The Wounded (The Woodlands Series) (16 page)

Time
ticks forward

Time
takes away

It will take you away

Away from me

We
’re fighting against the seconds

But they
always catch you in the end

They
always catch you in the end

He was right.
We were always fighting, against time, against each other. It never ended, and it never got easier.

I hovered through the house, stripping sheets and dusting the
sills, with Pietre’s amazing singing voice stalking me, the words of his song echoing in my own heart. So much of what I felt was in that one chorus. I was baffled.

Everything
was always unexpected. I would never have guessed that Pietre was some kind of baby whisperer. The knowledge that he had this soft side had a weird effect on me, turning my stomach and warming my heart at the same time.

I hung in the arch between the kitchen and the living
room, watching the two boys interact. I spoiled it by breathing too loudly. Pietre’s head snapped to me, and the moment was broken.

“What are you staring at?”
he grunted. I eyed his hand, which was still clasped around my son’s chubby little stomach.

I smiled
. “Nothing.”

“You
know, I’m not the monster you think I am,” he said, scruffing up Orry’s blond curls. “I wanted one of these for myself one day.” His eyes connected with my son’s. “And then I could teach them all about great Indie rock.”

“You still can
,” I said flippantly, noting the name of the band so I could look up the song.

Pietre gave a sour laugh. “Not here.”

I finished cleaning up and left. Pietre didn’t thank me. I didn’t really expect him to.

There was something coming. A change.
Not here
, he’d said. He was right. We couldn’t stay here.

The idea sucked the air out of me.

Surrounded by the S
piders, the beat of unsteady and different voices drummed at my head. It looked like a small circus had arrived at the Survivor’s settlement. These people were as far from All Kind as you could get, and that distance was pushed even further by their need for change. They were the dissidents, the unwanted, and the mistreated. Except for perhaps Olga. Despite her odd appearance, I was interested to learn she was a well-respected scientist. But like Apella, she found the breeding program hard to stomach.

E
leven Spiders, including my father, hovered around the front of the stage. Some leaned with their arms over a table, others talked to the eager Survivors. It was noisy, and I was glad I’d left Orry at home with Odval.

A circle of
red, shiny cans mixed with greenish-blue ones glowed on the table under the theater lights. The Spiders turned them over in their hands suspiciously. I laughed in amusement, as I watched the reactions when the cans were cracked open. Noses were pinched and gulps were taken, resulting in burps. I shook one up and tossed it to Rash. It exploded as soon as he opened it, soaking his shirt with sugary, brown liquid. He flashed his white teeth and took a swig. He seemed to like it. I noticed he had changed his shoes as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back against a pillar, chugging the rest of his drink and swiping his mouth. He now wore the canvas sneakers we all wore. It suited him.

The Spiders had
been summoned, along with the senior members of the community and any of us who had gone on the recovery mission. So Joseph and I were there, Matthew, Gus, Pietre, and Careen. Rash was invited and stood casually leaning against one of the theater chairs, wearing a bemused expression, his eyes running up and down the heavy, velvet curtains. My face cracked into a grin when our eyes connected. There were so many things to explain to him about this place.

The leaders sat at the front as they always
did, and the man with the long braid called out, “Welcome Spiders. We are so pleased you made it to our settlement.” He pulled the braid over his shoulder and started twisting it in his fingers. “Unfortunately, we have do not have much time in which to plan our next move. So I will forgo formalities and ask you to submit your passports immediately.”

There were a few murmurs. I search
ed Joseph’s eyes; he shrugged and returned his gaze to the stage. There was something stiff in his manner. Rash beamed at me. His eyes said,
Can’t wait to see what happens next
. We watched as the Spiders moved towards the tables, rummaged around in their pockets, and threw handfuls of small, black discs on the table that clanged against each other like plastic coins.

“Can everyone take a seat
?” the braid man asked, his face serious.

We filled the first two rows of the
theater. I was sandwiched between Rash and Joseph in what felt like a one-sided tug-o-war. Joseph’s hand clamped down on my thigh. I eyed it, and then swept it off. His hand turned to a fist, resting on his own leg. The lights went off, and the velvet curtains parted with a squeak and a roll. The sound of age-old ropes and pulleys not used for years. Clumps of dust the size of cotton balls fell from the ceiling, landing on the stage and at my feet. People coughed and sneezed. A cloudy atmosphere surrounded us, oppressive and dark. My mind wrapped around the moment a little too tightly. Uncomfortable, I squirmed in my seat, my legs jittering. Rash went to put his hand on my leg, but Joseph’s stare was like a shot of flame, even in the half dark, and Rash withdrew.

Gus and Matthew lifted a
large, metal box onto the table and fiddled around, aiming it towards the white screen that was revealed behind the curtain. A spot of light grew until it filled the entire space. Gus grunted as he picked up one of the discs, placed it inside a tray on the box, and shoved it closed.

