The Wounded (The Woodlands Series) Read online

  I crowded in on Careen and Pelo, listening to the details. “We must arrive at each destination at the designated time. Once we pull up, we can only wait one hour at each stop.” She rattled off to Pelo. I imagined a typist tapping these facts away on the keyboard inside her brain.

  One hour… I stopped walking and let them leave me behind, the cold wind churning my hair did nothing to distract me from the seriousness of the situation. I clasped my hands together and squeezed, praying the others had made it.

  Rash and Pelo lifted a snarling Pietre into the front car with me. His cutting eyes never left mine, glaring like he hoped I would evaporate under his stare. He was taking me at my word, aiming all his fury in my direction. It was going to be a long and silent journey, emotions bulging against windows that wouldn’t open, like dark clouds trying to escape.

  Rash jumped out to join Careen at the front of the Spinner. Standing in the orange gravel, one hand on his hip, the other stroking his chin, he imitated Pelo’s stance, legs wide, and eyebrows low over his eyes. His face cracked into a wide grin. “So… how do we fire this baby up?”

  *****

  I wasn’t ready for what was coming. The brewing storm, the way things seemed to be surging towards an unknown end. But I was caught in the net with the rest of them, struggling like a fly in a web. Each event spurred us on. Because what do you do when the wolves are snapping at your heels? When the taste of blood is in your mouth? You run. You fight.

  “Should I have left you to the wolves?” I asked as we sped towards home, the dirty mist of another endless morning lifting slowly. It could have stayed there. Underneath was nothing but brown grass.

  “Yes,” he sneered and then faltered, shifting and wincing in pain. A little sympathy edged in, fighting hard against my distaste for his self-pity.

  “You don’t mean that but, if I’m wrong, I’d be happy to throw you from this moving train,” I said with a saccharine smile. Pietre grunted. Rash pinched the point of my elbow and raised his eyebrows, asking me to ease up.

  Pelo tsk-ed disapprovingly, the stranger with my father’s eyes and my father’s voice. I shot him a look and kept talking to Pietre, while glaring at Pelo.

  “No really, after dragging you up that three-meter high cliff to save your life, it shouldn’t be too hard to shove you three feet out the door.”

  Pelo reached for me with his thin fingers, trying to touch my hand. I withdrew like his touch would burn me. “I think that’s enough,” he said sternly, and I almost laughed in his face at the preposterousness of him scolding me like a child. But anger was a stronger emotion than humor at that moment.

  “You think that’s enough? Where do you get off having an opinion about anything I do?” I snapped, seeing red. I turned to Pietre and said more calmly, “So, what do you say?”

  “Rosa, please,” Careen said softly, and that shut me up. She sat with her legs crossed, Pietre’s head in her lap. He looked at her like he hated her. He did nothing but curse us both, but she patiently stroked his hair and stared out the window when his tirades became too much.

  “Whoa! It’s getting a bit tense in here,” Rash exclaimed with a flashy smile on his lips. I leaned into him, trying to let some of his personality rub off on me. We used to be so similar but now, even though the bond was as strong as ever, I knew I was changed in his eyes. He turned to me and ran his hand over the part in my hair. “How’s the head?”

  I rubbed my temples, fending off the headache that seemed to hover in the background all the time. “Sore,” I said.

  Rash rolled his eyes. “You’re such a winger,” he said dramatically, while really aiming his comment towards Pietre. Pietre registered the comment with a growl and stared at the smooth, blue ceiling.

  *****

  We were approaching our first pick-up point, and were all nervous about what we might find. I wish I could say I couldn’t imagine anyone else’s mission going as badly as ours did but, unfortunately, I could. I could imagine all manner of horrors happening behind those concrete walls, while our own nightmare was playing out.

  The Spinners rolled to a standstill, the smooth glide of the cars over the tracks barely emitting a whisper of a groan. The air slithered across the ground, an eerie mist that dulled our senses. We scanned the area and saw nothing, no one. My chest tightened. This was Gwen’s stop.

