Текст книги "The Woodlands"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

To say I was happy wouldn’t be the right word. It was more like, once I had made that choice, I felt released. Released from the angst of denying myself something I had wanted so very much. A pressure in my heart let out. I felt normal.

Joseph still irritated me, with his permanently cheery outlook and terrible sense of humor. That would probably never change. But I never understood why anyone would want to be with someone who was the same as them anyway. I think that would be the worst of all. Always agreeing, never having someone challenge you. I would die of boredom. But when he held my hand, or sidled up behind me and whispered in my ear, I disappeared into a bath of gold. I still thought of Clara constantly, but I was sure this was the path she had been trying to put me on ever since we were found in the forest.

When we awoke, our confessions, our decisions, were laid out for everyone to see. But there was no interest in our sleeping arrangements whatsoever. I don’t know what I was expecting, perhaps a raised eyebrow or a sarcastic comment from Deshi, but none was forthcoming. It didn’t bother Joseph. Maybe they expected it would happen eventually. I don’t why it should have mattered, but I didn’t like the idea that people thought they knew what I was going to do.

After nearly throwing Hessa in the fire, I resolved to spend as much time with him as I could during the day. Not being able to sleep with him was hard and I was determined to make up for what I’d nearly done. I had almost finished my gift last night when I was interrupted. So I picked up the knife and carved the last details into her face and clothing while the others were eating breakfast.

There. I was done. Joseph put his hand over mine. I withdrew sharply, not used to allowing his touch. His eyes widened, worried that I had changed my mind.

“Sorry, old habits,” I said, turning to him and holding out my hand for him to take.

“It’s ok,” he said, slapping my hand away, “but that wasn’t what I was after.” He held out his hand, palm upwards. I placed her on top. “Wow!” he exclaimed as he turned it around in his fingers, tracing her hair and face, smiling to himself. “It looks just like her. Rosa, it’s beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I said shyly. I walked over to Deshi, who was arranging Hessa in the cradle. “Here, it’s for Hessa.” I handed the carved doll to Deshi. He eyed it suspiciously. “It’s ok; I used a really hard wood so even if he chews on it, it won’t harm him.”

Deshi took the doll, examining it carefully, and then smiled. “It does look very much like his mother,” he said as he held it in front of Hessa, who grasped at it and then proceeded to slobber all over her head. “You’re sure it’s safe?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I assured him.

I left them to pack up, announcing that I wanted to collect a few things for the walk, some nuts and fruit I had seen growing a few hundred meters away. Joseph offered to go with me, but I said I would be fine. He could keep packing and I wouldn’t be very long. I walked towards the blossoms I had seen in the distance, hoping they would be wild apple. As I approached them, I could hear the soft padding of feet behind me. I felt the hairs on the back of rise, thinking it was an animal. I turned around slowly and was face to face with Alexei.

“You scared me,” I sighed as I moved to the tree to collect the fruit.

“Sorry, just thought you could use some help,” he said, unconvincingly.

“Um, all right, well just put the apples in your pack and I’ll collect those nuts over there.” I left him, but he followed me. I spun around and faced him, “What’s going on, Alexei, you’re not being very helpful. What do you actually want?” He obviously wanted to talk to me about something and I was never one to wait. I wanted him to get on with it. He fumbled around with his reader. “Spit it out!” I said, probably a bit too impatiently.

“It’s about Apella,” he said quietly. Of course it was. “I was wondering if you would let her spend more time with Gab...I mean, Hessa?” What a question, I thought.

“No. I don’t think so. Sorry.” I shook my head. I didn’t trust either of them.

“I know you think she’s a bad person but she’s not. If you understood more about her, maybe you would see things differently—maybe you would see her as I do.” He was pleading with me now, hands shaking. I didn’t want to know anything about her. I couldn’t feel sorry for her, but I suspected he wasn’t going to give me a choice. He sat down under the blossoms. An odd frame for his nervous, thin body. Flowers kept falling down around him, floating like snowflakes and landing in his thinning hair.

“When I met Apella, we were both at the Classes. She was a brilliant scientist, studying Medical. I was in the uppers also, training for Intelligence. We were lucky enough to be sent to the same town and were preparing for marriage and a child. But after years of trying, it was apparent that it was not going to happen for us. Apella left me.” He paused, reliving some painful memory. I tried really hard not to say that he would have been better off. He would have. “She was pulled into a secret project for Superior Este and I was left to manage the archives in Ring Eight of Casuarina.”

