foot.

“Geez, Soar. I know you’ve got stuff on your mind, but can you watch where you’re going?” A white smile floated in the darkness, then arms grabbed at me and wrestled me to the floor. I slapped at him weakly, and then melted into his embrace.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, although I knew he’d pretty much been camping here since I’d run in, screaming, with Orry in my arms.

Rash punched my shoulder lightly as I came to rest next to him, my feet swinging over the edge of the wall. “Just looking out for you,” he said lightly. Then his voice caught a little. “You know, this really sucks.”

I leaned on his shoulder. “Yep.”

“How’s beautiful blond man taking it?” Rash asked sincerely.

“I don’t know. Bad, probably,” I said, my eyebrows drawn together as I realized I hadn’t really asked him, and he hadn’t asked me.

“Probably?”

I let my hand rest on top of his. “Yeah, you know, I think we’re both trying so hard to be there for each other that neither of us can let any of it out. I’m scared if I fall apart in front of him, he won’t be able to cope. We’re barely keeping it together as it is.”

There was silence for a while as we listened to the hum and clang of people settling in for the night.

“How about we do a little bit of a leaning-on train?”

“Huh?”

“Blond man leans on you, and you lean on me…”

“And who do you lean on?”

He waved the air in front of him. “Nah, I’ll be fine,” he said dismissively, adding, “and if I really need comfort, I’ve got the beautiful, young Essie to lean on or lie on or whatever.”

I laughed, a strange feeling. “You’re so charming. And she’s not that young. She’s older than you, you know?”

He bumped me again. “Yes, I am. And yes, I know, but I’m very mature for my age.” He laughed as he spoke, not able to get out that last part with a serious expression on his face.

“You’re something… I’m not sure mature is the right word though!”

We were quiet for a moment. The brief humor was just that.

I sighed and pretended we were under the stars.

Orry, please live. All these people love you and need you. Live.

“Hey, wanna hear something creepy?” Rash asked after a long silence.

“Probably not,” I said.

He ignored me and continued, “Have you noticed how there’s a lot more men than women down here?” he asked, talking in spooky, hushed whispers.

I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed. After a while, the Survivors and the people down here had started to meld together. The only noticeable difference was at nighttime, when screens illuminated the Survivors’ faces and firelight warmed the faces of the original occupants of this cavern.

I tried to force myself to think about something other than Orry, but it was like trying to force a desk through a bathroom window. It didn’t fit.

“Geez, you’re slow,” he said, flashes of white bouncing of his teeth from the fires and battery light below.

I remember noticing there were no children. But I was used to that. There were however quite a few teenagers, teenage boys. No girls.

Rash was watching me, bouncing his legs. He smirked as my eyes widened in realization and clapped his hands. “And there it is… It’s a miracle, the girl has a brain.”

I scowled and elbowed him hard in the side.

“Where are all the young women?” I asked, quite sure that I didn’t really want to know.

“Well, do you really think once the Superiors found out about this place, they would let one of us just make his own little society without some sort of payback?” His tone turned serious after that. “They took all the girls, the women of ‘child bearing’ age, in exchange for leaving the rest alone. From what I hear, most of the girls volunteered to go.” He shrugged. “It was that, or they all died.”

“When did this happen?”

“About a year and a half ago,” Rash replied.

So it was just after the Survivors took us in. God, they were despicable. I sighed deeply.

“Thanks for that,” I said sarcastically. “I feel a whole lot better.”

“Sorry, I was just trying to distract you…” he said, tapping his chin.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said, a slight smile teasing its way onto my lips.

I sighed. The distraction was fleeting, and in its place was that cold fear wrapping around me. Each strand was thin as a spider’s web and strong as steel wire, pulling tighter and tighter. It came with the realization that we were probably being watched. That the net of the Superiors was drawing closed. The opening was getting smaller, and we needed to do something before we were all trapped.

Rash stopped jittering and put his arm around my shoulders. “It’s going to be ok, Soar.”

I wanted to believe him so badly.

Tears dried and welled, dried and welled. There was no end to this pain. And if it ended, that only meant an abyss would crack open, and we would be thrown in together.

It was closeted. The smell of a fizzled candle singed my nose.

And the sound. The worst sound and the only sound to make.

His hulking form crouched on the edge of the mattress. I padded my hands around, searching for the matches. Strike, fizz, light.

It illuminated the destruction, the result of holding everything in until there had to be an out.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes red-rimmed and still fighting back tears.

I struggled with the sight. My capsule smashed to pieces, splinters poking violently out at every angle.

I knelt down and put my arms around him as far as they could go, trying to bring him into me, to hold him up and let him lean on me. He wept. I didn’t. I would be strong for him, just as he had been strong for me so many times.

“Sh. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” I soothed.

Nothing mattered. Our son was dying, literally disintegrating before our eyes. I shuddered and tried not to tremble at the enormity of it. I clasped Joseph tighter. He was solid like a rock but slowly crumbling on the inside. Sadly now, we were halfway matching.

