The Wounded (The Woodlands Series) (12 page)

“Oh, that’s ok. I understand.” As he swung around the first
handrail, I said, “Can you just let me know when you come down? I want to know that you’re safe.”

“Sure
,” he said as he took two steps at a time with his extended limbs.

I closed the door and left Frederick to mourn. Something I felt I couldn’t quite do
yet, because I wasn’t sure who I was mourning.

*****

I returned to my little rectangle of concrete and stared at my hands, picking out the dark creases that ran across my palm like rivers of mud. When Frederick tapped me on the shoulder an hour later, I felt like he had zapped me with a stunner.

“You should go. It will be good for you
,” he said, pointing to the door and upwards.

I got up and made my
way over to the door, tripping over people and ducking when I saw Pelo. After only twenty-four hours in here, I felt like I needed air, even if it was ashy. I wanted to taste the wind. Pushing the door open, I ran up the stairs.

I reached the top, and the howl of the wind brought me back to the bodies buried in ash. Gulping, I put my hand over my mouth. This was where the rest of the car park had broken off and slid towards the Hole. I crept towards the edge and peered over. It all looked so precarious, so ready to crumple and squash everyone inside. I shook my head and pulled back, the tips of my ears and nose screaming for warmth. I turned back and scanned the level. Everything was violently snapped in half. Although this violence had happened hundreds of years ago, it still lived in this gaping lesion of a building.

A burning smell crept up my
nose, filling me with a sense of comfort, with home. I followed the smell to glowing embers and a small pile of debris, glowing against a bright green, shiny vehicle. One car was left behind. Did the others make it out, or were they somewhere in that Hole with the others?

I sat down with my back against a crumbling wall and
searched the sky, my head scratching against the rough concrete that was all-too familiar. The moon was a sliver, like a wound stabbed through the sky. I could almost imagine on the other side was some bright, golden world—almost.

The wind still
howled, blowing embers and smoke around me like a sparking tornado. I stamped out the fire and reached out to touch the car. It was such a vibrant color. A yellow stripe ran down the side. It represented a life I couldn’t understand, and a life that was lost down a loud, whirling tunnel of fire and hate. But for all of that, for its wastefulness, it was still beautiful.

I swiped my hand across the window and peered inside. It was dark and clean. Strands of beads and gold and red ornaments hung from a mirror in the
center. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I moved around the car, trying each one, but they were all locked.

I pulled on the handle harder and felt
it give slightly, the metal making a gritty noise as it fought against me.

“Are you trying to escape?”
a familiar voice asked, an edge of gruffness to it. I jumped at the voice and pulled my finger out, reopening a cut as they grazed the rusty metal.

“Ouch!” I put my finger in my
mouth, instantly regretting it as the taste of rust made me want to vomit.

He was there fast, wrapping his arms around me and inspecting my finger. “Are you ok?” A question that seemed impossible to answer.

I nodded and returned to pulling at the door handle, bringing my foot up to try and lever it open.

“I’m fine,” I said, my forehead creased in concentration. “I just want to see inside.” I twisted
, feeling the ache of my broken rib seesawing over my abdomen. I doubled over with my hand still hanging on limply to the handle. “Ah.”

I heard
an exasperated sigh. “Of course you do,” he said, placing his hand over mine and tugging the handle. My body hummed at the contact. The door popped and creaked open slowly, solid, compacted dust falling from the crack.

Joseph looked down at me with concern
, and then he smirked. “I think you better let me give you that examination.” He swept his arm in front of him and indicated for me to go inside the car.

“I’m fine,” I grimaced, “
but if it will shut you up, then let’s get on with it.”

I shuffled along the long back seat
and let myself sink into the cushions. Wiggling into further into them, I let out a big sigh. “Where’s Orry?” I asked.

Joseph search
ed his pocket and withdrew a small flashlight. “He’s sleeping,” Joseph said, his expression hard. “He can sleep.”

He put the flashlight between his teeth and put his hands
on my waist.

I tried not to wince when his hand brushed over my ribs
. “You can’t sleep?” I asked.

Joseph’s warm hands pushed gently on my right side,
and then moved to my left. When he pushed around the base of my ribs, I let out a sharp squeak. He took the torch into his right hand and spoke, “I sleep, just not very well. It’s hard you know. Nightmares.”

I nodded
. I knew.

He
tenderly moved his fingers up my ribs, gliding over them and pushing carefully. I breathed in sharply. He stopped. “Does that hurt?”

I shook my head. I wanted to say
that nothing hurt. But I was in pain. I felt like I would be until we were together again.

I put my hand over his and brought it to my lap. “
Talk to me.”

