The Wanted

The air sucked from the room, gravity inverted, and I thought I might explode with anger.

Grant, I hate you. My hate is a searing sun. It’s going to swallow you and turn you to ashes.

I knew it. But once she said it, the last pieces slotted together. Any doubt I had was swept away. Grant was using my friend as the test subject. He broke her back and then he showed her to me like some sort of twisted trophy. He was evil.

Grant had to die.

“I’m so sorry,” I wept.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is.” I put my hands to my head and rocked. My head was being crushed in a vice of guilt.

Gwen grabbed my hands and jerked them down, locking eyes with me. “Listen to me, Rosa, and stop crying. Evil is never your fault.”

Okay. Okay. Just stop. Gather up the frayed, pilled edges of your sanity and pull it together. She needs you.

I drew in a large breath from this airless room and wiped my tears with the back of my hand.

“What do you know?” I asked, leaning in.

“That’s better.” She smiled with effort. “I know I’m Grant’s guinea pig for the healer,” she said, gripping the edges of her blanket. “I know he’s a selfish prick!” she screamed towards the door. “I know neither of us will survive the process, but he won’t listen to me.”

She gasped from the screaming, her starved eyes wide, her lips dry and cracked. A glass of water was placed on a table just out of her reach. I retrieved it for her, and she grabbed it greedily.

“Oh, it’ll work, Gwen. It worked on me,” I said loudly, not trusting that they weren’t listening to me.

Her eyes peeled back further, her sharp cheekbones pressing out of her skin like tent poles. I couldn’t say anything else. I just looked at her, trying to convey with my eyes that somehow I would get her those pills.

She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth.

“You may push us down

In the very dirt

That grows your fruitful lies

But you should fear us

When you hear us

When you hear our cries,

We’ll rise, rise, rise.”

Her hand was a fist, pumping with each ‘rise’.

I rose from her bedside.

The door opened and Denis hovered in the doorway, his face a mixture of worry and something else I couldn’t quite discern. “Something’s happened,” he said. “I have to take you back.”

“I thought I had an hour?” Panic drove through me like a rusty spike, plunging deep into my ribs. I couldn’t leave her. She was injured, alone, and she was my only anchor to my old life. The life I wanted back.

I shook my head and returned to her side. “No. Let me stay here. I’m a prisoner anyway, shouldn’t I be in prison?” I pleaded, my fingers digging into Gwen’s mattress. She stared at me with carved-out eyes, her frame wavering like vapor. She needed food.

“Rosa, please.” Denis sighed in exasperation. “We don’t have time for this.”

I didn’t turn around and just waved one hand behind me. “Then leave me.”

Please don’t take me away from my last beacon of sanity.

Gwen wrapped her hand around mine and gripped it. “Don’t go, not yet,” she whispered. She blinked, but there were no tears. She was too dehydrated. Then she lifted her chin defiantly and snapped, “Who’s this clown?”

“I’m Master Grant,” he said authoritatively, and then he glanced down at me. “Rosa, we have to leave now!” He was moving from leg to leg like he needed to pee.

“Why?” I snapped, so sick of being dragged from place to place, being a pawn in their sick games. This was my friend lying here, broken. I choked on all the tears I couldn’t cry as Denis’ shadow encroached on me.

“We’ve lost Palma,” he stated. “We have to go home. Now!”

“Home?” I laughed. I had no home. And Palma. Lost. We. We, like I was part of his people. No, we had gained Palma. They had lost Palma.

Gwen gri

“I’m not leaving yet.” I filled her glass again and handed it her. I searched the room, my breaths getting shorter and more hysterical. “Why doesn’t she have any food?” I yelled, my voice uneven, shrill as a drill bouncing against metal.

Denis strode towards me and yanked me up by my collar, the silk fabric tearing at my neck. “Get up!” he growled.

Gwen’s grip was tight, but she was too weak to hold me against Denis’ pull. I scratched and hit but he held me out from his body as if I were a rat hanging from its tail.

“I’ll see you again,” I screamed as he dragged me from the room.

She shook her head. “You won’t see me until Test day.”

My eyes widened. She would die if we didn’t get those pills. “You know I’ll do what I can to help you?” I shouted as I held onto the doorframe. Denis pulled on my arms.

She sung loudly, bopping her head along with the tune. And if you didn’t understand what it was about, I guess you would think she was crazy.

“Your love is a pill,

It’s bitter and still.

I’ll take it,

I’ll swallow it.

I’m addicted to you,

Addicted to you.”

She understood. She knew.

Her grin stretched to my face as the door closed, and Denis dragged me down the hall.

I would save her. If I could do nothing else, I had to find the rest of those pills.

“Let me go!” I snapped.

Denis still had a hold of my collar, my dress now barely covering my upper body. He suddenly dropped me, and I fell into the wall. He reached out to grab me, but I slapped his hand away.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, backing away from him and rubbing my sore, scratched neck.

His eyes were severe, dipped in rage. He stepped towards me quickly and slapped my face hard. The breath was knocked from my mouth. The sting instantly radiated over my whole head.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that. And when I say it’s time to leave, you do as you’re told.”

My chin fell in understanding. Do as you’re told. I forgot who he was. He was Superior Grant’s son. While I had to work with him and even though he’d told me his secret, he had been raised by a cruel man. And now I knew the cruelty lived inside him also.

I pulled myself up from the floor and crept past him to the glass door. It glided open to Solomon standing there, his expression indifferent to the violence just as I would have expected.

I shuffled towards the elevator door, my hands stubbornly at my sides, even though I wanted to cradle my pulsing face, and waited. I felt beaten in every way.

Denis spoke to Solomon in a detached tone. “My father expects a healthy, well-fed test subject. Your care for the prisoner is unacceptable. Rectify the situation or I’ll report you.”

We didn’t speak on the ride home.

I ignored any attempts he made to help me, maneuver me, or touch me when we arrived back at Grant’s compound. My trust in him was dented, and I hated that I needed him.

We made it to Judith’s bedroom door, and I turned to look at him. He winced at the sight of what he had done. My face felt swollen, my lip bulging.

I spoke from one side of my mouth. “Find those pills,” I whispered. I thought about Deshi. Where he would have hidden them? It was so hard to picture without being in his office.

“You’ll have to help me,” Denis said quietly.

I nodded. “Don’t worry,” I hissed. “I’ll do as I’m told.”

He looked at the floor. “Rosa, I’m sorry,” he barely mumbled. I open the door, stepped backwards, and slammed it in his face.

Leaning against the buttery timber, I breathed in and out violence. I was starting to wonder whether it was something about me that made men want to hurt me. Some men, anyway. But I quashed the thought as quickly as it had appeared. It was not me… it was them. They were ‘less than’ and violence was their only power.