The Wanted

We kept screaming.

We kept ru

We had about fifteen minutes.

I caught a flash of my face as I ran up my mother’s driveway. This girl with bleached hair and wide, underfed eyes. I stalled at the door as I attempted to smooth my hair down, to look less insane.

“Rosa, darling, get away from the door. You’ve been told before about playing with the locks.” My mother’s voice sounded calm, sweet, and it open-palm slapped me, stinging my cheeks.

Gwen turned to me, her face muddled. “This is your house, right?” she said as she bent over purple feet to catch her breath.

My own breath was gone. My nerves frayed to a million points of nothingness. What was on the other side of that door? My birth. My death. My future.

I raised a hand to knock, holding my breath. The door swung open, and a child collided with my leg. A dark face framed in strips of taffeta glanced up at me from my knees.

“Rosa!” My mother’s face was smacked of color, her eyes round with disbelief. She grabbed the collar of the small girl and pulled her back inside the door, stepping back herself.

The little girl looked up at her mother, my mother, and grasped at the woman’s waist, digging her chubby fingers into her skirt’s waistband, begging to be picked up.

Gwen and I followed her in and shut the door behind us. “I don’t have any time to explain,” I said, walking closer until my mother’s back was pressed against the kitchen counter. She pulled the child into her arms, and tears formed for all three of us.

“Rosa. It’s so good to see you. I thought you were dead.” She shook her silvering head in shock, and my head rattled with it too. Good to see me? Last time I saw her, she’d pushed me away. She’d said no. She reached out to take my hand, and I let her grasp it briefly. It felt… odd.

“Mother, there’s no time. The Superiors are pla

Her eyes widened, and she tightened her grip on the little girl sitting on her hip. My sister.

I thought I’d have to fight, convince her, but all she said was, “Thank you for coming back for us.”

I couldn’t respond; we’d wasted too much time already. I grabbed her arm, and she shivered.

“Rosa, your fingers are like ice!” Her voice was a bruise that couldn’t heal. Her life was in my hands. She reached up and retrieved a coat from the rack by the door. My grey, wool coat. “Put this on,” she ordered quietly. “And this young lady needs shoes,” she said in a pitch strings higher than usual, her calm hanging off the precipice with the rest of us. I sighed, exasperated, somehow already falling into a pattern that was years old. I pulled the coat on, my hands brushing over the rust stains at the elbows while she fetched shoes for Gwen and threw her own coat over Gwen’s shoulders. I danced from foot to foot and shouted impatiently, “Mother! We have to go,” and then I yanked her out of the door.

The child started crying. “Sh, Rosa-May, it’s all right. We’ll be all right.” My mother smoothed the little girl’s hair from her forehead.

She named her baby after me. My heart swelled in my chest and I laughed, while Gwen and Mother gave me concerned sideways glances. That must have killed Paulo!

We took off for the gate to Ring Three, which was closest. Denis caught up with us, a group of about thirty people at his heels.

“We need to run faster,” I wheezed. My mother struggled to keep up, her tiny legs tangling in her long skirt.

“Take Rosa-May, please. I can’t keep up,” she urged, handing the child to me. I grasped at the child with desperate fingers while ru

As we ran, I kept thinking of the things I wanted to tell my mother. But I’d have time. After this was over, I would sit down with her, and we’d have time.

Right now, the second hand was beating down on us.

JOSEPH

We ducked low and crept towards the dark machine. Our camouflage stood out against the shiny, reflective plastic of the chopper. My reflection looked enormous, and I tried to make myself smaller. An impossible task. Through the clear windows, I could see the pilot sitting with his legs up, staring blankly at the concrete wall in front of him. He seemed too relaxed for the current situation. Rash put his hands on the back of the craft, waiting for me to catch up.

I took a breath, ready to talk him out of it, but before I could say anything, he gave me a sideways grin and slammed his palms down on the lightweight panel, making a loud thwack and sending vibrations through the chopper.

The door rolled open. “What the hell was that?” a male voice asked.

“Could’ve been a bird, calm down,” a low female voice replied dismissively.

Rash whispered to me, “You take those two. I’m going for the pilot.”

I shook my head vehemently. “I can’t take two armed soldiers,” I said as I snatched a quick glance of them venturing away from the chopper and searching the tree line.

“Uh, yes you can,” he stated, and left me standing there.

Gus was creeping silently towards us but I couldn’t wait for him, Rash was already at the pilot door. He flicked his fingers behind him, one, two, three, and we moved together but in opposite directions.

I jumped out from behind the rear of the chopper and yelled, “Hey!” My gun out in front, raised and shaking like I had nerve damage. They spun around, and I shot the gun at their feet. The imprint of the trigger burned my finger.

“Drop your weapons!” I demanded, my voice booming, sounding strong like it didn’t come out of my mouth.

The man dropped his gun on the ground as if it were too hot to hold. The woman was less eager, and she stepped towards me threateningly. Gus ran up behind me, his weapon ready. She raised her eyebrow. With two guns trained on her, she lost her bravado and crouched down carefully, placing her weapon neatly on the ground and standing back up with her hands in the air.

“Good decision,” Gus said.

It was too easy.

The sound of Rash’s scuffling shoes preceded him dragging a pilot by his twisted arm towards the other two soldiers.

Much too easy.

“I don’t get it. That was too easy. And the soldiers from before…” I said.

The woman raised her head from where she was kneeling with her hands folded on the back of her head. “Our soldiers?”

Her dark blue eyes were wide with concern. “Your soldiers will live,” Gus grunted. She hung her head and sighed with relief.

I ran my hands through my hair, confused by what was happening. This was not like any fight I’d been in before. Where men threw themselves at me, where they attacked first without thought for their own safety.

Gus’s attention was on Pelo, who was stalking up to the wall when he said, “Find some rope and tie them up.”

Rash jumped into the chopper, the whole thing jerking and tipping as he rummaged around in the cabin. A coil of rope sailed through the opening. His muffled voice flowed out of the door. “This is so cool, man. You have to come see.”

I ignored him as I bound the soldiers’ hands behind their backs with my eyes on Pelo. He hugged the shadows—almost as thin as one. He quickly dug at the dirt, his hands scurrying between his legs like a dog. Pulling out the bomb, he pushed the button and buried it, ru