The Wanted

“Which Ring and how many people are we talking about, Superior Grant? We can’t afford to lose too many workers,” someone I didn’t recognize asked.

Again, Grant’s eyes slid to mine when he said, “Ring Two. Roughly three thousand citizens.” My mother’s Ring. I stood to try and see what he was pointing at, to understand the plan, but a guard pushed my shoulder down.

“If you think, er, it will work then that, er, seems like an acceptable loss.”

Acceptable loss? I screamed on the inside until my lungs started to peel away from my ribs.

“How does it work?” Sekimbo asked, pushing himself to the front like a barge.

Grant smiled, though it was more like a snarl.

“It’s very simple. But it must be done manually from beneath the town. I will do it myself. We already have cameras all over the Ring that can record the incident. We simply flick the switch and show the people what happens when you rebel against the Woodlands.”

What switches? I couldn’t see anything from where I was forced to sit; all I knew was thousands of people were about to be killed in a ‘simple’ way, and my mother and sister were part of that number of acceptable losses. It was my fault he chose Pau. Mine and Olga’s. That unassuming, egg-shaped woman had deceived us all.

I writhed in my chair, impotent, and clamped my mouth over the indecision hooking into my lips.

The three remaining Superiors voted unanimously for Grant’s plan.

After the vote, they strolled around the room, eating, drinking, and socializing like it was easy to kill. They didn’t see us as people. We were numbers, workers, losses and gains. We were the foundations they stood on with their swollen, over-fed bodies. That was all.

Judith approached me, squatting down to reach my eyes, which were wide and panicked like a gun was to my head. She placed a plate of food on my lap.

“Rosa, eat, you’ll need your strength,” she crooned as she pulled out her lip gloss and applied it while she spoke. “You know I’ve enjoyed having you around. I might actually miss you.”

I stared down at the colorful, oily food, and my stomach turned. I wanted dried meat and stale bread. Fresh game roasted on the fire. Not this. I poked it with my finger with distaste. “What do you mean, miss me?”

She stood and covered her mouth with her dainty, peeling hand, her eyes filled with devilish delight. The secret on her lips was so delicious.

“You’ll see,” she said, stepping away from me and swaying her hips as she walked. When no one was looking, I picked up a cream puff and threw it at the back of her head. She stumbled forward, and then snapped around to glare at me. She was about to turn me in when Grant cleared his throat and called for everyone’s attention.

His hand shook, just a small tick, tick, tick, as he waved everyone over. The guard dumped me out of my chair and pushed me forward. The crowd of drunken gluttons laughed and then whispered as Grant hushed them.

“Dear friends and family, it has been years since my accident. Just one misstep, one literal slip in my life, has caused so much pain and suffering. I must admit I have struggled daily with my condition. It has not been easy.” He paused for dramatic effect and wiped his mouth with his hand. “But now, through great personal sacrifice and commitment, I have found a cure.” I couldn’t help myself. I scoffed. The laugh quickly turned to hatred emanating from my eyes like fire. So many people had died to get him here. “Today… I walk!” he shouted proudly. I leaned in, ready to slap his face, but the guard had a hold on me.

“Please join in my triumph as I am placed into the healer a paraplegic and step out on my own two legs.”

Everyone clapped and cheered. Denis and Judith the loudest of all. For a moment, I forgot what was about to happen and all I could think was how selfish he was. How could a person put his need to walk above other peoples’ lives?

I was cracking open with anger like a breaking stone, my anger parting me with fissures of red-hot light.

ROSA

He was ready. Nervous, but it was like he was already standing. Standing on the inside. I didn’t feel ready. I turned to Denis, and he gave me the slightest of nods. He was prepared for this. He’d been pla

The guard had been instructed to place me right in the front, so I had the best view. I didn’t want to see this.

Doubts swirled around me like shards of glowing embers, stinging my skin and branding me with finality.

I clenched my fists and wrapped my legs around the legs of the chair. It wobbled as I struggled to contain my shaking and nervousness. I glanced up at Denis, who was standing by an intercom, staring down on the glass coffin.

“Good luck, Dad,” he said happily, his voice nasal from the break. His head snapped to me, and his eyes narrowed in warning. I needed to control myself.

Grant’s eyes flicked up to his son and daughter. Judith made an apathetic show of pressing her hand to the glass and letting it slide down, making a squeaking sound. She smiled, but it was a fake smile. A hardened smile appeared across Grants lips as he smoothed his hair from his forehead. Even from here, I could see the beads of sweat twinkling under the fluorescent lights. When his eyes lit on me, they solidified. This moment was doubly pleasing to him. After I watched him heal, he pla

Men in white coats stood around his wheelchair, holding a printout and checking through a list. Grant’s hospital gown flapped under the air conditioner. The socks pulled halfway up his hairy calves making him look old.

I was there when Judith flushed the two remaining pills down the toilet. I watched as they’d circled the porcelain and disappeared. Any chance Grant had of surviving this had bobbed along in the water like tiny life preservers and dissolved with the disinfectant.

Grant’s eyes were still on me. His eyebrows furrowed as he watched my reactions. My i

A whitecoat put his hand on Grant’s shoulder and squeezed. Grant jerked and glared at the man. It was time to be lifted into the healer. One man held him under the arms and the other under his knees. Grant’s butt sagged down. He looked pathetic, helpless.

Finally, Grant’s eyes left mine as they laid him on the table and I thought I would relax. But everything inside was screaming.

I gripped the chair arms and tried to steady myself. Talk myself out of it. This was stupid. This could change everything. Murderer, whispered in my ear. This would change me and I was already so broken that pieces would go missing.

Denis took a step towards me.

Grant closed his crinkled eyes, his forehead, for once, un-furrowed. I remembered the pain of the healer and wondered what would happen when it all went wrong. Would it hurt more? I turned away from the glass. A guard placed his hand on my head and forcibly turned my face back towards the coffin.

“He wants you to watch, miss.”

I hated him. He hated me. Despised me. I would hate myself if I became like him.