I wanted to stop him there. I could see where this was going.

He continued, “Apella was developing ways to help infertile couples conceive, working closely with Este and Semmez. At some point, she realized what they were really trying to do and that’s when they took me.” He stopped and engaged my eyes, slowly lifting up his shirt to reveal hundreds of tiny scars, burn marks. I winced and motioned for him to cover himself back up.

“They held me hostage for two years, threatening to kill me if she stopped making progress on the project. You see, she didn’t want to do this to you, Rosa. It was never her intention for her research to be used in this way,” he explained.

“But she let it happen. She didn’t try and stop them. To preserve your life, hundreds have had to suffer.” I couldn’t abide her choice.

“I know you think she’s selfish, but she really didn’t know until it was too late. After they had impregnated the first round of girls, Apella dedicated all her time to caring for them, giving up her senior research role to become a nurse.” I shuddered at the words ‘first round’.

“After they let me go, we thought it would be over.” Alexei sighed, showing his weariness. I did pity him.

“What? They let you go?” I was confused. I thought they had run away to save Alexei. Little bits of the truth kept getting lost. Their lies running through every conversation we’d ever had. “Why did you run, then?”

“We’re not matched. We’re too genetically similar and they were never going to allow us to use the technology to have a child together. If we were ever going to have a chance at a family, we had to escape,” he admitted, the truth coming out at last. They ran just so they could have a baby.

“So Joseph and I…” I said, following a single blossom twirling to the ground.

“It is very rare for people from the same town to be matched, but the two of you are so genetically different, the computer selected you as an ideal match.” He finished my thought for me. I laughed. It was not news to me that Joseph and I were different.

It didn’t make much sense. Now that they were on the run, they would not have access to the technology needed to conceive that child they so desperately wanted—there was something missing from his story.

“So, what, the plan was to steal Clara’s baby all along?” I could feel the rage boiling up inside me. How could this possibly make me sympathetic to her? I hated her even more. Had she let Clara die? I pushed Alexei and he fell backwards to the ground, jarring his arms to break his fall. The curtain of blossoms fell more rapidly to the earth as I pushed through them. I stood over him, considering calling for Joseph and Deshi to come help me, stalling as I watched him fumbling around, trying to find his glasses in the dirt.

“No, no. Apella loved Clara. She wanted to give her a chance with her baby. We knew it was a risk, but Clara was never going to leave your side,” he stammered. It was slightly hilarious that this six-foot-two man was afraid of me. “Now that Clara’s gone, she wants to try and make it up to her, care for Hessa as her own. Hessa would be a brother to our child.”

“Apella’s pregnant?” My voice ran high, coasting along a wave of disbelief and anger.

He just looked at me with his sickly blue eyes, so pale they were almost clear. He gave a diminutive nod, confirming my suspicions.

Ugh! I felt sick. Was I always to be surrounded by gooey-eyed pregnant women and expectant fathers? I put my foot to his chest, pushing down. It was unbelievable to me the things people were willing to sacrifice for a child. Lie, steal, risk lives. At the same time though, I knew I would have done anything to protect Hessa. I eased off, a little.

How many lives had she ruined so that she could have this child? Too many to count.

“So why aren’t they scouring the wilderness to find you two traitors?” I asked. There were so many questions.

“Apella and I are inconsequential to the project now. They have everything they need to continue. My guess is, they don’t believe us to be alive. Clara was on her fourth pregnancy, she was to be disposed of after this child and you…well.”

I never got used to it. The way the Superiors treated us like we were nothing. Vessels to be used and disposed of. What was the purpose of all of this? Where was it leading?

“What about me?” I was afraid to ask.

His pale face twisted, his nose wiggling like a mouse. He ran his hand through his fair hair, coming up with a handful of flowers. Shaking them off, he told me, “Well, you were always considered slightly defective because of your extraordinary eyes. You were an experiment. The babies they are aiming for are more like Hessa, an interesting combination of characteristics, blue eyes, light brown skin. If your eye colors were passed to your child, you would no longer be useful.” He put his head down, ashamed, as he should be.

