The Wanted

Joseph flapped a clean sheet in front of my face. It pushed scents of clean skin and smokiness that never washed out of your hair sailing towards me. I inhaled deeply.

A knock on the door disrupted my roaming thoughts. I moved through this stranger’s house we’d commandeered, scared to touch possessions that didn’t belong to me and had their own lost history.

A ratty hall ru

“Here.” Gwen pushed an armful of children’s clothes towards me gently. “A woman had these in her bag for her… but she doesn’t need them anymore.” She sniffed, and I knew the rest. “Anyway, you might as well take ’em for the kid.”

“Thank you.” I grasped the clothes from her cold hands. “How’s it going out there? And how are you?” I asked, motioning to the gaping hole and the glow of hundreds of campfires outside the wall. Sad murmurs echoed into the blank sky.

I’d wanted to sleep under the trees too, but it was crowded out there. Most of the citizens were too afraid to step back inside, despite our assurances the rest of the town was not going to sink into the ground. Weirder still was the fact that they were looking to us for answers.

Gwen grimaced. “It’s settling down, I guess…” She hesitated and then said, “I’m good. I’m back with my people. Best feeling ever!” She put her thumbs up, though her eyebrow arched sarcastically. We both knew it would take time for both of us to be ‘good’. “The news of the Superiors’ deaths has caused a lot of mixed emotions. Superiors…” she scoffed. “More like inferiors, idiots, imbeciles… uh… Matthew said I have to stop calling them names in front of the newbies,” Gwen said, winking, her cheeks flushed and pinched with new freedom as she rolled her eyes at the word ‘newbies’. She amazed me.

“You can call them anything you like in front of me,” I said warmly.

“I know,” she replied, gazing at her feet, still wearing my mother’s shoes.

Whispers of Este and Grant’s deaths had grown quickly to loud truths, rolling over the huddles of people like galloping clouds. It caused relief, fear, and displacement. I felt little relief. My own hand shivered from the cold of being dipped in Grant’s blood. I stared down at it, and Gwen dipped her head lower to make eye contact.

“Anyway…the soldiers, Gus and the others disarmed have corroborated our story of the video the Superiors wanted to make and the purpose of it. Man. I think I kept hoping it wasn’t going to happen, that they wouldn’t go through with it, and then… boom.” She made an exploding gesture with her hands, and I flinched. “There were other ways, you know?” she muttered, her voice cracking under the weight of it all.

“I know,” was all I could say.

“Matthew says this kind of grief, this massive loss of life, will not be easy to overcome. It’s going to take time and help. I’ll help.” Sadly, thousands of displaced, scared, and grieving citizens was a familiar situation for us.

“Do you want to come in and rest for a minute?” I asked as I yawned a hole in my body.

“Nah, I’m good. I have accommodation. You two deserve and need some time alone,” she said, a slight edge of concern underlining the word ‘need’.

“Oh okay,” I replied doubtfully. “Thanks for the clothes.”

“S’ok. Rosa. I’m sorry about your mother,” she said as she walked backwards down the path.

A thread of ice worked its way through my heart, and I shuddered. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She frowned, her cheeks dimpling, her eyebrows working. “It’s just what you say, when there’s nothing else you can say,” she said, giving me a sad smile.

I choked on a weird laugh that wanted to escape. “Thanks.”

I waved as she strolled quickly down the street like she owned it. My eyes tracked her down the road and up the path of another home, a few doors down. The world was inverted, Survivors on the inside and Woodlands’ citizens on the outside.

“Grace!” she shouted.

“Huh?”

“It’s a song. Look it up… but later.” She shut the door. I pocketed the name, knowing it would tear me open—a song for another time when I had the chance and space to grieve.

Passing Rosa-May sleeping on the couch, I placed the clothes at her feet. I sucked in a sharp breath at the memory of my mother. There one second, her face determined, some fight still in her. Then gone. It hurt, but the weight of responsibility to my sister was a round, smooth thing, a warm reminder that kept me from sinking. I pictured her with Orry and it made me smile. It made me frown too. My mother should have been there to meet him. I hugged my body and returned to Joseph.

He glanced up from tucking the sheets in, lifting the mattress with one arm like it was made of cardboard. I was made of cardboard. A cut-out of myself. Everything overwhelming. Feelings clashing, crushing me flat. My body mushy with hugs, sharp with betrayal, on fire with desire, and shivering with worry.

“Who was at the door?” he asked, his beautiful eyes pulled back with distance. Too, too far away.

“Gwen.”

“Oh.”

After his parents, my parents, everything. He hadn’t said much. But then, neither had I. I gulped down my pain in one lump as I recalled telling Pelo about Mother. Hurt and reassurance as I understood that he truly loved her, and now it was too late.

Joseph ran a calloused hand over the sheets and patted them once. He moved to where I stood frozen in the doorway, caught in a memory.

“You looked tired,” he said, eyes glowing. He put his hands on my shoulders and assessed me, words trembling on the edge of his lips. “Are you all right?” His eyes darted away when his gaze reached my injured fingers. I shoved them behind my back. He wasn’t ready for those answers. The ones that came with screams, ice, beggars, and fear.

I shook my head. “I’m fine.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever be fine.

His shoulders slumped. He knew I was lying. I knew he wasn’t fine either.

“Do you still have it?” I asked, my eyes searing holes in his pockets.

A distant rumble of a laugh echoed in his chest because he knew exactly what I was asking for. He fished my handheld from his pants pocket, and I snatched it from him hungrily. My palms dipped with the weight of it, heavy with my promises. I turned so we could both see it, nestling the back of my head into his chest. He brought his hand under mine, holding the screen up closer to our faces, and when our fingers touched, my skin hummed golden songs.

The red light blinked an answer to my question. Joseph leaned down and whispered in my ear, his lips grazing my hairline.

“There he is.” He pointed to the red dot resting in one place. Goosebumps rose on my skin.

I tried to nod but I was too torn, too eager to run out of the door and into the forest, climb a mountain, whatever I needed to do to get back to Orry.

“I know he’s okay,” Joseph said, putting both of his warm hands on my shoulders and spi

JOSEPH

I couldn’t look at her. The damage to her hands, the hollowness of her eyes. Torture ran all over her face in messy lines. I knew what she wanted. I wanted it too, but I was afraid of her lips. Or I was saving them. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was those lips would undo me to the point where a confession was all I was, and I wasn’t ready.

ROSA

I wrapped my arms around his waist and put my ear to his heart, the beat unsteady.