The Wounded (The Woodlands Series) (19 page)

We split up into smaller groups
of a few hundred people. We started as one giant organism, and then pulled apart so as not to draw too much attention to ourselves. Predators stayed away because there were so many of us; we didn’t see any soldiers. They had probably returned to the Woodlands now, with Deshi. I walked with my shoulders hunched. Despite Joseph’s effort to pull them down, I was wound tight, bound up with all my insecurities about my father. I only had myself to blame for letting him into my life. The consequence was his bouncy, non-stop enthusiasm, which made me want to run repeatedly into a pine tree until I knocked myself out.

Rash wandered through the whole group, collecting friends as he went. He and Joseph even seemed to be coming to an understanding. Although I suspect it had more to do with the fact that Rash had started focusing his attention towards a shy girl who was part of our group.
My complete opposite; round, amply breasted, with short, blonde hair that framed her cute face. She was always tucking it behind her ears. Rash was always teasing her and un-tucking it, which made her flush scarlet, two perfect apples appearing on her cheeks.

I was watching him dance around her like an idiot when Joseph nudged me. “You jealous?”
he asked with a smile on his face, but his voice was careful. Orry snored on Joseph’s back, their curls matching up and creating one golden halo that didn’t include me.

I looked up at him, wondering whether I should provoke him or reassure him. I squinted into the light shining behind his hair and sighed at his ridiculous beauty. “Nope
,” I said, continuing to stare up, my lips pursed.

Joseph frowned. “That’s it?”

“What am I supposed to say?” I asked, confused. We stopped, and I took a swig of water from my bottle, handing it to Joseph.

He paused before sipping
. “Well, I thought since Rash is an ex-boyfriend, you might have some feelings about him chasing after another girl.”

T
he water I was about to swallow reversed and came out my mouth and nose as I snorted.

“
What? You think Rash and I…?” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

I leaned over and wiped my face, shaking with laughter.

Joseph’s stern shadow hung over me. “Stop laughing. It’s not that unreasonable an assumption,” he said, embarrassed. “I saw you back at the Classes, you were always so close.”

I tried to calm myself
, taking a deep breath. “Look, Rash and I have always been friends, and that’s all.” I pointed over at Rash and the girl. “Clearly, I’m not his type. Can we please just let this go?” I asked.

Joseph
looked from me, to the girl, to Rash, and back again, and then he smirked, “All right.”

I really hoped it was the last time I would hear about this.

*****

We were nearly there. Some of the groups
took a less direct route and would arrive over the next few days. We were the first to arrive. Everyone stood on the edges of the crumbling city, tired and sore from sleeping on the ground and hungry from eating only quick-hunted game and sparse supplies. We were dirty and completely over it.

The
sun-bleached walls splattered with bird poo were not overwhelmingly welcoming. The city was huge, with plenty of places to hide, but this was not home. Gus shouted, waving his hands about, trying to get our attention. The group curled around him like a folding petal as he spoke. “I’m going in to ask permission. Can I have three flanking volunteers?”

My eyes narrowed at the word ‘permission’.
Permission from who? The monkeys? I pictured those yellow eyes and whipping, striped tails, cringing.

Joseph’s hand shot up
. My head snapped to him and then my hand careered into the air, waggling around like a loose stick in the wind, before I could stop it. Nobody else volunteered, which worried me, so Gus picked someone who was unluckily standing at the front of the group. The man’s shoulders drooped, and he shuffled reluctantly to stand on one side of Gus.

I handed Orry to Rash
. He eyed the baby apprehensively. “Here, spend some quality time with you nephew.” I smirked as his face registered surprise.

He took Orry’s capsule with the child snuggled inside it and swung it under his nose. “Er, ok, but I’m not changing any crappy nappies.”

“I won’t be long.” I looked to Gus, and he nodded.

“Wait here until we return
,” Gus barked gruffly to the rest of the Survivors. The group receded beyond the tree line like a low-lying mist, and the thump of packs hitting the ground and tins rattling travelled through the woods. Gus turned and walked briskly towards the city with the three of us trailing him.

*****

The city was the same as we’d left it almost nine months ago. Everything crumbled at the edges, colors once bright were faded and clinging to the remaining timber frames like mold. Gus was practically running, and my short legs had to scramble to keep up with him. He stormed through the streets, turning sharply like he was on a track. He knew exactly where he was going. Joseph kept looking sideways at me. We didn’t speak; it didn’t seem like we should.

Finally,
we turned a corner and were faced with a beautiful stone building bordered by cobblestones. Its spires scraped the sky. A tattered banner flipped back and forth in the wind from one of its two high windows, looking like a pirate patch. The other large, arched window was splintered with red-stained glass; the building looked like it was crying blood.

Gus kept powering headfirst while the three of us stood back, taking in this for
eboding building.

“DING!” The sound made us all jump out of our
skin, and Gus paused momentarily before he climbed the wide, stone stairs and turned around to glare at us. The great wrought iron arms of a clock clicked into place, and it dinged another ten times.

My hand found
Joseph’s, and we stared at the birds startling and resettling like they had heard this a million times before.

