Текст книги "The Wounded"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

I could have screamed, but everyone’s eyes were on me as I walked away from the infirmary. How could this happen? How could it all end like this? With a grocery list scrawled over ink-smudged paper. She must have gone crazy, the sickness invading her brain or something. I was so angry with her… for not saving Orry, for leaving me with nothing but a useless scrap to hold onto, for dying. How could she just… die like that?

I pictured her hanging over that desk. All the things that made her alive suddenly pulled from her like pulling a hermit crab from its shell. I thought she looked like a ghost when she was alive, now she was one. And she would always haunt me. Because I hated her and loved her at the same time. So much.

I squatted down and put my hands to the wet rocks.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, I thought as I wiped my sniffling nose with a shaky hand.

Could this please be a dream? I wasn’t even half the person I would need to be to deal with this. I pulled my hair back from my face and shoved down the bile that was rising in my throat. I thought about Addy, Clara, Deshi, and now Apella. They were all gone, dead, lost. There was no fairness to this. People were going to drop away, dissolve into the stacks of bodies, because we were in a war. We could hide underground, pit ourselves against the idea of it, but it was always there. And it was going to take everyone and everything if we let it. I felt my organs seize in my chest, because now it was going to take my son.

I punched the rock, my knuckles splitting, the skin opening, bleeding. The pain was a nice feeling. It was on the outside of me, instead of the pain that ran back and forth over my insides like a two-man saw.

Stop. Just stop. Please.

Whoever’s controlling this puppet show we’re all in, please cut the strings. Don’t make me do this. Go through this.

But it was done. No one was listening. I was tied to the sky, and the strings that bound us together were breaking.

J oseph

 

Fava beans and oranges. I knew to Rosa this meant nothing, a grocery list, some random items. And on their own, they didn’t mean anything. But combined with Orry’s symptoms, they meant the world. Thanks to Apella, he would live.

In those months before I found Rosa, I learned the process of how Orry was made, how they were all designed and produced. There were steps you had to follow, important steps. You couldn’t skip one. I knew Este had been in a hurry, that she’d doubled the amount of embryos to be produced and implanted. She’d also messed around with chromosomes, trying to make the offspring more All Kind, but I never thought she’d be this reckless. It was as obvious to me as it must have been to Apella… that Este had skipped over the pre-implantation genetic screening. This would check the embryos for predispositions to different intolerances and genetic disorders. One disorder, which had shown to be particularly common in the embryos that had been produced, was a G6 PD deficiency. It was a severe intolerance to fava beans that caused vomiting, seizures, jaundice, anemia, and eventually death if not treated.

I stood over Apella’s body. She was almost grey. Alexei had stopped crying, but his face remained contorted in anguish. I put my hand on hers and mentally thanked her. I squeezed Alexei’s shoulder. He looked up at me and smiled. “So she did it?” he asked quietly.

I nodded somberly. “She did.”

“Good,” he said. “I knew it couldn’t be for nothing.” There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and pride. “I think she held on as long as she could, so that she could find the answer. I watched her work. She wrote down the final word, smiled, and sighed her last breath before she laid her head down on the table.” He swept his thinning hair back and straightened his glasses. “I can’t believe I’ll never see that smile again.”

My heart broke for him.

Matt ushered me from the bed and pulled the curtain around them.

I still gripped the paper in my hand. I wanted to find Rosa, but I needed to get Orry’s treatment organized before I did anything else.

“G6...” I said to Matthew, waving the paper in front of him like it was made of gold.

Matthew smiled. “PD deficiency. Of course!”

I pulled up my sleeve. “Take as much as you can,” I said, flopping down in a chair.

Matt already had a needle in his hand.

To think, all he needed was a transfusion and to never, ever touch a can of fava beans again. He would have to be careful about too much vitamin C as well. I sunk into the chair and let some of the stress escape my wound-up body. My universal donor blood tracked slowly up a tube. I was the vaccine, the solution.

I was lost. Actually lost. In a stupor, I had dragged my sorry feet through several tunnels looking for a difference, a distraction. I kept seeing her head, her pale blonde hair fanned out like a silk, straw broom, her arm kind of stiff when I went to lift it. She was like a piece of wood burned in the fire, its whole body turned to ash yet holding its shape. All you had to do was poke it for the form to collapse and whir into the sky with the sparks and the smoke. I leaned against the curve of the tunnel, staring down at the steel train track in front of me. My feelings were a tangle, a mess. I wished there had been another way. I wished that my son wasn’t soon to be caught in the ashy swirl of death too. When he did, I could see myself turning to flame and joining him. It would leave Joseph alone, but he wouldn’t want what was left of me. No one would.