  Opening the door, I stepped onto the hard earth. I stomped purposefully towards the trees, kicking small rocks as my head snapped back and forth, looking for signs of life. Putting my hand to my necklace, I worried the charm. I marched through the woods, checking behind trees and under rocks, like a crazy person, like Gwen was suddenly five-inches tall and hiding under a rotted log of wood. Rash and Pelo searched too, while Careen stayed with the Spinner. Every minute my panic heightened, until it was shooting out the top of my head. Finally, Rash convinced me to sit when he noticed I was swaying. I collapsed on a thick branch that lay like a bridge between two rocks, putting my head in my hands. Everything seemed so dark and grey. Was it the forest, or was it my mind? I breathed in and out, focusing on my feet, my eyes running over my knotted shoelaces.

  A foreign hand ran over my tangled hair, and I slowed my breathing. “We’ve still got half an hour. We’ll wait. They may turn up.” I sighed. Pelo’s smooth voice was like a rusty peg in my head. Rash grabbed me around the waist and shuffled me closer, an unfamiliar, protective move coming from him. But he knew, at least, he seemed to sense, how hard having my father here was for me. I leaned my head on his shoulder and tried not to count the seconds, like each one was a nail in a coffin.

  Exactly twenty-eight minutes later, Pietre started yelling at us to come in.

  My nails dug into the branch I sat on, soft, mushroomy bark getting stuck under my fingernails. Just a few more minutes, please. Rash stood and offered his hand. I shook my head. No. Somewhere, beyond the mist, I could feel boots sinking into dirt. I could hear quick breaths and sense muscles burning. They were coming. They had to be.

  Hope disintegrated.

  As the train pulled away from the meeting point, something inside me started to crumble, like my ribs were dissolving. Soon there would be nothing to hold me up. We lost Gwen. Gwen, who was so vivacious and sarcastic, whose insistence that music was the meaning of life, was just gone. I pressed my face to the glass, my mouth half open, breathing fog over the fog already outside, ready to yell ‘stop!’ when I saw her tearing towards the tracks with her Spider. My lips formed the ‘s,’ then the ‘st,’ but the word was never completed.

  I shed silent tears as Careen held my hand. Pietre had the decency to look discomfited. But there was no time to grieve. The next stop was only an hour away.

  *****

  When I saw Matthew, I nearly screamed. He and three other men sat by the tracks, waiting for us, when the Spinners pulled up. They waved and smiled, their arms cutting through the mist like helicopter blades. Utter relief painted their faces with red cheeks and white grins.

  I slammed the open door button repeatedly, heard the whoosh, and sprinted towards him. He looked a little surprised, but mostly relieved, as I threw my arms around his neck. He lifted me off the ground. “You’re all right,” he said as a statement and a question.

  I nodded weakly, still holding on, swinging from his strong neck like a pendulum.

  I’d measured myself up a long time ago. I’d run the tape from my toes to the top of my head, and I thought I knew what I was. My size, my capacity, was defined. But that was when I lived in a small world, with smaller, easily summed up people. What I have learned is I am past capacity. Living in this world, with these people, forced me open. The Survivors argued hard, but they forgave quickly. Matthew’s strong embrace reassured me that I hadn’t stepped over the ledge. We were still friends. I twisted free from my anger, crushed it to dust, and blew it towards the Rings, where it belonged.

  Pelo coughed unsubtly, and Matthew released me. Brushing off his hand, Matthew offered it to my father, who eyed him suspici
ously. Matthew’s easy smile was such a contrast to Pelo’s sharply tuned gaze.

  “Pelo, this is Matthew, my, um,” I avoided Pelo’s eyes and blushed, “my doctor?” What could I say? There was just too much, so I found myself hoarding stories and explanations, not saying anything at all.

  Matthew took the inadequate description and wore it. I released the piece of information I knew I had to. As Matthew and my father started to walk away, talking mission specifics, I called out, “Gwen,” and held my charm to the sky. My hand shook.

  Matthew turned his head, his eyes steely as he grabbed his charm, kissed it, and uttered, “Gwen.” The others followed his lead.