Gus stood
at the top of the stairs. The dark, wiry man stood out against the light sandstone, with his hands on his hips, grimacing. “Hurry up!” He stomped his foot, and we ran-walked over to him.

We passed through brass doors that
screeched across the tiled floor, pushing broken glass and debris with it as it folded in. I blinked several times at the vast, open ceiling. It must have once been covered in glass, but now all you could see were steel girders cutting the sky into six even pieces, shooting light down across the mosaic-tiled floor below.

We
were in the middle of a circle with dark tunnels bordering the central part. Names and times were depicted on boards over each entrance. We were in a train station.

“What are we doing here?” I
asked, my voice echoing out across the space.

Gus scratch
ed his head, pointing at each tunnel and repeating the numbers aloud as he was reading. “Damn it. Was it four or fourteen? I can’t remember.”

The rest of us
glanced to each other, shrugging our shoulders. Had Gus finally lost it? He wasn’t making any sense. He just kept shuffling around in circles, pointing at each entrance and then rubbing his forehead anxiously.

His hand
dropped to his side, and he itched his pant leg nervously. I thought maybe he was going to explain what the hell was going on, but then he cupped his hands to his mouth and screamed, “Salim!”

The
name, chant, or whatever it was, bounced off the walls and came to rest in the silent minutes that followed.

I moved closer to Joseph
. The other Survivor with us side stepped closer too. Something was moving towards us from tunnel fourteen. It was a scurrying, swishing noise, sort of sporadic, stopping and starting. As it got louder, I stepped backwards, the entrance shrieking now, and I put my hands to my ears at the noise, which sounded like fangs, spit, and fur.

Yellow eyes appeared in the black of the
tunnel, accompanied by yawning mouths that screamed and jostled, occasionally turning and snapping at each other.

Joseph squeezed my arm a little
too tightly. I pressed my toes into the red and yellow tiles, ready to run. Then Gus slapped his thigh and laughed. “Fourteen! Fourteen! I always get it wrong.”

*****

He looked pretty normal, except for the fact that as he started clapping his hands in a slow, steady rhythm, streams of monkeys spiraled around him in a circle. I tilted my head and stared at his intricate hair, knotted into tiny bumps all over his head like little, round hedges. He stepped out of the darkness, a gleaming white lab coat thrown over his shoulders, and smiled. Giant, white teeth glistened against his dark lips.

Gus threw his hand
s in the air and walked towards the dark-skinned man. “Salim!”

“No
,” I managed meekly. But Gus walked straight up to the man and opened his arms. The man whistled thinly, and the monkeys started scaling the columns of the central space, looking like a swarm of cockroaches, whooping and screeching as they went. One stayed with the man, jumping onto his forearm and perching on his shoulder, wrapping its striped tail loosely around the man’s neck.

Gus and the man
hugged, and the rest of us were at an absolute loss for words.

Joseph recovered quickly and muttered, “Cool
,” under his breath. I had no reaction other than to stare with my mouth open. Apella and Alexei were right after all. There were people, or at least a person, in this city all along.

Gus and the man
, who I assumed was Salim, broke apart and turned to us. Salim stared down at us. He was as tall as Joseph and had a royal air about him. But he had a monkey sitting on his shoulder, and that was all I could look at. I wanted to say, ‘Do you realize there’s a filthy primate bouncing up and down on your nice white coat?’ but I couldn’t find any words for the circus I’d walked into. He stepped toward me and stared at my hands. I nervously put them behind my back, and he arched a bushy, grey eyebrow at me before clicking his tongue. The monkey on his shoulder screeched, jumped down, and scampered towards me. I pointed my toe out at it, trying to fend it back, but it went straight for my hands, pulling them in front of me and glaring at me with hard eyes like yellow candy.

Salim
’s eyes widened when he saw my tattoo, the one I’d almost forgotten was there.

“What’s this then?
What have you brought to us, Gus?” he asked in a very considered tone, bordering on condescension.

“They’re escapees, her and the boy,” Gus sa
id dismissively.

Salim
laughed loudly, the sound booming along the walls and hitting me in the face like a suffocating pillow. “No one escapes. Banished? Yes. Escape? No.”

It
was Gus’s turn to be condescending. “You’ve been underground too long, old friend.”

Salim
’s laugh cut out as suddenly as it started, and the monkeys began banging at the walls frantically. It was an erratic, earsplitting drumming, which sounded primal and deathly. The old man tightened his fist, the tiny pockmarks scattered across his cheeks stretching as he raised one hand in the air. It was suddenly quiet, but the temporary kind of quiet.

“Why are you here?”
he asked, mindlessly stroking the tail curled over his shoulder. I tried hard not to gag.

Gus cleared his throat
. “We are here to seek refuge.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely.”

Joseph and I both slumped noticeably.
He squeezed my hand and looked out at me from beneath his dirty blond hair. The disappointment in his eyes darkened them to a murky sea-green. There was a storm in there. Any chance we had of getting back to Deshi just flapped and flew into the sliced-up sky.

Salim and his people welcomed us into their world. They squashed us into their small society and asked for nothing in return. They could see how broken we were.