I slapped the stone with my palms in anger, mossy green slime staining my fingers. I had to find my way out of here, I needed to find Rash and the others, tell them what was going on, and then I needed to spend whatever time I had left with Orry, with my family, before it all disappeared.

I picked a direction, cursed, and started walking.

*****

Long shadows crept up the walls, people talking and jogging towards me. Each voice was high with emotion, accents clashing and words not making sense. It didn’t make sense because they sounded jubilant.

“You go to the hospital. Here’s the list. They just need clean blood bags and needles still in their sterile wrappings.”

Someone gruff and familiar said, “She can’t be too far away. That girl just has to stand still somewhere, and trouble will find her. But the boy will want to see her when he wakes.” Gus.

I was beyond confused, but the words sounded good together. They glowed on the page in my head, when he wakes. Those words were golden and sparkling. I felt myself being pulled to the sky, that string I was attached to trying to make me dance.

They finally collided with me, a few monkeys scampering around their feet. Gus saw me, stared at me, and then he did something I’ll never forget. He laughed. I peered into the yellowing enamel like his smile was a specimen to be studied. His eyebrows drew together, and then he grabbed both my shoulders and shook me with force.

“She did it,” he said.

I winced a little at the resemblance to Cal when I looked into his eyes. But this wasn’t Cal; this was Gus. Harsh, stoic Gus who loved Orry like the rest of them did.

My lips were trembling, my whole body rattling like a wooden door in a storm. “She… did?”

He nodded. “The boy will live.”

The boy will live.

Something snapped gently inside me, a door opening and filling me with floodwaters.

The boy will live.

Gus didn’t wait. He quickly explained his mission and ran past me, telling me briefly how to get out of this maze. “Just follow the monkey,” he said, tsking and clicking his tongue at one of them. It left the others and came to sit at my feet. I looked down at its ugly, pinched face, its yellow eyes bobbing like twin moons in its head. It blinked stupidly at me. I rolled my eyes.

“Ugh! Well, lead the way,” I said.

It yawned, opened its mouth, and let out a small screech before galloping off in the opposite direction to the others. I followed, lagging, but dripping in excitement, grief, and dread.

Thank you, Apella. Thank you so much.

*****

Joseph and I held hands, standing over Orry. His tiny body thinner than just days ago. Matthew, Alexei, Pelo, Careen, Pietre, and Rash sat huddled in plastic chairs behind the curtain. I could only hear Rash, joking and making everyone uncomfortable.

I said a selfish prayer. Orry stay, rest. Don’t let the best of me go with you. I know it’s selfish, but I need you to live.

I watched Matthew add another bag of Joseph’s life-saving blood. I imagined the shreds of exploded blood cells being replaced and propped up by the healthy, plump, new ones. I thanked Apella over and over in my head as it tracked like syrup, dripping slowly down. I told Alexei how sad I was for him, for her, for Hessa. I lost track of it when it went into his tube, but I knew it was going in. I wished Deshi were here. I thought of Hessa and how lucky he was that he didn’t get sick. The relief was momentary when it dawned on me like the slap of an ice-covered branch, leaving stings and prickles in my cheek. There were so many children that would get sick. Every child created after Este took over could get sick. All of them could die. I remembered the cans of beans from when I lived in the Woodlands. It was a staple, and now it was a steady danger that would turn every baby into a ticking time bomb.

I covered my mouth. Joseph looked up at me with concern, his eyes finally warming me, the gold solid, heated like the sun. The feeling reinvented itself to be something bigger, brighter after what we’d been through. “He’s going to be ok,” he said.

I nodded. I could almost see the repair going on inside Orry. The blood cells inflating like balloons, bouncing off each other, and pumping stronger.

Joseph’s arm grasped at my waist and pulled me close, until only a sliver of light pierced through the gap between us. I didn’t look at him. I gazed at my son and, through him, I could see other sons and daughters, babies dropping, seizing, and dying. It made me sick.

I put my hand over his, tapping it gently. “What about the others? They’re not going to be ok, are they?” I said.

I think he went to say something comforting, and then bit it back. He frowned and shot out the truth like a brick through a window. “No, they won’t.”