I was defective, in the Superiors’ minds. I stood taller. Out here, those things didn’t matter. I searched myself. Letting my eyes follow one blossom, drowsily wandering to the earth, picking up minute winds and changing direction. I think I liked being defective.

“What about Joseph and Deshi? Won’t they be looking for them?” I asked, thinking they must be missing us by now.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

I only had one more question. “What exactly is the Project?”

“The Project is the Woodlands way to become as they have always wanted,” he wheezed. “To be All Kind. They use the samples to create the perfect race, a raceless race where every child will look almost the same. They have around four-hundred girls at the moment. Each girl can produce an indefinite amount of children.”

I gulped. My mind was spinning.

“Do you remember when they took all the eldest children about eight or nine years ago?” I nodded. Of course I remembered. I drew a breath, which cut my lungs sharply.

“Well, that’s where it started. Those children were the first test subjects.”

I couldn’t believe it. A lot of those kids were only well, kids.

“Apella worked very hard perfecting her methods. Her technology is flawless,” he said. I tried to control my rolling stomach at the thought of what ‘perfecting her methods’ may have actually involved for those poor children. “And Este has taken that technology to another, dreadful level. There will be no need to continue interracial marriage or breeding. No need for breeding at all.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling like I was drowning in this information. I shook the droplets of horrible revelations from my hair. “What about the children in towns now?” I thought of my mother and her baby.

Alexei, the bearer of bad tidings said, “They will be fine. But it is the end of families. Soon, they will announce no children can be conceived after a certain date. The one-child law was a way to wind things down and get the first test subjects. Now they will stop women having any babies outside of the Project.” He paused, speculating, “Something in the water maybe…” His eyes wandered.

I guess they could. They had enough girls to produce the children required to make this work and they were always going to have a fresh supply.

I was reeling. Feeling faint. I dropped the apples and the nuts I’d collected. They fell with a dull thud in the dirt. I stepped off Alexei and he breathed a sigh of relief. I felt myself being sucked into a black hole, pulled backwards in time and space. Angered and frightened. The arrogance of the Superiors. It was insane. It was as I had always suspected. We were not protected—we were controlled. I felt a cloud of nausea hit me and I fell. Joseph caught me under my arms and sat me down on the ground.

They had come to find me.

I turned and vomited, physically purging myself of the information I had just heard. I wiped my mouth inelegantly.

“How long have you been standing there?” I asked.

“Long enough,” Deshi replied, glaring in Alexei’s direction. Joseph looked sympathetic, like he could see the two sides, his brows pulling together in consternation. So many lies. Part of me wished I hadn’t heard the story. The thought of all those girls, walking in line like zombies. What a miserable future they had in front of them. I couldn’t bear it.

“Where’s Hessa?” I asked.

“He’s with Apella,” Deshi said.

My feelings for her were confused. She was weak and selfish, yes. But she was just a pawn in a much bigger and disturbing plan. I was not able to forgive her, I’m not sure I ever would, but I understood her better.

I said plainly, “I will think about what you asked.”

Joseph handed Alexei his glasses, which he put on, dirt still clinging to the thin wire frames. He walked past me, without saying a word. I was tempted to say boo to his back, to see if he would scamper away.

Joseph lugged me to my feet. “I think you scared him,” he said, lips crooked to the side, a wicked glint in his eye.

“Good.”

I started to think that Joseph, Deshi, and I needed to make a plan—one that didn’t involve Apella or Alexei.

Lying with Joseph by the fire, it was hard to concentrate. I needed to ask him a question, but I kept forgetting my words. His lips on my neck, his hand running up and down my forearm, the gold took over and I lost my place. I grabbed his hand and stopped him, difficult as it was.

“I want to talk to you and Deshi.” My eyes looked to Deshi and Hessa, sleeping peacefully, light snuffly snoring coming from the beautiful baby.

“Uhuh…” he managed, as he ran the tip of his nose along my earlobe, I shivered. “Stop it!” I whispered harshly, squeezing his wrist. He stopped.

“What is it?” he asked, unapologetic.

I looked over to make sure Apella and Alexei were asleep and whispered, “I think we should leave them.”

I could feel him shaking his head behind me. “No, we can’t. I know you don’t like to think about it, but that baby is coming. We will need Apella’s help when the day comes.”

I thought about it. “But she pretty much left Clara to die. What makes you think she wouldn’t let me die too?” If it came to that. I felt my body tensing.