He looked down at our hands. “I don’t know. What good would it do? Telling you only makes it more real. I don’t know if I want that.”

I leaned in and kissed him softly. His lips received but didn’t return.

“Whatever it
is, just tell me, or it’ll never end. It’ll stay inside you, eat at you.” I grazed the corner of his mouth with my finger. “And then this sadness that’s living in there, it won’t go away.”

He opened his mouth to speak. I braced myself against what I thought was coming. I knew he was angry with me.

He released his hand and lifted my shirt again. “Your lower rib is broken. But it should heal well.”

He tried to
withdraw, but I put my hand over his and held it there.

“Joseph…”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, incensed.

“I’m sorry.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I know. It’s ok. I know why you went. I know you failed. How can I put any more on top of that?”

I laughed half-heartedly
. “I can take it.”

He smiled. “You know
, I was really angry. When you left, I couldn’t believe it. But then, everything that’s happened, the people we’ve lost… Well, it took over. I don’t care about that anymore. In a way, I’m glad you weren’t there.” He gripped the edge of the seat strongly, like he would rip it up. I felt tears sliding down my face. I felt so guilty it was strangling me.

“I wish I had been there
with you,” I said, reaching for that tense hand.

“I don’t
,” he said in a voice so bitter it left a sour taste in my mouth. “You would have done something stupid, like offering yourself up in Deshi’s place. Then Orry would have lost his mother all over again.”

I held his hand against me closer, even though it hurt to brea
the. I felt like I needed to feel some pain.

“I’m sorry
,” I whispered.

He hit the side
of the door. “Stop saying that! You don’t know. They killed Apella. They took my best friend. Alexei is a shell, and everyone is looking to me. You want to know my nightmare? It was living those days, thinking you were dead. Thinking you’d left me, and you weren’t coming back.”

I smiled and cupped his
chin, forcing him to look at me. Surprised by my own calm. “And you said you weren’t angry.”

He sniffed and bent his forehead down to touch mine. “I guess I am
,” he said softly, but then he huffed. “But mostly I’m just so sad, Rosa.”

I leaned forward
, kissing him, and this time he returned my kiss fully. He parted my lips and pressed down like weeks were piled into this one kiss. His hand snagged in my hair and he pulled my head back, pressing his mouth to my neck. Skipping over my bruised rib, he ran his hand under my shirt and over my bra. My heart skipped into a knowable rhythm. I couldn’t breathe or I was breathing hard, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was we were returning to something.

I put my leg over him so I was sitting in his lap, rushing my hands under his shirt, pulling it off in a struggle.
I wrapped my tongue around his earlobe, and he moaned as he fumbled around for shirt buttons, giving up and tugging it over my head. It was still hanging off my wrist as he started to unbutton my pants. I pulled them off awkwardly, everything kicked into the well behind the driver’s seat. Clothes were in the way.

We paused for a moment; the thin stream of light of the abandoned penlight cut a line across his eyes and the bridge of his nose. I put my hands to his face and took him in, one hand still buttoned up in a shirt cuff but both burning. Joseph’s stare was loving and intense
. He lifted me up, and we collapsed into one another.

This was different. This was the same.

It was rougher, warmer… more need and less discovery. I was certain it felt exactly as it should. For a moment, we could lose our sadness. We could wrap around each other and forget the disaster surrounding us; the ashy claws that would try to drag us down.

I wasn’t making it up to him. Anger would still be there later. But we were
‘it’. Always. We would work it out. If we had time. We would.

We never had a choice.

“We need to get back to Orry,” I said
, my breath coming out steamy. The windows were fogged up, and it was starting to feel a bit stale in the car. Joseph nodded and rummaged around on the floor, separating out his clothes from mine. He nudged my shoulder and winked at me.

“I love you, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. I never doubted that part. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

As
I pulled on my pants, something occurred to me. “How’d you know I failed? I mean, my mother could have been back at the hospital with the others.”

Joseph shrugged
. “Pelo told me.”

Anger bubbled busily beneath the warmth of what we had just done.

I picked up the torch and shone it at his face. “Oh yeah, what else did Pelo tell you?”

Joseph looked mischievous, his beautiful eyes shining more gold than green under the light. “He warned me.”

I bit down on my tongue in shock. “Warned you about what?”

“About your little friend. He said you were rather close on the journey home.”

My fingers curled into a fist, begging me to punch something.

“Can you do me a
favor?” I asked in a tight voice, my lips barely moving as I spoke.

“What? You’re not going to ask me if I’m worried about this ‘friendship’ you have?”
he said with mock hurt.

I ignored him. He knew. He knew how I felt, what I was capable of. The idea that there was something going on between Rash and
me, other than friendship, was ridiculous and didn’t deserve any attention.