Each time I watched the blood drip down into Orry’s IV, I saw them fall. I saw the White Coats scrambling to catch them, their hospital full of convulsing children. My mothering instinct spread wide like the wings of an eagle. I wanted to fold all of them under me, protect them, shelter them from the searing hospital lights, keep them warm and safe. But from here, I could do nothing.

I ticked my fingers against my leg, counting down a plan.

*****

We ate greedily, sitting cross-legged on the infirmary floor. Joseph and I couldn’t remember the last time we ate. So it was a cacophony of snatching fingers and wiping crumbs from mouths. Alexei joined us, and he seemed surprisingly ok. He held Hessa in his lap and joined in the conversation. Maybe it was the wait that had sent his mind spiraling so deep down a hole that we couldn’t reach him. Even though he would miss her, love her forever, at least now there was an end point. That end point was the tip of the rope, one he could use to climb out and find a new beginning.

Every now and then, someone would hop up to check on Orry. His vitals were strengthening, but he hadn’t woken up yet. Matthew said it could take a while. I was so anxious to see those funny eyes of his that I could barely contain my agitation. Rash sat on one side of me, making dancing feet from bread sticks jammed into potatoes, and Joseph sat on the other side of me, his warm hand draped over my leg. It calmed my bouncing.

We talked about Apella and Orry. Alexei told us stories about Apella, about how gangly and awkward she was when he first met her.

“So she was like you?” I giggled. Everyone laughed. I couldn’t quite picture serene, porcelain Apella as awkward.

Careen chirped up how she’d always admired Apella’s hair. I reached out to smack her, and Pietre grabbed my hand with a fierce grip. His hands were heated, his eyes as intense as always. But then it broke into a sincere expression. “She was beautiful.”

I kicked his wooden leg. “Whoops! Wrong leg.” To which I received a scathing scowl from him and a wink from Careen.

It went on late into the night, an ebb and flow of happiness and sadness. A big, soggy dough of mixed emotions. I found myself looking for Apella, waiting to see one of those rare smiles or hear her bell-like voice.

I yawned and rubbed my eyes.

Pelo, who had been fairly quiet, stood and walked around to me. He placed his hands on my shoulders protectively. “I think my daughter needs some sleep.” I let the words sit atop my head like a crown. It was strange and didn’t quite fit, but I was definitely tired. Everyone stretched and made their exits, leaving Joseph, Matthew, Pelo, and me.

“Someone needs to stay with Orry,” I said. “I’ll…”

“I’ll stay with him,” Pelo shouted before I could finish.

“But…?” Somehow, Joseph’s arm was already around my shoulders, guiding me towards the door.

I took a few steps towards the exit, so tired I would have let a monkey lead me to my room. But then I stopped.

“No,” I said. Joseph sighed at me. “I can’t leave. I’m his mother; I should be the first face he sees when he wakes up.” Those words were like a hot coal in my hands. I’d never said them before, I’m his mother. But instead of juggling it and throwing it away before it burned me, I closed my fingers around it, let it warm me, and let it brand me with its meaning. I was his mother.

Pelo threw his hands up in the air. “So stubborn,” he said with pride and he stomped out of the room animatedly. It was so strange having him in my life, and I could only trust him moment by moment. But those moments were getting longer and more significant. What I needed to let go of was that he wasn’t the father I remembered and, more importantly, he wasn’t going to run out on me.

Matthew retired to his office, where he had set up a cot. Poor Matthew. I hoped he slept tonight.

I kicked my shoes off and crawled into the bed next to Orry’s. Joseph went to climb into one of the other beds.

“Come here,” I said, patting the very narrow patch of bed left. He shrugged and lay down, facing me.

“It’s a bit tight, don’t you think?” he asked in amusement.

I wrapped my leg around him, my arm under his neck, and pulled myself closer. “Yeah, I might fall out.”

“Nah, I’ve got ya,” he said, folding his big arm around my back and under my waist.

“I know,” I whispered.

It was quiet for a while, and I could feel him relaxing and his arm going slack. I pulled up the side guard with a jerk. “But, just to be safe.”

He chuckled, and the whole bed shook. It was so good to welcome that sound back into my life.

I turned my head to the ceiling, the bars of fluorescent lights crisscrossing the rock above. I imagined them parting, the roof ripping open like a broken spider’s web, a hole revealing the sky. It was dark and blue, stars shining like pinpricks of light. Clara was up there, and she held out a hand to Apella. Shyly, she took it.