Joseph loosened his hold on me and whispered, “You’re not remembering things clearly. You were in shock. Think back to that morning.” His voice was steady.

I didn’t want to.

“I can’t,” I said, feeling my breathing getting quicker. It was a strangling feeling. The idea of remembering that day squeezed the air out of me.

He pulled me closer, warm arms encircling me, lulling me into a false sense of security. “I think you need to.”

I closed my eyes. Memories of the darkness, the fire, the noise, filtered in. I remembered voices. They came back to me in snippets, pieces of time cut out and brought back to me, frayed and dirty.

“Come on, breathe.”

Muffled thuds, compressions.

“What can I do?” A calm voice, strong. Joseph.

“Put your hand there,” she said.

“Where?”

“Yes, there, push down. Hard. Harder than that. We need to slow the bleeding. Rub while you compress. There may be a clot.”

“Thump, thump, thump.”

The memory floated away, as did the voices, flying out the tunnel, softer and softer until there was silence.

“Oh!” I gasped. After I had given up and clung to the rails, disconnected. Apella had returned to try and save Clara.

Joseph was quiet for a while. He was stroking my arm. My eyes were heavy. I could feel myself drifting off. Then he stopped.

“You know, we had to pull her off Clara. She never gave up.”

Sleep was yanked away from me, like losing a tug-o-war, burning the palms of my hands. “And you didn’t either. But I did.” I could feel the blade turning in on myself. I sat there and let it happen. I was useless.

“You can’t do that. You can’t blame yourself. You were in shock. You need to realize that maybe, no one was to blame,” he said earnestly. It was so easy for him to see the best in people. I wasn’t like that.

“You loved her too. You didn’t go into shock.” I sounded like I was accusing him, but that’s not how I meant it to come out.

“I did. But, you…you loved her more. She was your sister.”

I sighed. To me, that wasn’t really good enough. And without Apella to blame, where could it go?

I felt this nasty, gulping feeling, like air going down the wrong hole. Acid rising. Thinking about Clara was too painful. I turned my head, and whispered angrily, “Will you…just, please. Shut up!”

I was annoyed at him. He was stripping away my ammunition. My reasons. Apella still had a lot to answer for. I wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily.

“All right, easy,” he said, “Just promise me you’ll think about it.”

I was silent. I knew he was right. I supposed being together also meant I should probably listen to him, at least some of the time. I didn’t like the idea and I hardly slept thinking of ways around it, coming to no solution.

After days of walking though long grass and bendy saplings, the terrain changed. The line we were following sunk down like all of a sudden it was too heavy for the earth to shoulder it. We were between two raised platforms, running parallel to each other. Familiar concrete edged the platforms. I couldn’t see over the top. It occurred to me that this was what it would be like for me. Loving Joseph would leave me stranded, stuck in the sunken part, both futures running parallel to each other, never touching, and me, never being able to see how it might play out. Jumping up, trying to look over the edge, never quite making it. Because the truth was, I didn’t want either future.

I shook it out. Just keep moving, I thought, don’t be a coward now. Be stronger.

We were approaching the ruins of a city.

The greenery still dominated, cascading up and over everything. But in between there was evidence of crumbling stone buildings. Rotted holes where the doors once were. Painted, metal window frames in yellow and peeling, aqua-painted walls. It was ghostly and dead.

The comforting sounds of the forest existed in the city, in a strange collision of what should and shouldn’t be. So this was how our ancestors had lived. It was a confusing sprawl. There was no order to the layout of buildings. It was like people had built them wherever they pleased.

I was carrying Hessa on my back. He was gurgling, making little squeaking noises as we walked. Apella announced that she would like to scout around, see if there was anything useful left inside the buildings. I shrugged. There was no harm, I thought. Besides, I was curious to look around too. We decided to find a decent place to camp, make that our meeting place, and allow ourselves a couple of hours to explore.

We worked our way into the disintegrating city, the buildings getting higher as we went. After about half an hour of walking, we had pushed our way into several buildings, finding them all to be unsound, too dangerous to sleep in. I rolled my eyes as Alexei ran his hand over a doorframe, knocking in various places like he thought it would welcome him, tell him a secret and say you’re safe here. I turned away. None of these building were safe. They were held together by the fact that no one had touched them in years. One sharp shove and they would collapse.

