The Wounded (The Woodlands Series) (25 page)

I stood and faced Matthew. “You’ll find a way
.”

*****

You’re so small. So unknowing. You don’t know how you were made, only that you are loved. You will be loved. Forever. You are the best part of me. If you go, I’m nothing but rust and rags.

Deshi, I’m glad you were spared this. This feeling inside that you might lose your child was like a spinning spur in your guts. It was cutting,
slicing, and shredding me to a pulp.

Joseph and I clung to each other like we were drowning. I would be strong for him as he would be strong for
me, but strength was useless in this fight. Only science could win.

I pulled my chair closer to
Orry’s bed. His chubby little body was wasting away already. His skin was pale, with his tiny lips pursing like he was displeased about something. One hand curled up, the other flat like a star. I smoothed his curls from his face and waited for the flinch, the suck of breath when I disturbed him, but he didn’t move. He wouldn’t move at all, and I wanted to shake him.

Matthew pulled the curtain back and took in my
grief-stricken face. I gazed up at him like a starving child. “Take something out of me and give it to him,” I begged, gripping his shirt desperately. “Please. I can’t do nothing… be nothing.” He took my hands in his and just watched me with miserable eyes. I couldn’t look at him, at any of them anymore.

What could I do?

Nothing.

I slid back from the bed
, stood carefully, feeling myself slowing erupting, a flood of panicked tears rising from my feet to my head until I felt that I might turn to water. I moved deliberately, mechanically, to the door, Joseph’s eyes tracking me. My hand shook as I opened it. Pelo looked up, smiling inappropriately. Apella tried to speak but only managed to cough. I turned my back to them, and I ran.

Hands reached for me, pleading voices asking if Orry was ok.

No.

I was fast. I knew he was following
me, but I didn’t look back. I ran past the station, the screaming monkeys, the city streaking in my vision as my lungs burned, but I couldn’t stop.

The trees closed around me suddenly, calmly. They embraced me with their scratchy arms. I grabbed one trunk with both hands, I looked to the
sky, and I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs, and collapsed in the dirt.

*****

He approached me like I was a wild animal. I snorted as I dug up clumps of soil in my hands and threw them deeper into the forest.

“You always were a bit emotional
, just like your father,” he said, his fine brows arching and then falling quickly.

“Don’t say that
,” I whispered. “Don’t talk to me like you know me.”

“But I
do. I know you because you and I are so alike. I am your father, and I love you, Rosa. I love Orry too.”

He
bent down to meet me. His eyes were so devastated that I almost believed him. “I don’t love you, not anymore,” I said. His stick-like body tightened at my words like a fossilized trunk. “At least, not the way I used to. You’re someone else to me now. And you’re wrong about one thing… we’re not that alike. I would never abandon my child.”

He nodded
slowly; he took it, accepted it, but put in his pocket for later. Everything was too big, too much to deal with, without adding our father-daughter drama to it. He put his arm around me, and I leaned into him.

I lied. I did love
him, but I was scared of him too.

“Do you want to scream some more?” he
asked with a wink.

I shivered and shook my head
, watching the branches sway in the icy breeze. They were calling out to me, thin and white-barked, their slender fingers tapping out the message that I’d already read.

Hessa wa
s ok for one very simple reason—Apella.

I took the hand Pelo offered and stood. Resolve
hardened my insides. I knew what had to be done.

Maybe that’s what family is. You’re there for each other. You do what is needed without being asked.

I didn’t need to say a word.
When I returned, the bed next to Orry’s had been converted to a desk. Paper was stacked, the microscope and other medical paraphernalia loomed over her tiny frame, threatening her. A man walked in with yet another piece of equipment. My eyes found Joseph, and he grinned. “They’re raiding the hospital and bringing the brilliant scientist what she needs.” He gestured to Apella, who looked up, her face ashen, her arms shaky. But her eyes were hard. I knew she would find the answer or die trying.

“Thank you,” was all I managed. She nodded and returned to her work, coughing,
wheezing, and spluttering like her lungs were trying to escape her chest.

I
kissed her cheek and settled into a chair to watch.

*****

Hessa shoving a slice of sucked-on bread up my nose awoke me. People had been coming in over the last day, bringing food and words of comfort. But mostly they’d left us alone. It was too devastating for everyone. They loved Orry, and they seemed to understand that we couldn’t handle their sadness as well as our own. Right now, all anyone could do was wait. We were all waiting on Apella and physically weighing her down. She became flatter and thinner with every hour, until she could almost be confused with the fragile glass slides that covered her makeshift desk. I felt terrible but then I’d look at Orry, his tiny fingers peeling back, red and raw, and I knew this was the only way. She knew it too.

Behind Hessa, Odval stood with her hands clasped in front of her
. She moved towards Orry and paused to look at me. “May I?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

When she reached him, her hand went to her mouth, but I managed to catch the words. “Poor darling child. You don’t deserve this.”

