The Wanted

She loves me. Nothing I knew or would ever know compared to that realization.

My laugh grew. She had cracked me open, or glued me back together because I was hysterical, and I could feel myself letting a bit of all the bad things I’d been holding onto go. I stopped hesitating and reached for her scowling body, pulling her onto my chest. Her heart beat strong over mine.

I calmed myself enough to say, “No. Glue is good. It’s perfect.” Perfect. We were broken and perfect.

She smiled and thumped my chest lightly with her fist. Her hair fell on either side of me, blocking out the world. All I could see was her dark face, her pointed nose, and proud cheekbones that held up even prouder eyes. She dipped her mouth to mine and our lips touched. It was the begi

She drew back and cocked her head, a delicious revelation of a smile dancing across her face. “You’re an idiot,” she whispered.

I nodded, trying really hard not to kiss her again, and gave up.

I knew she meant it, but I also knew she loved me for it.

ROSA

He is dented, golden light. I am light, redder than blood. Always, we will come together, strike orange flame, and sink below the clouds with the sun.

ROSA

SIX MONTHS LATER

The Woodlands was a beautiful idea, twisted into something gnarled and rotting. Because a settlement based on the rings of tree trunks should have grown. Each ring marking a passing year, new leaves and branches spreading past the trunk, touching other branches like resting arms.

What happens when you control a tree’s growth? Its roots either become so netted, so wrapped around each other, that it dies… or one finds that tiny crack to push through and breaks free of its containment

The four of us looked up from our breakfast at the timid knock on the door. Rosa-May was the first one up, rushing to the door and swinging it open. Odval stood in the entrance, a shy smile on her face. Her baby was strapped to her chest in a complicated sling.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Pelo is watching the other two back at home,” she answered. She had her hands full with the three lost children from the nursery she had adopted. Almost every Survivor had taken in a child. We had a few here until they were found permanent homes. Plenty of hands had gone up to take them.

This was the beautiful mess we lived in. Four free towns. Four under extremely shaky Superior rule. When they showed Grant’s video, it had the opposite effect to what they had hoped. It had enraged the people. Superior Judith Grant was ‘stood’ down, and now only Poltinov and Sekimbo remained.

“Matthew has asked me to pass on a message to join him at the break this morning,” Odval hummed.

“Now?” I asked with a mouth full of cereal.

“Yes, now.” Odval nodded solemnly.

Joseph chuckled lightly, quickly clearing the dishes. “You heard the lady!”

Odval lingered in the doorway. “I love what you’ve done, Rosa…” I waited as she formed her request. She didn’t need to be weird about it. “I don’t suppose you could come help Pelo and me finish off our extra bedroom? Three children in one room… it’s getting rather cramped,” she asked quietly.

I laughed as Joseph’s arm snaked around my waist. “Of course I can!”

We stepped out of our newly built cottage and I closed the heavy, wooden door behind us. Its solidity reassured me. I’d wanted to be near Pau but not inside the walls. I just couldn’t go back in there after what happened to my mother. I couldn’t make Rosa-May go back in there either. Cottages spotted the woods like they’d always been there. A lot of the citizens shared our feelings on living inside Pau Brazil after Ring Two was destroyed.

Joseph batted at Rosa-May’s legs. “So Posie, you want a ride?” She gri

He swept her up and hoisted her onto his shoulders.

Orry and I held hands and swung them high as we found the new road that led from Pau Brazil to Bagassa and walked towards the break in the wall.

We approached the gathering crowd and like a bright torch in a tu

Matthew stood in front of the break, scratching his leg nervously, the breeze causing the thousands of red death marker ribbons to wave and jump from the twisted concrete like they were alive. Survivors crowded around closest to him. The citizens of Pau formed an outer shell. Except for where Gwen stood, surrounded by kids from the Classes. They pierced the unspoken thin-film barrier that stood between Survivor and Woodlands Citizen. They padded after her and hung off her every word on music and culture, and she loved it. If they ever reopened the Classes as a university, whatever that meant, like Matthew wanted, she would make a great Guardian.

When Matthew saw me, he smiled and ran over, pushing his way through the crowd.

“Look at Gwen,” I said. “Wouldn’t she make a great Guardian?” She smirked at me and gestured to all the eager eyes on her.

“If we manage to re-open the Classes as a university, we’d call them counselors, Rosa,” Matthew corrected. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care what word we used—I was counting on the meanings behind them changing.

Matthew took my arm, his eyes widening in nervous panic as he took in the large group of people whose faces had followed him to me. “I can’t do this. I’m a doctor, not a politician.”

“They chose you,” I said, sweeping my arm in an arc over everyone who had voted for Matthew, almost unanimously, to be our representative in the negotiations for peace with the remaining four settlements that would take place in the now-empty Classes compound.

“I wish you were coming with me,” he said, pumping his injured hand to steel himself.

I paused. He had asked. But I couldn’t leave my family again. He understood. I was helping here, doing my small part and stepping into the background, into the shade of the others who would lead. They didn’t need me. It was a wonderful, all-encompassing feeling of release.

“You don’t need me,” I said, smiling, real face-full-of-teeth kind of smiling.

Joseph leaned over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, sending that golden thrill through me that only he could, “I need you.” But I knew what he really meant was he wanted me.

“You’re doing fine without me,” I managed, winding one hand through Joseph’s and pushing Matthew forward with the other.

He nodded. “Okay. Thank you,” he said, bundling his nerves together and placing them in his shirt pocket.

Matthew strode back through the crowd, climbed atop a broken slab concrete, and turned to address the watching eyes, the waiting hearts,

“Citizens of the Free Woodlands…”

Can't get enough of The Woodlands Series?  Don't forget to check out Lauren's newest novella, The Willful!  This is the first of several novellas that are to be released over the next year.