Joseph

I tried not to fall apart. I needed to keep it together, be strong for both of them. But she found me; she caught up with me. I was just so damn scared, and I’m trying not to let it show all over my face. Because I feel it in every breath, in every tense muscle. I know I’m slowly breaking apart. And I can’t. Because if Orry dies, I won’t just lose my son, I’ll lose her. She’ll disappear, and there’ll be no reaching her.

Somehow, I fell asleep, curled in a ball with Rosa’s arms reaching over my back, her hand lying flat on my chest. I breathed in and her hand slid backwards, away from me. I grabbed it before it fell behind me and held it over my heart. Her fingers tapped gently, and I knew she was awake. She mumbled and rolled away from me. My heart strained. We had precious few moments together, and I was worried they were running out.

She pulled up to sitting and said, “I’m going back to the infirmary.” I shifted, ready to jump up, but she patted my leg. “Stay. Rest. I’ll come get you if something changes.”

I didn’t know what time it was, but there wasn’t even a hint of light. I closed my eyes and felt her pulling the blanket over my shoulder. I didn’t like it. I was the one who should be doing that. I should be taking care of her, of Orry. I clenched my fists. I hated my weakness. I hated how tired I was that, even in my anger, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I returned to sleep, tense and angry.

*****

A thin amount of light shone through the thick curtain of our hovel, as Rosa liked to call it. She despised living down here. She needed to be close to the sky. How else was all that lightning and fire going to escape? I grinned and sat up, letting the blanket fall to the floor. The grin left me as I remembered last night, and the one before that. I quickly splashed some water on my face, feeling what was once stubble turning into a full-blown beard. Fumbling around, I found some matches and lit a candle.

It displayed my fit of anger in all its glory. Shattered wood, and toppled cans in the corner. I growled and grabbed a can of juice, piercing the lid and downing it quickly. I was ashamed of my behavior. The thing was… I knew she didn’t care. But I did. I destroyed something important to her.

I swept up the splinters and threw it in a bucket. Hastily tossing a shirt on, I went to make my way down to one of the fires to destroy the evidence.

I swung the bucket through the entrance, and it collided with something soft. I heard a slight thump, and the air being pushed from her lungs. “Damn it!” I said loudly. I swept the blanket aside. Rosa lay on the rocky ground, propped up on her elbows, looking like she was glued to her place. She stared up at me, her eyes round and red. “You ok?” I asked, even though I knew the answer was no.

She shook her head as if trying to clear it. Opening her mouth to speak, she stopped and then bit down on her lip. I ran my hands through my hair. I didn’t want her to say anything. Not one word.

It came out funny, the words, the meaning. It was like each word was stamped in the air, hard. Because it was so final. They just hung there, both of us staring at nothing but stale air.

“Apella’s dead.”

I pulled her up, and we stumbled towards the infirmary. The rocks beneath us, sharp under my bare feet. I wanted to see for myself. Rosa could have been wrong. She wasn’t a doctor. I knew Apella’s lungs were giving out, I knew that searching for a cure for Orry was taking what little strength she had left, but dead? No.

I clasped the door and paused for a second. I prepared for the worst. Rosa was clutching my shirt like she was drowning. Her tiny fingers pressed into my chest. I opened the door and strode inside.

*****

Would this be me? If I lost her, would this be what everyone saw?

There was no sound but for the small, breathless whimpers of a man who had lost everything. Alexei sat next to a lifeless shell folded over the desk, his head in his hands. “No, no, no, no…” he whispered, over and over, and my remade heart started breaking. My mentor, my friend, my almost mother, was dead.

We broke apart. I went to Alexei, and Rosa to the other side of Apella. I patted Alexei on the back and carefully reached under Apella’s hair to find her pulse. She was cold. My fingers pressed in deeper, but there was no blood pumping through her veins. I looked to Rosa, and it was like she had stopped breathing. Her face was so still, her expression unreadable. Her eyes scanned the desk. She placed her hand over Apella’s wrist and lifted it, sliding a piece of paper out from under the cool, white arm.

Right then, Matt walked in. It took him two seconds to work out what had happened, and his wrinkles deepened. He carefully lifted Apella to the bed. Her arm fell limply, blue ink marking her fingers and hands. I watched Rosa react and suppress, react and suppress. The piece of paper scrunched in her hand. Her eyes flitted to the writing, and confusion spread all over her face. She shook her head slowly and let it fall from her hands.

“That’s it then. It’s for nothing.” She heaved a breath and wrung her hands, the tears she was trying to hold in just pouring from her eyes now. She kind of hiccupped and put her hand to chest. “Oh Jesus, he’s going to die.” I could feel everything she was feeling. The devastation, the fear of what we were about to face. I reached out to grab her but she backed away, turned, and ran. She was a shadow as she slipped out the door.

I kneeled down and scooped up the piece of paper, as it danced across the floor from the gust of Rosa’s departure. My eyes went over each word.

Fava Beans

Oranges

Each underlined heavily. I smiled.

Apella, your final gift to us was a good one.