Look after each other.

Don’t forget that because of you, the boy will live.

The next morning, I awoke to a sound that tore right through me. That charged my body and broke open a hundred walled-up, nailed-in parts of me.

Orry’s cry.

When Orry reached twelve months of age, he started eating many solid foods. I wasn’t sure how we managed to avoid the beans up until then. I think it was just dumb luck. It was a serious hereditary disorder. And what Matthew said was right, inside Orry’s body was a warzone, his blood cells exploding and coursing through his veins like shreds of a popped balloon. The transfusion replaced the damaged cells, but he would always have to be careful about what he ate. One mouthful would kill him if blood was not on hand.

Once we knew Orry was going to make a full recovery, the grief set in and all we wanted was some way to lay her to rest. Alexei didn’t want a funeral or a big gathering. He decided to bury her above ground in the center of an old, ruined cottage. It had no roof and a breezing peppercorn tree grew up past the walls, its pink, beaded branches hanging wistfully and covering the windows like a curtain. The sky was framed by crumbling stone walls, like an old photo turning in at the edges.

We left her there, a few words and a pile of stones to mark her end. But there was so much more. Looking at the boy on my hip, I knew she’d always be in him. She was the reason he even existed in the first place, and she saved him. She strived so hard to make up for what she had done and, in Orry and Hessa, she found her redemption. Bouquets of flowers were placed down and then we walked away.

There were others to save.

I grabbed a handful of peppercorns, popping them from the branches and squeezing them tight in my hand. I had to make this a small part of my life. Losing Apella, Orry getting sick, I had to condense it, feel it, but move on. I couldn’t let it drown out the reasons for still living. I couldn’t let the worry consume me. She gave her last moments for Orry, and we would turn those moments into a lifetime for her.

*****

You’re precious. But is your life worth more than the others? I’m trying really hard to forget, but they’re part of you. They are your brothers and sisters, and they’re suffering. Dying. If I don’t help, if I keep you safe and let everybody else crumble and fall around me, then I’m no mother. I’m selfish and undeserving.

“We need to have an adult discussion,” I said to Joseph as we walked back towards the train station.

“Mhm.” Joseph raised his eyebrows in amusement. He grabbed Orry and put him on his steady, broad shoulders.

“We need to convince Gus to send a team to Este. We can’t let this happen to anyone else. For all we know, it’s already happening.” I slapped out the words in a hurry.

The sun glowed behind the two-headed creature. Orry’s eyes were wide and slightly frightened every time Joseph jumped over a stone. I didn’t want to be the one to go back. I didn’t want to leave him. Not now, when the wounds were still so brittle and open.

“He won’t go for it,” Joseph muttered as Orry pulled his hair in his hands like two reins.

“Maybe this is the push they need. Maybe now we can get them to consider fighting.”

I ticked over the list in my head. The Superiors could easily find out we were here. If they returned for some reason, we’d be trapped. Their breeding program was failing. More children would get sick. Even if they didn’t have Orry’s condition, they could have several others that weren’t screened for. Lastly, I still believed if we showed those images to the Woodland citizens, we would have a good chance of causing the seeds of dissidence to take root. It was a risk, but how long could we go on living like this? Why did Gus get to decide?

“Rosa, what are you thinking about?” Joseph smiled and caught me with his eyes. I shook free of the trap of green and gold.

“This isn’t the Woodlands.”

“Uh… yeah, I know…”

“It’s time to vote.”

I’d convinced Gus to let me address the whole community. Nerves were rattling my fingers as I scribbled down my thoughts, crossed them out, and started again.

“Do you want me to do it?”

I scowled up at him. “No, Joseph.”

“Can I read it?” He held out his palm for my scrap of paper.

“No.”

I hated being the center of things, but I hated doing nothing more. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but getting it out on paper was hard. I wasn’t smart like Joseph. I could knock stuff together, carve a leg, get into trouble, but make a convincing speech? My doubts were etched into every scratched-out word.

I screwed up the paper and threw it in the corner. I couldn’t map this. I wasn’t submitting plans for a house. I just had to say what I knew, how I felt, and hope they would listen.

*****

I held Orry on my hip. He was my gurgling, drooling security blanket. Gus cleared his throat and shouted down to the mass of people huddled together near the channel of water. My father beamed up at me proudly, with his palms pressed into his back. All eyes were either staring at Orry or giving me curious glances.