She was right.
Everyone deserved this more than Orry did. My heart heaved in my chest, and my stomach growled. Odval pulled sandwiches from her bag and handed them around. She started to ask me how I was, but I just shook my head and put my hand up to stop her. There were no words left to describe how empty and useless I felt.

Apella lifted a piece of paper close to her face, peered at it for a long
time, and then let it fall to the ground. Pure white on the shiny orange floor. The colorful curtains smiled sickeningly. Another dead end. I was trying hard, but a large part of me wanted to grab her ankles and snap her like a towel until the answer sprung from her mouth. But I clasped my hands together tightly and held it in. She was the only one who could solve this puzzle.

Odval made her excuses, scooped up
Hessa, and left. I was sure she burst into tears as soon as the door sealed after her. We were running out of time.

As if sensing my rising panic, Joseph motioned to me from his perch
. He’d barely left Orry’s side, same as me. We had both been parked on either side of his bed, sleeping in the chair or on the floor. We didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much to say.

I crept over to him and crawled in his lap,
allowing his big, warm arms to encircle me. Once they would have been all I needed to keep calm, to stave off nightmares. Now they were just arms. Arms I loved, cherished, but our suffering was so deep that there was no escaping it, not even for a second.

Joseph’s voice rumbled, the vibration wrapping around my strangled heart and soothing it just a little. His voice was strong with cracks in it. “Tell me about our son’s first steps
,” he said.

I took a deep breath and exhaled with a smile that felt awkward to get out but once I started
talking, it stayed there, comfortably on my face. Thinking of and talking about Orry would always make me smile.

*****

I awoke in a hospital bed. The lights dimmed, shining like fuzzy stars. Orry’s breathing reassured me, and Apella’s juicy wheezing frightened me. I scanned the small infirmary, looking for Joseph. He wasn’t there. I kissed Orry’s red forehead gently and snuck out to find him. I stepped out and looked down into the base of the amphitheater. Small blobs of firelight glowed against the slimy, black stones. The water rushing, mixed with slabs of ice smacking together, gave me the chills. I hugged myself tightly and walked towards our living quarters.

“Ouch!”

Something soft and bony crunched beneath my foot.

“Geez, Soar. I know you’ve got stuff on your
mind, but can you watch where you’re going?” A white smile floated in the darkness, then arms grabbed at me and wrestled me to the floor. I slapped at him weakly, and then melted into his embrace.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, although I knew he’d pretty much been camping here since I’d run in
, screaming, with Orry in my arms.

Rash
punched my shoulder lightly as I came to rest next to him, my feet swinging over the edge of the wall. “Just looking out for you,” he said lightly. Then his voice caught a little. “You know, this really sucks.”

I leaned on his shoulder
. “Yep.”

“How’s beautiful blond
man taking it?” Rash asked sincerely.

“I don’t know. Bad, probably
,” I said, my eyebrows drawn together as I realized I hadn’t really asked him, and he hadn’t asked me.

“Probably?”

I let my hand rest on top of his. “Yeah, you know, I think we’re both trying so hard to be there for each other that neither of us can let any of it out. I’m scared if I fall apart in front of him, he won’t be able to cope. We’re barely keeping it together as it is.”

Th
ere was silence for a while as we listened to the hum and clang of people settling in for the night.

“How about we do a little bit of a leaning
-on train?”

“Huh?”

“Blond man leans on you, and you lean on me…”

“And who do you lean on?”

He waved the air in front of him. “Nah, I’ll be fine,” he said dismissively, adding, “and if I really need comfort, I’ve got the beautiful, young Essie to lean on or lie on or whatever.”

I laughed, a strange feeling. “You’re so charming.
And she’s not that young. She’s older than you, you know?”

He bumped me again
. “Yes, I am. And yes, I know, but I’m very mature for my age.” He laughed as he spoke, not able to get out that last part with a serious expression on his face.

“You’re something…
I’m not sure mature is the right word though!”

We were quiet for a moment. The brief humor was just that.

I sighed and pretended we were under the stars.

Orry
, please live. All these people love you and need you. Live.

“Hey, wanna hear something creepy?” Rash
asked after a long silence.

“Probably not
,” I said.

He ignored me and continued,
“Have you noticed how there’s a lot more men than women down here?” he asked, talking in spooky, hushed whispers.

I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed. After a
while, the Survivors and the people down here had started to meld together. The only noticeable difference was at nighttime, when screens illuminated the Survivors’ faces and firelight warmed the faces of the original occupants of this cavern.

I tried to force myself to think about something other than
Orry, but it was like trying to force a desk through a bathroom window. It didn’t fit.

“Geez
, you’re slow,” he said, flashes of white bouncing of his teeth from the fires and battery light below.

I remember noticing there were no children. But I was used to that. There were however quite a few teenagers, teenage boys. No girls.

Rash was watching me, bouncing his legs. He smirked as my eyes widened in realization and clapped his hands. “And there it is… It’s a miracle, the girl has a brain.”