The Wanted

Gus shook his head. “No, but this really is for your own good.”

I pulled my hands through my hair and exhaled. “Jesus, Gus, don’t talk to me like I’m a child.” I wanted to say more but I left it. Nodding, I walked away.

Everyone was a bit a

By nightfall, we’d reached the rails and decided to camp in a tu

A small fire kept us warm and we hunched down over the tracks, the cold biting into our butts. A bearded man nudged me.

“I don’t know what Gus is on about,” he muttered. “You did a great job in Palma.”

I shrugged. The decision had been made and in a way, I was grateful for it being out of my hands. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in, and now I didn’t have to. I tried not to examine my reasons too closely. Packed it away with the other feelings that kept trying to drag me down. I shivered as a cold blast of air shot through the tu

The bearded man handed me a bottle, its contents sloshing around the bottom. “This will warm you up.”

I put my hand up to decline, but then changed my mind and took it. What did it matter?

I caught Rash’s eyes across the fire, and briefly, I thought I saw something other than anger in his eyes. It looked like pity, which was so much worse.

ROSA

Today I’m going to be brave. I am my only chance. I am strong. Today, I will turn every slap, every break, every time they shake me and turn me upside down to see what will fall out, into bloody action. There is no choice.

I wound my strength tighter. Turned it over and over like a bandage in my hands, until they were wrapped like a boxer’s. They didn’t think I would do this and that was where they’d fail. I was bigger than stunts and stupid outfits. I could be bigger than all of them.

Denis led me downstairs. I talked as I normally would. I snapped at him. In the elevator I said, “Well, at least I don’t have too much more torture left to deal with, huh?” Denis’ shoulders pulled in, and he stared at the door. Yeah, guilt was an uncomfortable feeling, it dug in, constricted you like a too-tight, high-necked jacket, each regret pulled the buckles and straps tauter, each wrong action dragged the zip nearer to your throat. He had a lot to feel guilty about.

My thoughts were not on Grant. They were with Gwen. Save. Gwen’s. Life.

You can do this.

The doors slid open and I walked through the garage with Denis close to me, his hand always hovering at my waist. My eyes glanced at the dark door, the one that opened into nightmares. My body twitched like someone flicked a switch inside me, sending a sharp slap of pain up my spine and out my nostrils. I looked away and turned in on the one thought I had to sustain. Do it.

We took two more steps and my desperate eyes found what I needed, lying there like a cut snake, silver, heavy, perfect.

I pretend to trip, knelt down, and snatched the piece of metal from beneath the front of the gleaming, green car. Denis leaned down to help me, and I swung around.

I hate the noise. I hate it.

The ‘crack’ as I hit Denis as hard as I could burrowed into my head and made a nest so it could stay there.

He appeared confused. His eyebrows drawn down like brackets around his rolling eyes. He put his hand to the side of his head like he wasn’t sure if it was still there. Regret crept up my throat, but I swallowed it. I searched his pockets and found what I needed, his handheld. He resisted me but softly, flopping around like a fish on a jetty. I grabbed his wrist and pulled back his sleeve, quickly taking a photo of his wrist tattoo. He didn’t make a sound. Staring at me with urgent, weeping eyes, he mouthed, “Run.” Then he rolled to his side and coughed.

I slammed the handheld into my pocket and ran.

All I could hear was my own breath and the crunch of ice beneath my feet. All I could think about was Joseph and Deshi ru

I arrived at the gate to Este’s compound and fumbled around for the handheld. I knew they would be able to track me, that didn’t matter. I knew they would catch me. I just needed to get there a few minutes before they did.

Pulling up the photo, I prayed it would work. I held it under the sca

Beep!

I exhaled in absolute relief and pushed through the gate. It locked after me. I took a rock and smashed the sca

Please let something be on my side today.

Quickly, my toes pressed down in their shoes and I sprinted for Este’s house. Crunching. Sweat dripped down my neck from fear, from exertion, I wasn’t sure. I let the cold air in like it was medicine. It was. It filled me with lost freedom. With hope.

As I rounded the curve, Este’s home came into view. The giant, two-story stone villa looked different in the light. Beautiful and too old for this world. I hugged the zoo wall and waited for the guards to pass the gate. There was just one. He strolled down the drive rather than marched, casually arriving at the iron bars and grabbing a set of keys from his pocket.

I felt like slamming my head through the concrete wall of the zoo. A lion roared and echoed my frustration. The padlock. I’d forgotten about the padlock.

The guard opened the gate. I prayed he would forget to lock it after him, but he didn’t. The lock clipped back into place, and my hopes were squashed and splattered all over the gravel. I inched closer, my eyes squinting for another way in.

The guard stared at his feet, hands behind his back, bored from what I could tell. My foot slipped along the gravel, the grazing sound causing him to look up. I sighed. It was over. My short escape was pointless. Gwen would die and I would be executed for assaulting Master Grant.

The guard took a couple of steps in my direction and froze, his warm eyes meeting mine in recognition. Harry. He glanced away just as quickly, reached into his pants, and got some gum. The keys fell from his pocket and hit the ground, heavier than an asteroid. He didn’t retrieve them, though he must have heard them fall. He put his hands behind his back and sauntered around the corner away from me.

I didn’t think, I sprinted for the keys, scooped them up, and collided with gate, which shuddered from my impact.

As I flayed the keys and picked, one red ribbon rippled across my eyes and slid down my arm. Death markers. I remembered them from Pau. When someone died, there was no funeral, or occasion like the Survivors had, but people would tie red ribbons to the tree in front of the deceased’s house as a show of respect. You’d think a Superior’s house would be drowning in ribbons, but there was just this one. I picked it up off the ground where it lay like a streak of blood and wound it through the bars.

After three keys, the padlock opened.

The sound of footsteps shoved me in the back and urged me to keep moving. I slammed the gate shut and locked it, throwing the keys in the rambling garden. As the group of guards came around the curve, I managed a grin through the bars and then I took off.