The Wanted (10 page)

My chest felt like ice. I tried to breathe, but there was something in the way. Guilt.

“No,” I answered. “But the
life
you’ve allowed us in the Woodlands is not a real life. They’ll see that.”

He seemed extremely unsatisfied with my answer. His eyes rolled over me from head to toe, and found me lacking.

“You’re a foolish girl. You think you’re strong. You think I won’t win, but I will always win.” I was getting to him. The victory was small, but enough to fuel me, until he squashed it.

He composed himself quickly and said, “It is clear to me that you require a firmer approach.” He rang the bell by his coffee cup with a sharp twist of his wrist and picked up a document next to his plate, running his eyes over it, and ignoring me. We were done.

Red appeared in the doorway. She grinned at me in a sick kind of way.

“Rosa here has chosen not to do as she is told,” Grant said without looking up from his paper.

“Wait!” I said as Red gripped me under the arm and pulled me from my chair.

Grant raised his eyes to meet mine. My promise echoed in my head. I promised I would live.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’ll do as I’m told.” I dipped my head down, in apology. My head felt like it would explode at the words. Every part of me wanted to scream.

Grant smiled, his teeth glinting under the slowly waving pendant light that hung over the table.

“Good girl.” His voice was quietly satisfied. “Tell the others they can come in now,” he said to Red. She looked put out by the change in events but left, returning with the rest of Grant’s family.

I ate breakfast quietly, avoiding eye contact with Denis, who was staring at me like I’d killed his pet rabbit or something, and Judith, who was pouting.

What was I going to do?

The only answer was to play along, give them some of what they wanted but not everything. Ride it out and hope they didn’t kill me.

It didn’t seem like a very good plan.

ROSA

I bang against the cell bars. Gripping the iron, I hold on so tight my knuckles turn white. I’m slipping away, a new, different person taking my place. Someone I don’t recognize. Someone who’s supposed to save me but is killing me at the same time.

If I do this? If I stop being me? What’s left if I manage to survive?

This was the second day of interrogations.

My fingers ached. They did small but painful things. I’d been warned that it could be a lot worse. If I didn’t cooperate, the torture would be worse. I wasn’t sure I cared. I’d lost myself. I’d retreated. There was a cage around me now.

I was bearing it. Just.

I scratched at the edge of my bandages as Harry stood next to me in the lift. He kept his eyes forward on the door. I looked up from my hunched position, the blood seeping around the edges of the white cloth like red ink blots. They were going to pull them off anyway so I removed one, inspecting the pink, raw skin around my nails. Harry flinched at the sight of them.

I held it up to the metallic light, the elevator humming in the background. “It hurts worse than it looks,” I shot at him with a wink.

He grimaced, sighing in relief when the doors opened. I stepped out and he followed two steps behind me.

I distracted myself by taking in the details of the cars on either side of me as we walked through the under-house garage. Three red cars, one green, two black, and four silver. I breathed in the smell of motor oil and damp. Four convertibles, six hard tops. The chrome detailing glinted and winked at me. I gripped onto the wide headlights, shining like forced-open eyes. I wanted to be as vacant and empty of thought as the cars. I didn’t want to go in there. I suppressed the panic as we reached the end of the line. Even if my brain was pumping its hands and calming me, telling me I could handle it, my body wasn’t ready for this. I stalled. I couldn’t take another step. But then I thought of Orry and I edged closer to the door, leaning into imaginary hands that were pushing me forward. The big, black door howled hollowly.

“Miss?” Harry asked questioningly, a hint of sympathy in his voice.

I put my hand to my chest, blood pulsing in my fingertips, the rest running away from my center. “Just give me a minute.” He moved towards me, and I caught his eyes. “Please,” I pleaded with a finger up as I bent over and tried not to vomit.

“One minute,” he agreed.

I tried to slow my breath, compose myself. I had to take a few steps back into myself. It was small bites of pain, but it was constant. And I was afraid.

“Can he drive these?” I asked, attempting to sound light when my breath felt like coal bricks stacking on top of each other in my chest.

The guard stood straighter. “Yes, Miss. Some. But after the procedure in a few weeks, he’ll be able to drive all of them.”

I did a series of small nods, talking myself into moving. “Ok. Let’s go.”

Harry opened the door for me, and I stepped into my tiny nightmare.

My eyes adjusted to the darker room, the color of midnight. Navy with cold white stars.

Mr. Hun tottered over to me and took both my hands in warm greeting. “Sit, sit,” he said, his round, dark face squishing into a smile.

He was a hessian sack with eyes, his dark skin rubbed and worn; his body low like his whole weight was sagging to the ground because his short legs couldn’t hold him up. Small tufts of hair like those on old potatoes sprouted from the top of his mostly bald head. If you met him in the street, you’d think he was cute and completely unthreatening. But I knew better now. I hesitated but then the two guards leaning against the wall gave me a look and pointed to the camera that was always watching me.

