The Wanted

I want to kiss her. Though I know I have to wait until she comes to me. It has to be her decision. I pray it won’t be long, but I’ll wait a year if I have to.

I. Will. Do. Anything. She. Wants.

Fu

It was one of the many reasons I loved her so damn much.

ROSA

I needed time to let the images settle at the bottom of my brain. It was too fresh and it kept snapping at me, begging to be viewed. I needed her blonde, freckled face and light green eyes to become a transparent memory.

Joseph scooped me up and stood with me still cradled in his arms. Gently, reluctantly, he allowed me to fall to my feet. The ground felt firmer, still a little shaky, but not crumbling away.

I let him take my hand. It was a strange feeling, stinging for a second before it melted into what it was before. I hoped that would change.

We smothered the fire and walked back to the chopper.

ROSA

We trudged through the clearing, and Deshi shot up from where he was squatting over a gas burner and saucepan. A plume of steam and the ti

“Okay, okay…” He panted breathlessly. “Well, she didn’t kill you. That’s a start.” Joseph managed a weak laugh in response.

I broke away from Joseph, his fingers gripping my hand until the last second, and let them talk. Everything was packed and ready to go. I wandered up to Denis, who was perched on the edge of the chopper cabin, poking food around his small, metal bowl. I threw the pack in the back of the craft.

“You’ll get used to it,” I said. Rosa-May’s shadow stepped forward from within, the light hitting her frowning face. It was amazing how much she looked like me, especially when she was angry. Paulo was completely absent in her. A good thing. I bowed my head in thanks that she never knew him. She held out her hands for me. In only two days, she’d come to trust me.

“I doubt I’ll ever get used to this,” Denis replied smoothly, reaching for his headphones that were no longer there.

“We have music too. I’m sure Gwen could help you with that when we get back.” My chipper voice was more like soggy bark chips, dull and unconvincing. Besides, I didn’t really care whether he was comfortable or not. It was never a concern he had for me. I was about to add that maybe he shouldn’t ask Gwen for anything, considering he’d abandoned her to die. But I left it, feeling a prickle of evil satisfaction at the fact that she’d probably tear him apart if he did ask her for something. My smile was dipped in acid sugar and he gave me a peculiar look, as if he knew there was a nasty thought lurking behind it. I shrugged, picked Rosa-May up, and squeezed her middle. “I’m sorry I was away for so long.” She nodded, her roundish chin touching her chest. Still no words.

We waited the two hours needed for the batteries to charge before I retrieved the panels. During the wait, we ate our breakfast, plotted our course, and then, after they were reattached, we left. We rose up, wobbling between the trees like a puppet on strings.

Skimming through the air like a bug, I decided I liked this untouched-by-humans part of the forest. The hand of our inferior species hadn’t razed this corner, stumped its growth. It meant the trees were full. The world was wild and how it should be.

I focused on my sister, purposefully seating her between Joseph and me. Unspoken, un-dealt-with things stacked between us. Just because I was willing to stay, to hold onto him, didn’t mean I was fine. Every time I let my thoughts drift, they kept wandering back to the same place like a self-destructive homing pigeon. Him and her. It turned my stomach over once and then knotted it tightly.

I put my hand in Rosa-May’s hair mindlessly stroked the top of her head as we whirred over the tops of the trees, the foliage of each touching the other like a dense, squidgy floral arrangement.

“Look down there,” I said, pointing to a large gap in the trees. She glanced at it unenthusiastically and then went back to her fidgety fingers. She had half-moons in her fingernails, just like me. I thought of Mother, trimming her nails and mine. Chastising me when I had chewed them, sighing, always sighing at my defiance. Her memory coated this child like an extra layer of skin.

A smashed section of mirror lay on the land—a lake, reflective in the middle and frozen around the edges. The ice crept inwards like white ghosts racing to the center of the water. I craned my neck and could see the black underbelly of the chopper reflected in the water.

Joseph pinched Rosa-May’s elbow and winked at her. “See over there?” He pointed to the middle. When he spoke to her, he forced air and light into his tone and it lifted her head. “They say there’s a monster living in the bottom of the lake, and when children laugh, it jumps out of the water and does a flip.”

I wanted to ask, Who’s they? I wanted to play along, but I didn’t.

I rolled my eyes, but Rosa-May looked up from her lap and pressed her face to the window behind us, twisting in her harness. While she peered out of the window, Joseph tickled her. Her laugh was husky, chords ru

“I saw it! Did you see it?” he shouted. She shook her head, pouting. We passed over the lake and brushed the tips of the trees again. “Well, on our way home, you better look more closely.” She nodded, very serious.

I covered my mouth but a small giggle slipped out.

The air cooled as the chopper climbed, the green forest gradually swallowed by white. I put my arm around Rosa-May’s shoulders and rubbed her little arms. My hand brushed Joseph’s elbow, and he sighed loudly when I withdrew sharply.

“Sorry,” I shouted.

He shook his head. “Don’t be,” he said, reaching for my face.

I let him touch my cheek briefly before I twisted away. The feelings were the same with just this one obstacle: A paper-thin picture I couldn’t get out of my head. This was difficult, wanting and not wanting out of principle at the same time.

The angle of the chopper changed abruptly, and we were scaling a mountain. I laughed and both Rosa-May and Joseph gave me a curious look. Pietre had certainly taken me literally when I’d said take Orry somewhere ‘up’.

The higher we climbed, the thi

Near the peak, the straight, flat lines of multi-story buildings peeked out from beneath lumps of snow. Deshi waved his slender arms about, pointing through the front window. Below, a building with a faded, red H painted on the roof rose out of the white like a dirty, grey building block no would want to play with. Denis nodded and swung over the top of it.

The chopper swayed and wavered in the wind, easing itself down clumsily until its legs hit the concrete roof with a plastic slap.

Deshi turned, his dark brows raised in excitement. “This is as close as I could get us safely. We’ll have to walk from here,” he said with an edge of a squeal lurking behind his expression.