“Rosa would like to address the settlement. As always, every voice shall be heard, even our younger companions.” He cast his hazel eyes my way disparagingly. “We will hear her, and we will vote.”

He stepped back and gave me the floor, which was really a small, worn patch of stone. I looked down at my feet, noticing the ripple pattern scooped into the rock, as a drop of water hit the top of my head.

I thought I would start softly, ease them into it but… Oh Addy, I hope this is what you meant.

“We will all die if we stay here,” I yelled out across the crowd. Whatever murmurs were going on before I started speaking stopped dead, the rush of water narrowing down a tunnel the only sound passing over us.

“Whether it’s soon or six months from now, they will come back. We’ve seen what they’re capable of. We’ve all lost so much, too much. Are you willing to lose everything?” I put my hand to my chest and thumped it. “Death is following us and if we stop moving, then it’s done, it’s over.” The faces were devastated, so much sadness pulling all their mouths down. But stuck in here that was all we had, sadness and waiting. We had to get up. We had to fight.

I grasped the charm around my neck, something that had swung dormant from each of our necks for too long. “I am a survivor. I live beyond the wall. I give shelter to those that need it. I am not chosen, but I choose to live.”

Hands went to throats, rubbing away at the sloth of inaction that had taken over for months.

“Those babies need our protection, our help. The citizens of the Woodlands deserve a choice.”

Hands start shooting up in the air like unfurling seedlings.

Gus stepped forward, waving his hands fervently. “Wait, wait, I haven’t told you to vote yet.”

“It doesn’t matter, Gus, she’s right. We’re Survivors. We’ve been lost and wounded, for too long.” Other hands moved up, creating a field of unwavering support swaying like grass in the breeze. I let my lips creep into a smile, while my heart was beating so fast I thought it might give out.

“What do you propose we do?” someone yelled from the back of the crowd. It was a hopeful voice.

“We offer the solution, the treatment we found for Orry, in exchange for Deshi. He’s the only one with the skills to help us project our surveillance into the sky for everyone to see,” I said, sweeping my hand in the sky, projecting an imaginary billboard.

Pietre hobbled forward. “What are we supposed to do? Just walk up to the Superiors’ compound and knock politely on the wall?”

I shrugged. “Well… yes.”

“No one’s going to volunteer for that mission. It’s too dangerous,” he replied, shaking his head.

“I’ll go,” a voice thundered from the front of the crowd. A voice I knew. A voice I loved too much to let him go alone.

“Then so will I,” I said under my breath.

*****

It was voted by almost the entire community that we would do something. The grains of a plan were starting to drop and pile together, Gus begrudgingly leading the way. We would split into eight groups as we had when we retrieved the Spiders. We would travel together to the Superiors’ compound, but only two people would proceed inside. Gus was adamant about this. He didn’t want to waste lives. We would carry what we thought Deshi would need to adapt the discs. If the two were successful, Deshi would do the necessary adjustments for the eight discs. The groups would separate and plant them at each compound. A message at the end of each video would urge them to fight back for their daughters, their children. It was a loose plan. It was a long shot, but I had to believe it was worth it.

*****

Pietre knocked on the inside of my scraped-out dwelling. I knew it was him, because the knocking was impatient and aggressive.

He limped in, his face awkward and hot.

“Ahem. Rosa, I have a proposal for you.”

I laughed. “I think we’re a bit past proposals, aren’t we?”

He stumbled a little and caught himself on the wall.

“I’ll take the child for you. Careen and I.”

I guess my face said it all, because he looked instantly annoyed and offended.

“You needn’t look so surprised. Just because you and I don’t get along does not mean I’m incapable of caring for him.”

“But… why?” I couldn’t understand why he would offer such a thing and what he could possibly want in return.

He leaned against the wall, his chest heaving slowly, sadly. “I need to be useful. I can’t go with the others on this mission, and I damn well won’t stay here. You were right; we’ve all been lost for too long, hanging on to our grief like a life preserver…”

I arched an eyebrow at his words. I didn’t know what exactly a life preserver was, but I thought I caught the meaning. It was wrapped up with not wanting to let go but having to.

My hands were trembling. How could I leave Orry? But at the same time, how could I stay and just let it happen? The death, the threat… they would come for us eventually anyway. Maybe, at least this way, we could try to stop it, try to save everyone. The choice was impossible.

Pietre tapped his foot impatiently. “Well…?”