Oh God.

Just breathe. Breathe…

I sank into the black, leather swivel chair and watched Mr. Hun sort through his various instruments lovingly. He picked up a small piece of metal the size of a toothpick and eyed it closely. A light attached to an arm was brought closer to my face. Mr. Hun dragged a stool in front of me and sat down, the air leaving the seat with a sad whistle. I allowed him to tie my arms to the chair and then he pulled my bandages from my fingers one by one, his face creased with concern when I winced at the cloth sliding over my newly scabbed skin.

He placed his warm hands over mine and patted me gently.

“Make sure you put some antiseptic cream on these afterwards.” I nodded, a few tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. I squirmed in my chair.

“Ok, where were we…?”

A deep voice sounded behind me. “Her friend, the other escapee, sir.”

Mr. Hun smiled kindly at me, his crinkled skin puckering around his mouth. “Oh yes, right. Now, Rosa darling, tell me about Careen.”

I stared down at his fingers holding the metal toothpick. “Careen has red hair, she is about five foot eight, and she is my friend,” I whispered, my voice rising in panic.
Retreat. Go somewhere they can’t find you
, my mind whispered.

Mr. Hun held down one of my straining fingers and placed the toothpick under my nail. “What else?”

“I don’t know where she is.” Which was the truth. Mr. Hun pushed the toothpick under my nail.

“Ahh.” It hurt so much the meager contents of my stomach were hurtling towards my mouth. I swallowed and dipped my head to my chin, struggling to focus. My hair fell around my face. He pushed it in harder.
Think of trees spotted with lichen, pale green and white.

“More,” he said, his voice losing its softness.

I tried to pull my fingers in, but he held them down hard. “She… she… is a hunter. Her baby died. She is in a romantic relationship with a Survivor.”

“Who?” Mr. Hun urged. I gasped in pain as he took my next finger and drove a metal pin halfway under my nail. I screamed. “Tell me his name, dear.”

The forest is warm, that springtime buzz of bees and pollen surround you. The trees are bending to tell you secrets. Arms wrap around your waist and you laugh.

I looked up at the ceiling. The black, padded walls that kept my screaming in seemed to expand like a pillow ready to smother me.
Don’t let them see how much they’re hurting you. Feel your bare feet pressing into the mud, the squelch of it seeping between your toes.

“Pietre,” I panted. Their list was growing. So far, I hadn’t given them anything of consequence. But I didn’t know how long I could hang on.

I closed my eyes and thought of Orry in their arms. I thought of stars, of green. Of fresh meat and fires.

Mr. Hun took my pinky finger, pulled it up at an angle, and held it that way, straining on the edge of breaking. My head flopped forward.

“Bring me the screen,” he asked patiently. A guard walked forward and handed him a large reader the size of a book.

It was already paused on a video. He pressed the triangular play button.

Give me the pins. Give me pain, shredding hot pain. If the plan was to hurt me, then you’ve found your method.

The film was clearly taken from one of the many surveillance cameras placed around a Woodland town. I could see the images in the sky blocked slightly by people’s shoulders, but they were looking. Gasps emitted from the crowd. Sighs of shock and rumbles of anger. A name was cried out, and then the camera focused on people’s damning feet as they surged towards a group of guards.

Shots fired, and people screamed. The feet ran harder. The shadows of boots stomping furiously into the solid ground dispersed, and a circle of space opened up over a small child. His eyes were closed and his clothes dirtied—his body motionless. Trampled.

More shots.

Then an explosion.

It cut to another camera, one over a Ring gate. It followed a trail of smoke to a birch tree, alight. Its leaves curling and crackling. Chunks of concrete lay in the street. People screamed, pushed, but not to get out. They were running away from the wall. I didn’t understand it. My eyes blinked several times, trying to take it in. They were afraid of
us
.

Mr. Hun handed the screen back to the guard, who put it on the desk and pulled it back to the image of the child in the street. Lying there, curled protectively over himself like he was hiding something, a secret he couldn’t tell. The image shone bright in the dark of this tiny room.

Mr. Hun let go of my pinky finger, which was just about breaking, and I remembered pain. One by one, he pulled the pins from my fingers, cleaning them with alcohol wipes and placing back on his tray of instruments. He patted my cheek with his warm, dry hand and left me.

They all left me. To stare at the lifeless child whose death was partly my fault. They wanted me to take it. The responsibility. And I did. This hurt me more than all the small pains they had inflicted on me so far. I tried not to let it show. But as soon as the door closed, my mouth broke into a torn-up sob, my heart seized, and my head fell.

“No,” I whispered. To myself. To them. To the child.

They were chipping away at me, wearing me down to a splinter they could flick to the floor. I couldn’t let them win.