  My body vibrated with grief, ready to chase after Matthew and rattle a bigger response out of him. I took one step forward, and a sweaty hand clamped around my arm. My head snapped around to a wobbly face, sweat sheened and slightly yellow looking. I pulled my hand back, and the intrusion started talking. Rapid bursts of nervous energy wafted off him, along with his unpleasant body odor. I pinched my nose and stared at my arm until the stranger let go.

  “Name’s Olga,” a woman’s voice, soft as a pillow, uttered. I swallowed my surprise ineptly and turned my head away so I could hold down my smile. “I’m the Spider from Bagassa,” she said, looking down at her feet. I realized she was reporting to me. I blushed and beckoned to Careen, who was busy being smothered by Rash.

  “I’m Rosa, but I’m not really in charge,” I said, “You need to speak to Pietre or Careen.” I gestured towards the group standing around the Spinners.

  She shook her head, and her face jiggled at the movement. “No, it’s you I wanted to see. You’re Rosa, right? The escapee from the breeding facility?”

  I nodded, confused and slightly mesmerized by her peculiar face. She was short, fat, and round as a ball, swaying like a weighted bath toy. She had tiny, bright eyes that sparkled when she spoke, and thin, blonde hair clamped messily at the nape of her neck. It looked like a pale rats’ tail snaking down her back.

  “This is a lot, you know. It’s just good to see faces and er, markings from the inside,” she said as she let her eyes slide to my barcode tattoo. I pulled down my sleeve.

  “Do I know you?” I asked, my eyes casting over all five feet of her distrustfully.

  She squirmed under my gaze, looked at her sturdy black court shoes, and then stared up at me with piercing determination.

  “No. But you and I, we’re the same.” I doubted it, but I let her continue. She tapped the side of her head. “We’re not All Kind,” she said, displaying small, baby-like teeth as she spoke. “We’re sort of like, Odd Kind, aren’t we?” A small laugh escaped her lips like a hiccup, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  And this was what it was like as we picked up the rest of the Spiders. Olga’s definition was perfect. Each Spider was, in their own way, Odd Kind, in looks, behavior, or both. They were never going to fit into the Superiors idea of a perfect All Kind citizen, so they were taking their chances with us.

  By the time the Spinners tore into open countryside, we had a full complement of odd, strange, but completely dedicated defectors.

  A thought blossomed, becoming more defined, as I opened my mind to the obvious.

  How many Odd Kinds were there in the Woodlands?

  The Spinners sped along the tracks like they knew how desperate we were to get home. Apart from Gwen’s group, we picked up every Spider with only minimal injuries, which Matthew treated as we travelled. Pietre was by far the worst off and made us all very aware of it. Matthew tended to him, but he couldn’t do much until we got back to the Wall. I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled and sagged in the corners that it wasn’t good. I could see it hurt him that he couldn’t do more.

  I stayed in the car with Pietre for Careen’s sake, and Rash stayed with me. We were like a messed-up chain of support, with everyone trying to absorb Pietre’s sullen behavior. Matthew rode with us, and Pelo moved to another, less crowded, car. After a few attempts at conversation, he’d given up and left me alone. Fathering was not easy for him; the same as having a father was not easy for me. When I looked at him, all I saw was my mother. The failure of my own mission was a knife in my gut, which I didn’t want to remove. At least with it there, I could punish myself, feel the pain I deserved to feel for not managing to save her.

  I focused on getting home. Joseph was so close I could almost touch him. I found myself licking my lips at the thought of his kiss, an action that both confused and amused Rash. He knocked my shoulder and pointed to the land. The fog was lifting with our hopes, the trees grasping at the clouds with the tips of their branches. The atmosphere changed as we got closer to home, the light brighter, and the last scraps of winter easing.

  “I guess you know all the names of those trees,” he said, teasing as he chomped away at the dried meat like it was a strip of leather in his mouth.

  “I do.” I nodded proudly, “All that time in the arboretum saved my life when I was out there.” I pointed towards the woods, imagining the streams slicing through mossy beds. Part of my heart still lay out there.

