The Wanted (6 page)

ROSA

In sleep, I can have him. In the back of my mind, in the pretty little corners he opened up, he’s waiting. I want to retreat to those corners forever.

If I could live there, I would.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Gunshots clipped the air and shredded the curtains, tearing them into strips that dripped with blood. My blood. Wet and flapping against an open window. The streaks horrific, murderous.

“Bang!” One frustrated noise.

I pulled my knees to my chest, curling into a ball like a centipede tapped on its back, covering my head with my ineffectual fingers.

Bullets tear through everything, and when it’s close enough, so does a knife.

I pulled in tighter; harboring my scar like it was precious. The movement caused satin to glide underneath and over my skin, and I shot up like a catapult. My dream receded. Reality cupped my chin and squeezed my jaw violently. It drew my face this way and that, stretching my eyes wide.
Look. Look where you are.
My dazed brain swept the room. Luxurious reds crept up the walls interspersed with strips of gold. The large bed was covered in a quilt spotted with pinwheel shapes, swirling and sucking me into its center. I leaned my head in and out as my eyes stared at the middle of the gold wheel until I felt dizzy. Shuffling back, I leaned against the wall. It was as soft as a satin ribbon. Rich honey timber glossed the corners in the forms of beautiful furniture. If I wasn’t so scared, I could appreciate it. If I wasn’t so disgusted with the opulence these people surrounded themselves with, maybe I could relax. My eyes followed the gold stripes up to the ceiling and found the black camera screwed to the wall. I felt like waving, but I was trying to suppress my normal wonts and behavior.

I scratched at my neck, feeling my skin raised and itchy at my collar. My fingers grasped and yanked at the strangulating neck of my shirt.

What was I wearing?

I bounded from the bed and looked down in horror at my clothing. My black, soldier’s jacket had been replaced by a grey, knee-length skirt. My skin prickled beneath a high-necked, synthetic pink shirt and pink cardigan with tiny, pearlescent beads around the collar. Cracking my neck, I shuddered at the continuing weirdness. I would have been upset that someone dressed me, but I know I would have got myself in more trouble if Red had presented me with this outfit and forced me to put it on. I could just imagine the tug-of-war and grinned at my imagined victory. Pulling at the hem of the skirt, I wiggled in the cut-your-circulation-off stockings. No. They were coming off. I leaned down and unrolled them so my legs could receive their blood supply.

A bang on the door startled me.

“Miss Rosa?” A young, questioning voice.

Quickly shimmying out of the stockings, I put on the black shoes shining like pools of motor oil that were placed neatly by the bed. I was completely confused.

Gold-stemmed lamps rose from two identical bedside tables, the green glass shades painful to look at. I touched one tentatively, my finger bouncing off its surface. It was warm but didn’t burn me. The colors were torture. Deep, forest green, gold. I felt like smashing it and holding it to my heart at the same time. I imagined Joseph’s eyes blinking at me, him shaking his head with amusement at my strangeness, and it was all I could do not to sink to the floor, to allow myself to drown in the blood-colored carpet. To think maybe I would have been better off dead than here.

I undid a few buttons on my shirt so I could breathe and waited for the guard to barge in. I waited, but he kept knocking until I said, “Yes. Come in.”

The door clicked open and I remained still on the edge of the bed, trying not to slide right off. I stared at the lamp for longer than I should have.
Joseph’s face, his smile…
It was all running away from me, running out like the last, fresh spring in summer.

My shaky hands ran through my hair to tuck it behind my ear, but I came up short.
She cut my hair?
I pulled the strands through my fingers in front of my eyes, light honey-brown strands of hair! I cursed just as the guard stepped into the room. The look of surprise was quite evident on his face. I was sure I looked ridiculous.

I swore again, he stiffened, and I clapped my mouth shut. I needed to remember my promise—that I would live. So I sat neatly on the edge of the bed, looking up him expectantly, like a child ready to learn. I was never that child. I was the child wiggling impatiently on the rug until I’d nearly worn a hole in it. I was the child that asked too many of the wrong questions and never had any of the right answers. I chewed on my lip when the guard approached, wondering what they were going to do next. They’d changed my appearance. The next thing to change would not be so easy…

His hair was my color, my new color, and it swept across his face like someone had smacked his forehead with a large paintbrush. He swept it over his brow and blinked at me with strange, blue eyes. We stared at each other for a while, his hands moving unconsciously from front to back like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. I got impatient and sighed. “What do you want?” I asked.

He snapped out of it and moved towards me, which caused me to brace myself in defense. One arm crossed over my chest, the other slipping on the bedspread as my body leaned backwards. He noticed my fear and stopped, again playing with his hands. It was strange for a guard to register anyone else’s emotions. I waited for his hand to reach out and smack me. He stood with one hand below his ribs and the other behind his back like he might take a bow. I quirked an eyebrow.

“Superior Grant has ordered me to escort you to the dining room,” he announced as he offered me his elbow.

I snorted. “Escort?”