I scanned ahead and was shocked to see the silhouette of a man. My heart stopped. I tugged on Joseph’s sleeve.

“Look over there,” I whispered.

We both stared at it for a long time. The man never moved, never made a sound. He kept the same pose, one hand across his chest, the other outstretched as if asking for something. When we approached it slowly, we noticed there were plants growing up and around his legs. It was a statue.

I approached, sweeping back the vegetation from the iron man’s feet to reveal a plaque. Vladimir Lenin. I guess he must have been an important man many years ago. Now, he was one of the only reminders that people had ever lived here, barely maintaining himself against the rule of nature.

The area around the statue was flat and sheltered by surrounding trees. Apella seemed anxious and readily agreed to making this the meeting place, before she and Alexei hurriedly disappeared between buildings.

With Hessa on my back and the two boys leading the way, we ventured forth. It was an eerie atmosphere and the stillness solicited silence. It felt like we were walking in a graveyard. Black windows stared at us like empty eyes, doorways opened like screaming mouths. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to all the people. Did they leave in a mass exodus, or did they suffer the fate of most of the ones left outside the Rings? Bombed to bits.

Hessa’s snuffling was the only sound to punctuate the silence. Gurgle, snuffle, breathe, stop breathing, breathe again. I kept timing my steps to his breath, walking in a sporadic, staccato motion, like I was stealing through the shadows on a secret mission.

“What’s wrong with you?” Joseph looked down at me with a smirk. “Do you need to use the bathroom or something?” I must have looked funny, dancing around, fast step, slow step.

I rolled my eyes. “Nah, I’m just defective.” They both looked at me like I was crazy. I swiped my arm at them. “I’ll tell you later.”

We seemed to be entering what was once a commercial area. There were remnants of signs with numbers on them, written in a language I didn’t recognize, all loops and long lines, but some of the writing was numbers, prices. I stopped to investigate a light shining from within one of the openings. Joseph and Deshi were laughing at something up ahead, pointing through a broken window. Through what was left of a shop front, something sparkling caught my eye and I went to examine it more closely. Piles of gold and silver chains were tangled on the ground. Jewelry. There amongst them was a shiny white ball surrounded by sparkly crystals. I reached down to pick it up, mesmerized by its perfection, when weight hit me from above, followed by an unearthly shriek.

I screamed and saw Joseph and Deshi turn towards me in the corner of my panic, before something tore at my face. Then all I could see was blood. Hessa.

It was clawing at my back and I did the only thing I could think of. Stumbling backwards against a wall I tried to knock the thing off. It didn’t work. It was caught in my hair, screeching and hissing, tearing chunks of it from my head. I reached my hands back, trying to punch it, finding fur and claws and teeth. Hessa was screaming. I fell to my knees disoriented. I couldn’t see. The panic spread like a shock as I scrambled to protect my baby.

Somewhere in the chaos, I felt the weight lift and I was able to pull Hessa from my back and bring him to face me. I wiped my eyes, thankfully, it was only a cut above my eye that had blurred my vision. Hessa was mostly unscathed, with a few small scratches on his arms and face. The cradle had prevented the creature from getting to him with its teeth.

Joseph had pulled it from my back and now it was attacking him. It’s muscled body frantically scratching and hissing as it tried to find a soft piece of flesh to bite into. Joseph had his hands around its hideous face, pulling back its open jaws.

“Do something!” I screamed to Deshi, who was standing there, mouth open wide in shock. He didn’t move. I ran to Deshi and almost threw Hessa at him in my haste, scanning the area for some kind of weapon. There was nothing, just grass and rubble.

I decided I would just have to try to pull or kick it off. As I approached, Joseph yelled at me, “Get back!”

I wasn’t going to watch him get mauled to death. I kept coming. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I clenched my fists, ready to jump, when something flew past me and landed on the beast. It squealed, but kept snapping despite the stick protruding from its abdomen. I could see blood, but I couldn’t tell whether it was Joseph’s or the creatures, a mess of black spots and yellow fur, solid and really strong, with only a stump of a tail. I looked at the long, carved spear waggling around as Joseph wrestled with it. Where had it come from?