  Rash closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. His posture hung sadly. Intimacy was difficult squished in this car with four others. His intense stare washed the others away. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you?” His tone was strained. I realized I’d been using him as a crutch, without sharing the reasons I needed it so badly. But how did you tell someone you were chaos inside? That every minute was a struggle with the turning, pitch-edged demon inside you.

  He spread his hands out on the table, giving up on the last chunk of meat. He picked at the skin around his nails, reminding me of Clara. I took his hand, faced it palm upwards on the table, and grabbed his thumb. My voice shook as I curled his thumb over. “First, I was beaten with a hammer.”

  “I remember,” he whispered as he winced.

  I took his index finger and folded that over. “Then I woke up, underground, four months pregnant.” I heard him take a sharp breath through his nostrils. It made him angry. I took his middle finger and pressed it into his palm. “Then I met an incredible girl called Clara, and we managed to escape.” The next finger I paused on, explaining, “Joseph was waiting for me in the forest and, after he told me it was his baby, I punched his friend in the face.” Rash smiled proudly as I pushed that finger down. My throat felt dry as I tried to say the next part, a dry sob splitting my words. “Clara died during childbirth in a railway tunnel, leaving behind a baby boy we named Hessa.” Rash’s hand was a fist now, and he offered me the other. I took the other thumb and kept on talking, watching his chest go in and out with every word. “We tried to build a cabin to wait out winter, but they found us.” Then I took his whole hand and squeezed the fingers together. “Joseph died in front of me, and then I gave birth to Orry. The Survivors took us in, brought him back, and now I have a home. I’m ok,” I said as much for my own benefit as his.

  He smiled at me with sad eyes. “That’s a lot,” he said. “And I also know there’s a lot you’re not telling me. But if you say you’re ok, I’ll try to believe you.”

  “What about you?” I asked. It had been almost two years since I’d last seen Rash.

  He shrugged and put my hand on the table palm upwards. Folding only three fingers down. “One—you disappeared, two—I failed Construction dismally, and three—they cut my training short and sent me to Pau to collect rubbish for the rest of my life.” I blinked at the sum of his life. Did my disappearance cause him to fail?

  I put my hand over his still-clenched fists, and he relaxed. “You’re here now. I can’t wait to show you my home.” I grinned.

  Pietre snorted, and I jumped. The fuzzy haze of our invented solitude disappeared as I realized everyone was listening. I shot him a look like razor blades. “What?”

  “That was very touching,” he sneered, while rubbing his creased forehead with his hand. “But you still don’t get it, do you?”

  I sighed, so tired of him, o
f his loathing. I wished for the old Pietre back. “What don’t I get?” I asked.

  He smiled slyly, and it forced me to shudder. “That where we’re going is not home. It’s temporary. What do you think this has been about?” He waved his arms around in sharp, violent movements. I considered ignoring him. It was what Careen was doing. Matthew looked at me, his eyes wide and concerned. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to like it.

  “What? You sorry excuse for a soldier, what have I missed?”

  Pietre flinched slightly at my insult, but he seemed too bent on delivering the bad news to respond. His lip curled, and he stared through me, icy and malevolent. “We don’t want to take them down. We want in.”

  My confusion was obviously clear on my face, and Pietre was quite happy to beat me over the head with the truth until I understood. “Do you think we want to live on the edge of a nuclear crater for the rest of our lives, which will be shorter if we stay there? No, the safest place for us is inside those walls.”

  Matthew shook his head. “I think you’re over-simplifying.”

  My world started to crumble. The threads I had been holding myself together with loosened, and then snapped violently. My breath quickened, and my eyes lost focus. I felt an arm around me, pulling my body close. Rosa. Rosa. Rosa. Don’t fall apart. Don’t let him get to you. I started to pull the threads together in my hands, winding them around my fingers tightly until I had a messy ball. I shoved that messy ball deep inside. There was too much, and I needed all of me to deal with whatever came next. I pressed my feet into the floor of the car and held myself still, because if Pietre said one more word, I was going to kick him.