He nodded, his hair falling in his eyes. Smoothing it over, he parted his legs slightly and waited. Voices echoed in my head and reminded me why I had to do as he asked. Because my arms felt heavy with the weight of a child who was no longer there. The ache of missing my child was the claw of a hammer, bluntly, blatantly tugging at my heart. I warned myself,
Just do as you’re told
.
For him, for both of them.

I rose and walked past the guard, ignoring the elbow I suppose I was expected to lace my arm through. In my mind,
escort
didn’t need to mean touching. As I passed the young guard, who still had a pimple or two along his jaw, reminding me he was probably my age or younger, I anticipated his hand clamping over my arm and leaned away. He let me through, and I think he smiled. I grimaced as I tramped forward. He followed close behind me.

“Turn right,” he said quietly when we were in the hall, confusingly allowing me a respectful distance.

I did as he said and followed the curve of the huge windows. I wanted to run my hands along the frames, wanted to ask about who built this place, but questions were for people whose opinions mattered and that was not me.

We stepped quickly. My shoes slid too easily over the carpet as if I were wearing two sticks of butter. My eyes ran over the paintings as we passed them. Everything was bright and primary, bold, strong shapes and thick, black lines. Orry could have painted them. I sniffed. The ache deepened.

The windows showed a bleak view. Close-to-black, night air pressed against the panes with a few garden lights dotting the ground below. I craved to feel it around me, chilling my shoulders and creating puffs of mist from my mouth. I shivered. I was trapped like the zoo animals, just in a fancier cage.

I stopped and turned my head to the guard. “How long have I been asleep?”

His eyes darted back and forth at the different cameras tuned to our movements and decided it was safe to answer. “About a day, Miss.”

The ‘Miss’ made me cringe. This fakeness was surely going to end. Soon, I’d be thrown against bars, my bones would crack on cold stone floors, and I’d be forced to give up information. I shook my head slightly. They’d have to kill me. The plans lay in my stomach like iron brambles. They might try to drag them from me and it would sting and cut, but I’d rather set myself on fire than tell them anything.

Joseph was a day away from me. It made me smile and frown at the same time. He would still be a long way in time and distance from Orry. I tripped as I thought of us, like the points of an enormous triangle. So. Far. Away. If neither of us made it back, Orry would never know us. He would forget me. The pain of that realization was crippling, and for a moment, I struggled to move.

I pulled my hand across my stomach, the scar bending inwards.
You can do this.
Keep walking.

I stomped forward.

“Enter the door on your right, Miss Rosa,” the guard said as he halted and waited for me to follow his directions.

I took a quick breath and placed my hand on the cool, brushed steel handle, trying not to be distracted by the silken beauty of the wooden paneling in front of my scared eyes.

Family. In Pau, the word meant very little. It was a threat wrapped in a warning: Don’t get too close.

I had it in my slippery fingers for what seemed like less than a grain of time.

But I’m still tied to it. These ropes get stronger with every added piece of twine, each life I’ve added to my own.

The door swung open with just the minute sound of the glossy timber stroking the strands of carpet. I stared down at my bare feet in my court shoes and scratched my arm nervously as I shuffled into the room, pushing against a solid wall of my own fear.

Someone clapped once, hard, like a textbook hitting a table. My eyes snapped up.

His stare pierced my skin like a needle, drawing out what little bravery I had managed to strap to my heart.

“Ah! Rosa Bianca! Finally you wake.” That voice like abused guitar strings rang out in a nearly empty room that smelled like talcum powder and fresh bread. My eyes swept across the large glass table. Its shining chrome legs polished like mirrors made my reflection even more narrow and bendy than normal. And at the head of it, Grant sat in a dining chair that looked as if it had been carved from a single piece of wood, seamless. His wheelchair lay folded in the corner and I arched an eyebrow, wondering how he got in the chair.

He cleared his throat, bringing my attention back to his needling eyes. I bowed my head.

“Superior Grant.” I wondered if I should curtsy or maybe… throw a chair at his smiling face, smash a window, and run. Grant’s smile was a twisted thing that cautioned me of the cruelty beneath, and it matched the painting behind him. A huge, gilded frame wrapped around a picture of Grant standing up proudly in military uniform without aid, his eyes searching the distance as if he were looking for more people to crush, just over the hill. My eyes moved up and down, comparing the painting to the real Grant, and he observed me silently. There was little difference, except for the legs. My mouth turned up inappropriately, and the table rattled as he gripped the edge.

My eyes passed over the glistening white plates, ringed with silver, the cutlery rattling slightly like they were scared of him too. The table was set for five people.

“Come. Sit by me. We have a lot to discuss,” Grant said, beckoning with his hand as a shiny, metal watch jangled from his thick wrist. I stared at the dark hairs caught in the band, my head to the side, feeling like my feet were glued to the ground.

I didn’t move.

He might as well have been beckoning me to walk over broken glass. The guard shut the door behind me, leaving us alone. I took a step backwards, my fingers searching for the door handle.