The Wounded

“You coming up to the surface with me tomorrow, Soar?” Rash asked in a strained tone as he tried to concentrate on the cans flying above his head.

“Yep. Wouldn’t miss it,” I said, my eyes moving in circles, tracking the cans and putting bets on which one was going to hit Rash in the head. Kidney beans, definitely. I smiled to myself.

A can rolled behind me, the crunch of a foot stopped it from rolling over the ledge.

“Ahem!”

Rash’s concentration lapsed, and the cans tumbled towards his face and crotch. I tried to hold it in, but when one landed square in his lap and his face scrunched up as he rolled over the ledge, I burst out laughing. It was made worse by Essie, who giggled and then hiccup-burped. Rash shouted from up from the lower level, “What a lady!”

Even Orry’s eyes lit up. He clapped and held his hands up like he wanted me to pick him up. Arms swooped in from behind me, and I realized Orry wasn’t looking at me.

“Darling boy, miraculous grandson of mine,” Pelo exclaimed as he lifted Orry over my head and into his arms. I hunched my shoulders, trying to not to get upset. It was my fault anyway. I’d allowed Pelo to spend time with Orry. They’d bonded or something. My mouth was a flat line, jealousy carving an unflattering wrinkle in my brow.

Rash’s head popped up, just his eyes, like a toad above pond water, and then he scrambled over the ledge. He grabbed Essie by the waist and squeezed. She jumped and then smacked the side of his face. I liked her.

Pelo opened his mouth to speak, my ear inadvertently closing over as the air rushed over his lips. Then Careen bashed into him from behind, clipping his shoulder. Essie stared her down like she was hoping she’d burst into flames. It was u

“I’m going to kill him!” she shouted.

Pelo took a step back, Orry still in his arms, “Is it all right if I take Orry for a walk?” he appealed, snatching at this opportunity. Careen’s fingers were still digging into my shoulders. She was ignoring everyone. I nodded to Pelo, who strode off quickly with my son on his bony hip.

“Did you hear me?” Careen hissed. Her face was red and blotchy, like she’d been crying.

I put my hands on her hands and pulled them off me. “What’s he done now?” I asked, rolling my eyes. Pietre was still being as difficult as he possibly could. The only time he managed to be halfway decent was when I brought Orry to him. Other than that, he scowled, swore, and treated Careen like dirt. If he weren’t already injured, I’d punch him. In fact, I wasn’t sure I cared about his leg any more. He needed a good punch. I squeezed my hand into a fist.

“He’s just… well… he’s just being Pietre,” Careen said as she flopped down next to Essie, who surreptitiously shuffled a few inches away from her. Careen’s nostrils flared as she glanced down at Essie, but she didn’t say anything to her. She focused her hurried talking in my direction.

Careen wasn’t easily rattled, but she was at the end of her patience with him. She prattled on about every insulting thing he’d said to her in the last twenty-four hours, my face getting tighter, and my heart angrier with every venom-dipped sentence she recalled. “He kicked me out, Rosa. I don’t know what to do. I think I love him or at least, I used to. It’s like when they chopped off his leg, they took the good parts of him too,” she said sadly. I waited for the weirdness to come. The part where she flicked off her seriousness and said something strange. A few seconds later, she swung her head towards Rash and asked, “Did you cut your hair? It looks darker.” I clenched my teeth together, straining not to laugh. Rash took one look at Careen and chuckled whole-heartedly.

“Sure Red, I’m like the reverse Samson. The more you cut off, the darker and more powerful I become!”

Careen looked at me confused, and I just shook my head. There was no explaining Rash.

Once Rash had calmed down, he draped his hand on Essie’s knee and leaned his head down to her rounded shoulder. “Soar?”

I was gazing distractedly down at the black water canal. It looked like oil, chopping and moving as the current carried it swiftly through the underground town and out to somewhere else. I wondered where it went. Did it look black on the outside?

“Soar!” Rash yelled out, his hands to his mouth, the name bouncing of the walls, “oar… oar… oar.”

“What?” I snapped.

He leaned back from me, but in a comical way. “Whoa. No need to get snarky. I just thought…”

Careen was staring at the ground with her head in her hands. She was exhausted. Sometimes I wished Rash could be serious for just one second. Living like this amplified everyone’s characteristics. I hated that the things I loved about people were turning on me.

I sighed. “You just thought what?”

He waggled those dark eyebrows of his and said, “Let’s make Pietre a leg.”

*****

As soon as he said it, my mind started whirring. Complicated cogs ticked over as the design stretched and grew in my mind.

“Could you?” Careen squealed, grabbing my head in her hands and squishing my face.

A monkey scampered past, clinging to the very edge of the stone ledge. A flash of yellow fur and a tail. I shuddered. Anything to get me out of here for a while.

“I think I probably can,” I said through squashed lips.

“What are you doing?” I asked, a little scared of the answer.

Joseph looked up at me from the corner of the room. He was crouching down, sweeping up a mess of broken plates. “Nothing. Just dropped some plates.”

“Joseph, don’t do that,” I said, creeping up to him and putting my hand on his shoulder. He tensed for a second, but then he relaxed and put his head to my hipbone.

“I’m just frustrated. How long are we expected to live like this? I miss Desh, and I’m worried about Apella. This just isn’t what I expected. It’s not what I want.”

I picked up the piece of wood I’d been carving. It was pretty close now. Unfortunately, I’d had to spend a lot of time staring at Pietre’s other leg to get it right. I even joked that I could glue some hair to it to make it just right, to which Pietre scowled at me nastily and spat on the floor. “It won’t work,” he’d said.

It would work.

Rash brought me back a pile of leather belts the other day, and now I had to work out how to make a harness.

I placed the wooden leg down and grabbed Joseph’s hand to pull him up. I tugged, but he was so damn heavy. I fell back against the wall. “Geez, it’s like you’re made of lead.”

Joseph stood and moved to where I was, with my back against the wall. He placed his hands on either side of me, blocking me in.

“I’m sorry, about Deshi. I wish there was something I could do,” I whispered. My breath quickened, my chest rising and falling unevenly, like the breaths of a willing, dying animal.

He smiled sadly. “You’re doing it. You and Orry lift me out of my sadness just by being here.”

I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed the corner of his mouth. He moved his head and our lips collided, then opened, then devoured. I hoped he knew… he was doing the exact same thing to me.

*****

My shirt was lifted up to my chin, and half of Joseph’s buttons were undone. But that was where it had to stop. With only a blanket separating us from everyone else, that was as far as I was willing to go. But it was torture. I got the sense that Joseph didn’t care as much as I did about who heard us, but he respected my wishes, drew back, and composed himself.

I pulled my shirt down and heard Joseph audibly groan. I flicked him a grin.

“Man, this is getting difficult,” he said, re-buttoning his shirt. “Maybe we should get another pass to the surface, find that building again…”