The light
flickered, and a wobbly image appeared and slowly stabilized. It was a picture of a crowd of Woodland soldiers, all in black. Two white tents were set up, and the soldiers were lining up. The image focused closely on one soldier sitting in a chair, a woman pulling his hair back as she carefully smudged his face with tan colored paint. The soldier was young, his eyes scrunched tight, and his black curls strung back from his face by the unforgiving woman’s hand. The theater had become so quiet. People leaned forward in their seat, scrutinizing the bizarre behavior. Some soldier were laughing and milling around outside the tents with plastic caps on their heads. The sun hit them when they passed outside the shadow of the wall and brassy strands of dyed hair glinted in the light.

After two
minutes, the image flicked over to another scene in which a woman was having a tug-of-war with a soldier, each holding the hand of a girl of maybe twelve. The mother’s swollen belly revealed the reason for the struggle.

There was image after image of Woodland cruelty. S
chematic drawings of certain buildings were a welcome respite from the violence. Lists of sympathizers and another list of people particularly loyal to the Woodlands popped up, and notes were taken. Lots of the films were soldiers carrying out punishments. One incidence was particularly chilling, as it showed a soldier refusing to carry out a punishment and his superior reversing the roles and having the offender carry out the finger smashing on the soldier.

As I watched
this, my eyelids started to blink for longer. Each time they closed, I waited longer to open them because there was always a new violence, a new atrocity for me to witness. Without meaning to, Joseph had clasped my hand in both of his. He took deep breaths with every new film, his chest expanding with what I imagined was heat. There was anger and shock in all of us, and it was breaking its way to the surface.

When they started showing images of the underground
facility, I didn’t identify it immediately. It could have been a hospital anywhere. It was only when they showed a birth, a girl with lolling eyes in a pink room, looking confused and sweaty. There was a crowd of doctors around her, the child burst through with a scream, and then they separated them. The child was laid down on a table and was inspected, eyes poked, skin pinched. Someone said, “Pretty close,” and they swaddled the baby and left.

My lips felt dry, an uneasy, queasy feeling rising and sinking in my stomach. Joseph had released my
hand, and I could feel that both his and Rash’s eyes had left the screen and were now staring intently at me. When they showed the exercise room, my whole body heaved. I gripped the sides of the chair like it was rocking in an angry sea. My vision bubbled and bulged. It was starker than I remembered. The pathetic images still flicked. The blue sky overhead was scratched, revealing grey concrete. Bedraggled girls shuffled in lines, their knotted hair falling in their eyes, their giant stomachs weighing them down, hard as boulders.

Whispering
, “Oh Jesus,” I put my hand over my mouth and just stopped. I stopped breathing, stopped moving. I felt the gas drug cloud swirling around me. I heard Clara’s voice searching for me in the darkness. I felt Orry moving inside me, the hatred, the fear, and the crushing helplessness. I stood up and slowly moved towards the aisle, taking small gasps of air, but it was like the gas was everywhere. I didn’t dare breathe. When I got to the aisle, I ran, slipping on the carpet and clutching my stomach protecting the bump that was no longer there. I pulled myself up and it was like climbing a mountain, a shaking, rumbling mountain.

I could hear them
behind me, but I ignored it. I couldn’t think. I slammed through the toilet doors and into a stall, making myself small and breathless like a soft stone. I tried to picture blackness, but those girls, those bodies, kept shoving me through the lines. Because there was nothing better and nothing worse than how I felt. I got out, I escaped, and with that came a flood of relief. But snagged in the raging water of that flood, were sharp stabs of guilt and grief.

I felt myself
flying open and slamming shut like an errant window in a storm. I couldn’t reconcile myself.

I could hear the door open slowly
, the air heavy and disturbed around two distinct bodies.

“I understand it more now, you know, why she is…”

“Yeah, well, I don’t understand how anyone could go through that and not be changed.”

Steps came closer.

“What do we do?”

“Th
is isn’t a
we
thing. She needs
you
. Tell her I’m outside if she wants.”

The door closed and one pair of
sneakers was left, peeking under the door of my stall.

*****

Relaxing my leg, I let it slide towards the gap under the door. I was exhausted and suddenly uncomfortable as the toilet smells wafted up my nose and I realized my hair was draped over the toilet seat.

A
lightly freckled hand wrapped around my boot gently.

“Rosa. Are you ok?” His voice was soft and
earnest, but I didn’t like the pity I thought I heard.

“Well
… now you know why I’m so damaged,” I said quietly.

“I don’t think that
,” Joseph said surely. I folded my arms across my chest, barricading my heart as he spoke. “I am amazed at you. You’re so strong. You survived all of that. I’m… I’m kinda humbled in your presence.” I could feel him smiling on the other side of the door, but I couldn’t quite believe him.

“I don’t feel strong,” I said, edging my way backwards. “I feel like nothing.”

“You’re not nothing.” He tightened his grip on my foot. “You’re everything,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes
, nothing,” I said resolutely. “How could I leave them there? I feel like I should have done something, done more.”

Joseph stood up and pushed the door open. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. I
didn’t want to look at him. A warm finger slid under my chin and raised my face. His eyes opened me up like nothing else. There was fire in them, calm and heat at the same time.

“You couldn’t do anything, not then. But now you can. What do you think this is all about? We’re not watching this horror movie for fun. We are planning. This is where we get to be part of something.”