The Wanted

My head shook from side to side as I watched in dismay. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Joseph had been dead this whole time. The bottom fell out of everything. The floor rocked, the air swirled, and I knew I was going to be sick. But I couldn’t stop watching.

Joseph’s hands scrambled behind him, batting, grabbing, scratching at the guard. His eyes. They weren’t his eyes. They were hollow, angry, absent. He got a grip on the guard and threw him to the ground. I watched as the guard skidded backwards over the tiles and his head hit the wall. I would have heard a crack, if there weren’t so many other noises fighting for attention. Guards were coming at Joseph from every direction. Clawing, hitting, trying to pull him to the ground, but he was like a raging bull, his strength inhuman as he fought them off.

When his face flashed towards the camera, his eyes were still empty, and my body shuddered like a rickety shed in a storm.

A guard lifted the knife from the floor and held it out in front of him, my blood spitting from the end in splatters as his hand shook. He lunged at Joseph’s side but accidentally slashed at the forearm of the guard holding Joseph by the waist. That guard dropped to the floor, screaming, gripping his arm over an open wound that was spurting blood like a sprinkler. My stomach crept up into my mouth at all the blood, the violence that seemed endless. The guard with the knife didn’t seem to notice what he’d done and lunged at Joseph again. I gasped at the disco

There were two guards down. Este’s piercing-as-a-bullet squealing was a constant musical backdrop to the scene.

A shot cracked the air, and Joseph ducked down. But it was nowhere near him. It came from somewhere else out of frame. The squealing ceased like someone had pressed the mute button, and Este lay across the couch like a dismantled puppet.

It dazed the men for a second and then I lost them all in the mesh of muscle, weapons, and blood. Joseph held onto a guard’s hand tightly or around something… something black. I dug my nails into my palms, my body leaning forward and nearly pulling my chair over. I was a bird ready to take flight, straight into a wall.

Crack, crack, crack…

It didn’t sound like it should. It sounded like a whip, like lightning. I could almost smell the singe, the burn, and see the scalded earth. But it was not something natural; it was something men made to undo men.

I searched the pile of bodies, slumped in a circle around him. Joseph was covered in blood. He was breathing like he couldn’t get the air in quick enough, hunched over as if he were a seed that wouldn’t grow. The gun lagged in his hand, and then it dropped to the floor with an isolated, lonely clang.

What did I make you do?

I pulled at my restraints, thinking I might scream but knowing no one would come to my aid.

“What have you done?” Deshi asked in the screen, in a video I was struggling to believe was real, as he stood behind the bodies.

Joseph was lost. No color in his beautiful face save the color of others’ blood. He moved to my body, silent and motionless through the whole thing, and collapsed. I watched and felt every punch, every splinter as he beat the tiles over and over again with his fist. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to cry out, I wanted to reach inside the screen and hold him, but I couldn’t. I was lying there dead, and he was broken.

I broke him.

Everything shattered. A million tiny shards of ceramic the color of gold and dust rained over me.

I let out a moan. A shallow sound that was nothing. Nothing.

Mr. Hun pushed the door open. My eyes squinted at the light from the garage that didn’t belong in here. I wanted to steep in darkness. Disappear.

His voice was soft and sure. “See, dear. You’re protecting a murderer. Are you ready to talk now?”

My chin touched my chest, and I exhaled my soul in one breath. They would get nothing from me today.

I was done.

ROSA

I fell in the hall on the way back to my room, my limbs so wobbly I could barely stand. They folded under me like poorly made chair legs and crumbled together. Red sighed and nudged me with her toe. I felt like any touch would disintegrate my form. I was a case. Inside me were dust, un-smelled air, and waves of sadness. I pulled my legs under my body sluggishly and whimpered at her impatient prodding. The pain I felt was scattered over my skin, like a lagging electric shock.

I could feel her body warmth closing in, looming, ready to grab me and jerk me up. She’d had her one sympathetic moment. That was probably all I was going to get. Besides, they were always watching and she couldn’t show weakness.

A cough.

“Let me take her, Mrs. Kelly.” A calm voice, slow like lava, but warm, bordering on hot.

Red’s foot tapped once in front of my eyes, and then disappeared.

Lips close to my ear whispered, “You need to get up.”

I can’t.

“Get up.” Strong fingers found my chin and forced it upwards. “Now. He’s watching you.”

Okay. Move your limbs. Pull one part in front of the other. Follow the thread of life left in you.

I heaped myself towards my door, moving like a kicked heap of wet towels.

Denis opened the door and walked straight into my bathroom. Pulling myself from the floor, I went inside, closing the bedroom door behind me. I heard a slight metallic clink, and then the taps ru

His concerned face appeared in the bathroom doorway, and I pressed closer to the wall. When he saw my expression, his eyebrows rose in alarm and he pumped his hands in front of him.

“No. I’m not going to hurt you, I…” He ran a hand over his close-cropped, spiky hair and sighed. “Have a shower, Rosa, take some time,” he urged seriously.

I just stared blankly, not understanding anything. My mind was walled in on all sides by screens playing violent acts over and over. Then he checked himself, checked for cameras, and leaned in, kissing me briefly on the forehead.

“Let this be the last time you allow him to hurt you,” he whispered, his breath a flush of peppermint on my aching skin.

Tears cascaded over my eyelashes and flooded my cheeks, a waterfall of disbelief.

He pulled back suddenly, as if he’d surprised himself, and backed away from me, opening the door behind him and slowly leaving the room. His eyes intense. His face finally showed some emotion—concern, but also… a challenge.

I waited until the door clicked and then rushed to the bathroom. Sitting on the basin was a candy-colored music player, the white earphones wound in a circle. The song was paused.

I traced the title with my shaking fingers, my head splitting with bullets and blood. ‘The Work’ by Catie Wings. It didn’t sound like a real name.

I placed the earphones in my ears and pressed play, looking up at the girl in the mirror. She looked harrowed, hollow, wide eyes in a thin face, eyes as large as bowls and just as full. Full of more trauma than she could handle and struggling to get back to herself. To remember herself. I gripped the sides of the sink and listened.

If this was more torture, that would be it. I would wash down the drain.

The music was haunted. A floating voice sailed in the spaces between what I’d learned was piano. A dull thud. But then the vulnerability, the stress of the first words, hit me and I dissolved. My fingers slipped and I pressed them deeper into the porcelain. I watched the ghost in the mirror react and tried to recall that it was me.