I stood, pulling my hair back into a rough ponytail. “I need to speak to Joseph first,” I said.

He snorted. “Well, you know where to find me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll just listen out for the sound of wood clunking against rock.”

He sort of smiled-grimaced and walked out as best he could.

Could I trust Pietre with Orry? We respectfully disliked each other but the answer was yes, I could trust him. I knew he would die before he let anything happen to Orry, and I knew Careen would be warrior enough for both of them.

I slipped on my shoes and went to find Joseph.

How do we leave you? My heart’s torn in more pieces than I can count. To be good parents, to be the people we want you to look up to, we have to do this.

I don’t know how we’ll leave. But I don’t know how we can stay.

Joseph sat with his legs hanging over the edge of the channel. His limbs were spread wide, his gaze somewhere deep in the black water. The image struck me like a flash of old light; Joseph sitting atop the pillar at the gate to Ring Three. It clawed at me uncomfortably. I didn’t wish things had been different, not exactly. I was glad Pelo had sent this giant, beautiful blond man my way. But it had never been easy. We fought so hard to get to where we were. Addy’s words came back to me in an echoing swirl, mixing with the swish and silk sounds of the water spitting at Joseph’s feet.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and struggle… life would be a bit boring if it were.” She’d said it to me with a wink, just after my attack. I wiped a casual tear from my cheek that seemed to appear without me noticing. Our lives were certainly not boring.

I sat down next him, feeling a cold pinch from the icy stones. “Whatchya thinking?” I asked, nudging his shoulder gently.

He turned to me, his face shrouded in murky, brown shadows. “You’re not mad?”

I shrugged. “No, not really. But you know I’m coming with you, right?”

He crept his arm around my waist and pulled me into his lap. “Yeah, I figured.”

He returned his gaze to the running water. I shivered as sprays of mist rose and coated my thinly clad legs. He noticed and held me closer.

“You’re just trying to work out how to leave, aren’t you?” I asked. It was the same thing I wrestled with.

“Yes.”

“Me too,” I said, resting my head against his chest as he smoothed wisps of my hair down on top of my head.

We both sat there for a long time, waiting for something to tell us it was okay. Maybe a revelation waited at the bottom of the water, like a pebble that would rise up and tell us that we were making the right decision. But nothing came.

We talked it over. Discussed it like a real, grown-up couple. This was the most important decision we would ever make.

In the end, it really came down to what we could live with. And we couldn’t live with this or like this anymore.

We grasped hands and climbed back towards our room where Orry was sleeping.

I stumbled over the black rock and slipped. I wouldn’t let go of Joseph’s hand, and it affected my balance. Funny when he was the only thing that really gave me any semblance of balance. My father, even Rash, sometimes threw me off, flung shifting plates under my feet. But my father also sent Joseph my way. I laughed in the dark.

Joseph tugged my hand. “What so funny?”

I squeezed his fingers tighter. “Nothing. It’s just…”

“What?” He pulled me back and made me sit down. All I could see was a shadow that I knew was concerned for me, so I talked to it. Safely.

“Do you regret it?” I whispered, aware of the clinking and shuffling of people in their bedrooms. “I mean, my father sending you to me like he did…”

I could see a vague shaking from side to side. “Never.” My heart swelled.

I tapped my leg anxiously, nervous to ask the question. Just spit it out. “Can you tell me about him?”

He chuckled. “It’s taken you a long time to ask me that question, but why now? Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

I rolled my achy shoulders, wondering the same thing. “It’s because he makes me see red; I don’t know how to talk to him without anger getting in the way. Do you know what I mean?”

Joseph placed his hand on my leg and rubbed my thigh. “I do. What do you want to know?”

“All of it, but maybe start with why he sent you after me,” I said clearly, curiosity gaining momentum.

“Well, that’s easy. Because he loves you. I could see it in those weird eyes of his every time he asked about you,” he said, digging me in the ribs playfully with his elbow.

I snorted, even though I knew it was true. Because even if he loved me, it couldn’t have been much to leave me with Paulo.

“Ok, if that’s true, why didn’t he come find me?” My tone was turning whiny. I didn’t like it, but it hurt that he’d left me to fend for myself against the tyrannical Paulo.

“He wanted to, I could tell, but he told me your mother had information on him that would get him killed. And if he went near you, she would report him.” I sighed. Of course, my mother knew what he was. And maybe, in her own weird way, she was trying to protect me. Dead wishes surfaced. She could have been here with me now.