My question was answered as a tall girl with reddish blonde hair walked towards the cat-like beast, pulled the spear out, and stabbed it again, using the crude weapon as a lever to throw it off Joseph’s body. I ran to him. He was alive but badly scratched and cut up. We both watched as she punctured the agonized creature again and again, blood oozing out of several wounds. It twitched and writhed one last time, a strangled yeow escaping its jaws as it died. Its tongue grotesquely hung out of its feral mouth.

She turned to face us and I recognized her immediately. I recalled her crazed face as she stabbed that poor White Coat through the eye. She didn’t look hysterical or feral anymore but there was a wildness to her I didn’t trust.

I noticed she was no longer pregnant. Her stomach was flat, as mine used to be. She was wearing tight, shiny pants and a low-cut top that barely contained her breasts. I suddenly felt conscious of my own appearance. Looking down at my round form sticking out of my grey cotton uniform I felt stumpy and ugly.

“Thank you,” I managed to stammer. I envied her lithe body as she took quick steps towards us and introduced herself.

“I’m Careen.” She shook her strawberry hair, the bloody spear still gripped tightly in one hand. We cringed away from her as she approached. “Sorry,” she muttered as she dropped the spear with a clank.

“You’re from the facility, right? I remember your face from the clearing. How’d you get here?” I said, trying to sound unthreatening.

Careen regarded me with a slow face, her mouth twisting into a broad smile. But I could tell she didn’t recognize me. She bent down and pulled a knife from her hip. She talked as she worked, slowly carving the animal into small pieces, teasing the rough fur hide away from the muscle, and skillfully managing to keep it in one piece.

The knife scraped against bone, a sound that itched my teeth. “How was that purple smoke?” she said with her head down, “Weird, right?” I nodded. She tucked her hair behind her ear and paused, “Pretty colors though.”

Joseph chuckled, “Yeah, we paid particular attention to making it look pretty.”

I gave him a scornful look for mocking her and he put his arms up. “No really, that was all Desh.”

Deshi grinned proudly. “Well, why create something that sophisticated and not make it aesthetically pleasing?”

Careen looked up from the carcass, narrowed her eyes for a second, and then blinked it away. “Anyway, I didn’t know what was going on but, I guess, I must have known in my…” She pointed to the back of her head.

“Subconscious?” I volunteered.

She arched one perfect eyebrow at me. “If you say so.”

“I saw you run into the forest…I…” I started to say but she cut me off.

“Yeah I ran. I ran forever, for miles and miles. The white coats were searching during the day so I climbed trees to avoid them and at night, I just kept running.” She separated parts of the carcass into piles, her hands covered in dark blood. “I was like you,” she pointed to my belly and shrugged, “but I didn’t know.” Her voice was light as air and she didn’t seem upset when she said, “I buried it next to a nice tree. It was only this big,” she indicated by pointing from her outstretched thumb to her finger how small it was.

I felt my stomach roll and my heart strain in sympathy at the thought of her delivering a baby on her own.

She leaned back on her heels and smiled. “So do you hunt? I hunt. I can help you,” she said eagerly.

“You’ve already helped, Careen. You saved my life,” Joseph said gratefully.

She stood and kicked her hip out, running her hand down his arm, she said, “Anytime, handsome.”

Joseph regarded his arm with newfound fascination and then looked to me with his eyebrows raised.

I clenched my fists trying to get a handle on this odd girl. It was getting dark. I interrupted their little moment. “We’d better find the others; it’s about time to meet.”

Careen collected the meat and piled the dark flesh into the skinned hide. All that was left behind was a disgusting pile of guts and bones. I felt sick but I kept it down.

Hessa fell asleep despite his scratches. The cradle I built acted as a protective cage around his delicate body.

I helped Joseph to his feet and we made our way back to the statue, Careen walking next to Joseph, swinging the skin and meat by her side like she was carrying a shopping bag.

When we arrived, Apella and Alexei had already built a fire. Apella had her face buried in her hands. She was crying silently.

“I don’t understand. They should be here,” she said, unaware we were standing right there, listening.

“We are here,” Joseph bellowed. He looked scary, crusted blood streaks across his face, blond hair matted. His shirt was torn to shreds and his arms were scratched.

Apella jumped. I got the feeling she wasn’t talking about us. “Goodness! What happened to you two?” she exclaimed, quickly following it up with, “Where’s Hessa? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” I said. Apella got out her pack and searched around for a suture kit.