The Wall

I stepped backwards like he had punched me in the stomach. Dead.

Dead?

It was harsh to say it but I muttered under my breath, “Well, I guess it’s all worked out quite neatly for you, hasn’t it?”

Apella walked over to me and helped me into a chair. Well, she arranged my frozen limbs and forced them to cooperate into a sitting position. “Rosa, you’re being unfair.”

“I know,” I said woodenly. “Why didn’t you use the healing machine on him?”

“It doesn’t work on cancer. It can only repair normal cells. Even if we had used it, he would have continued to get sick.”

“Right,” I said, blinking unevenly. I didn’t know what to say. Was I supposed to be relieved? I didn’t feel much of anything. I didn’t really know Cal, not the real Cal. I should have been sad for him and his family but all I felt was a bottomless nothing. “Thanks for being straight with me,” I said.

“Are you all right?” Alexei asked, crouching down to look into my eyes. I managed a half-smile balanced with confusion.

“I think so?” It came out like a question.

“I have to go,” Matthew said quietly. “We leave at dawn.”

I pulled my head out of my soft, squishy cloud long enough to register that Matthew was coming with us. I hoped he was going to one of the other towns. I couldn’t look into his penitent face anymore.

Apella and Alexei hovered over me, waiting for me to do something. Erupt into tears… melt into a puddle of self-loathing, I don’t know. I was blank. My mind turned white as snow and I was nowhere in it. Apella shook my shoulder and I heard her whisper, “She’s in shock. Get her a glass of water.” Alexei’s hand slipped off my leg. I hadn’t even noticed it was there. I could feel my eyes blinking slowly, snapping scenes like a camera. Table. Cup. Fireplace. Strange picture of person screaming.

What was I doing before this?

My two unlikely parents kneeled before me. Alexei held the glass to my lips and I sipped slowly. Apella tucked my hair behind my ear so she could see my eyes. “Rosa, you have to get going. You’ll miss the train.” Her words were far away, an echo.

Alexei’s rough hands grabbed my face and held my eyes to his. It occurred to me that I’d assumed his hands would be soft like a baby’s, like he’d never worked a day in his life, but I was wrong. I’d been wrong about so many things. “We are both so proud of you, for what you are about to do. You’re very brave, Rosa. Do you know that?”

Things clicked over. Wheels started turning. Brave? I was brave? I could be. I will be. I slid the door down on the past with a bang. Nothing could be gained from dwelling on this news. I will be brave.

I stood and they stood with me. “Thank you both so much.” I hugged them and strode to the door. Newfound strength welled from their faith in me. I turned and gave them a smile. “You’re good parents. Though I don’t know where you find the strength, with a daughter like me.” I heard a sigh from both of them and the sound of Alexei laughing quietly.

It was a gift. I wasn’t sure if I felt they were my parents but they were as close as I had at that moment.

I ran down the stairs, telling myself over and over, You can do this. You can do this. I tripped my way towards the station on the other side of the Wall, trying hard not to think about Joseph’s hand searching for the warmth of my body beside him and finding nothing but cold, empty sheets.

The plan was to ride the spi

Each Spider had a homing device embedded in their upper arm, so at the time of rescue, we would all know exactly where to find them using our handheld trackers. The Spiders knew we were coming and would be ready. We didn’t know their names and they didn’t know ours—it was safer that way.

None of this really applied to me but Careen and Pietre went over and over the details as our spi

“Rosa, this is important.” Her head was a flaming hue with the sunrise penetrating through the curtain of her strawberry hair. It matched her temper.

Pietre had a handheld and he was showing us where the spi

My mind receded like the tide, pulling on the facts like sand, grabbing the information for a second, only to have it wash out of my grasp with the next wave. I pictured Joseph waking and realizing I was gone. Orry would already be awake and searching for the comfort of warm milk in his belly. Odval would be wondering why I was taking so long. I ran my fingers along the cool, plastic table, swirling circles and imagining the weight of my child in my arms.

“We will walk at night and hide by day. There’s no snow, at least, but it means there may be Woodland police patrolling the borders. Is there anything useful you can tell us about Pau Brasil?”

My ears pricked and my senses returned as I remembered how much I hated Pietre. “Not really, they’re all the same,” I mumbled without looking at him.

“Figures,” he said snidely.

My head snapped up, regarding his snarling expression with distaste. Did he ever really smile? My anger reached out like a straggly hand looking for something to hold onto. It found Pietre’s hateful face and dug in with pointed fingernails.

“Don’t speak to me,” I said, my face brimming with hot-blood anger. “I haven’t forgotten what you did. You’re an intolerable man. Well, not even a man—a boy. And I wish you would drop off the end of the earth!”

Joseph would be storming around the house, banging into things and clumsily getting dressed. He would be so sad; I will have made him so sad. He will hope I’ve changed my mind. I could see his face looking to the door, hoping I was coming back. My heart heaved at the pressure I put there. What was I doing?

As I expected, Pietre enjoyed my outburst and a sickening smile crossed his lips. He put his arm around Careen, who looked up at him confused, and pulled her closer. I directed my voice at Careen’s blinking face. “I know the plan and I would like to get some rest before we charge off into the wilderness again, all right?”

She nodded. Poor girl, she had no idea what was going on between Pietre and me.

I returned to staring out the window. I tried to force my face to relax but I felt like I was trying to unroll a tightly wound map. Every time I took the band off and tried to flatten it out, it would curl back up again. I sighed deeply. We would travel for a week like this, close to each other, invading each other’s space. Already it felt like the sides of the spi

Along the way, we would stop and drop off the others close to their assigned towns. Each group had a designated time they had to return by if they were to catch the train back. This was entirely dependent on our little group. We would have to bring the spi