The Wounded (The Woodlands Series) (42 page)

The sirens brought everyone who lived in the outer ring
onto their doorstep and into the street. At least a hundred people crowded near the little shed, which I knew led to the elevator underground. There were several guards ushering everyone into one area, as they prepared to address them.

I pointed subtly towards the shed
. “There. We need to get into there.”

Desh nodded, his expression tired. The events of the night were catching up to him too.

I looked down at my blood-crusted hand, quickly shoving it in my pocket. I put the other arm across my chest, trying the hide the blood spatters. The realization of what I’d just done hovered over my head like a blinking arrow.

I killed a Superior.

Desh and I melted into the crowd, searching for a way to slip past everyone and head for that shed. Its door was hanging slightly ajar. The sirens had everyone confused and wandering aimlessly, like they’d never heard one before.

I looked sideways at
Desh, who was moving his face around, scanning the area. We were only about ten meters from the opening but making a run for it would attract too much attention. We were enclosed on all sides by a crowd of people that was getting tighter and tighter. A woman pushed me in the back, and I turned around. She looked up at me, and her eyes widened. It was the woman from Este’s house. The one who had to vacuum the tapestries over and over.

A guard yelled over the crowd. “There has been a disturbance in Este’s compound.” The crowd grew quiet. “We are unsure how many casualties
at this point, but we can confirm that Este had been murdered.”

Murdered.

The word pounded me in the chest.

Murdered.

Murderer.

I gasped for
air, and the small woman pursed her lips as she stared at me. She gripped my hand for a moment and squeezed it. Then she let go and pushed her small, round body through the crowd. She was enveloped by the sea of people.

“No!” A tortured scream echoed over the crowd
. “Superior Este is dead. No!” The woman’s screams flowed over the crowd. “Is it a takeover? Is it war? What do we do?” she shouted. Her arms waved about frantically in front of the guards. Their eyes were all on her.

Others picked up on her false panic and started
throwing questions at the unwitting guards.

“How did they get in?”

“How many are there? Are they dangerous?”

The
people surged at the men standing, clueless in their black uniforms, as their emotions started to build.

We too
k the opportunity, broke from crowd, and entered the shed.

*****

The voices outside rose in volume, and I could hear the clamor of people bumping up against each other and the guards getting more and more frustrated. Responses on both sides got louder and angrier.

Desh and I stood in the
dark, breathing hard, not knowing what to say to each other.

“It’s going to be all…” Desh started

I cut him off. I didn’t want to hear it. It wasn’t going to be all right. How could anything be after tonight?

I grabbed his hand roughly and tried to scan his wrist against the reader for the elevator.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it
,” I said. But a big part of me didn’t care. I was ready to surrender.

“Relax
,” Desh said smoothly as he pried the control panel open, and manipulated the wires inside until the lift light came on.

We stepped
in, and he pressed the button. The sound of voices instantly cut off once the door closed.

We stood
there, side by side, nothing but our breathing to break the silence. My eyes went to the poster. A girl with blue eyes and dark hair, her skin that perfect All-Kind tone. I snorted. She was boring looking, her expression dull. It was what all of us felt like inside the walls of the Woodlands. The doors slid open, and we ran down the dark tunnel.

When our heads popped up from
underground, we both scrambled out and hit the ground running. I just did what I was told to do. I ran towards the meeting point, the sirens and Rosa getting further and further away with every step.

My body was reacting, fleeing. But
I got the sense that I wasn’t really there. That the real me was still pressed up against the glass, waiting.

I was light, m
y feet barely seeming to touch the ground. Because I was empty. I would be empty until I knew what had happened to her.

SUPERIOR GRANT

She was too brown. The color of Cocoa. I shook my head at the comparison. No, Cocoa was rich and delicious. She looked more like an overcooked bird. Bony, dark, and delicate. I ran my hand over my jaw. The guards were watching me intently, gauging my reaction. I tried to maintain a balance between mild irritation and looking unsurprised, like I had expected a girl to be lying in my untested healing machine.

I
swept my hand over the cabinet, avoiding the unsavory blood smears on the glass near the girl’s head. It was beautiful, an elegant, effortless reproduction of the original. President Grant had hugely underestimated the Chinese. When they bombed the US, he thought of nothing other than revenge. He didn’t think to poach their scientists or take control of their technology. He was a fool, as foolish as Este.

I
moved around the glass container, weighing up the best response to this disaster. Fifteen minutes ago, we found Vivienne and all eight of her personal guards in a pool of blood. I couldn’t say I was sorry to see her go. The woman was obsessive, unpredictable, and paranoid. Not good traits for a leader. I snorted, thinking of the number of times I had ignored the alert. She had called me and the others to her home for what she called ‘Serious matters,’ so many times that it had become protocol to ignore her. Topics such as pest control and double-glazing on her windows were some of the more ridiculous panics. Her absurd behavior had been her undoing, as no one responded for well over an hour when she sounded the alert this time.

“Superior Grant
…” A twitchy guard shuffled over to me. “The other two have escaped, should I issue a lock down?” I tapped my chin, trying to look calm. I was furious at these Survivors, yet impressed at what they had managed to achieve with such limited resources. But to send the guard out now to pursue them was a waste of time when we were so close to completion.

“Sir?”

I gave the guard a hard look, wondering how he was so poorly trained to believe he could speak to me in this manner. I made a note to find out whom his supervisor was. The young man startled, and I forced my face into a relaxed smile. “Let them go,” I said nonchalantly. “We have what we need.”

The girl twisted ever so slightly on the table. I wheeled
closer, so that we were face to face.

“Leave us
,” I instructed. The men paused, looking down on me with concern. I cringed inwardly. I despised their pity. “Go clean up the mess in the reception hall and report the situation to Superiors Poltanov and Sekimbo,” I barked, leaving no room for insubordination. They moved awkwardly around my wheelchair and out into the hall, closing the door behind them.

I clenched my fist on my knee. Her tattooed wrist told me she was once one of us, which made my blood boil.
This small, insignificant child had infiltrated the Superior’s compound. She had made fools of all of us and killed Este. So before I made her suffer, before I made her regret she had ever had the gall to enter this world, I wanted to meet her.

………
…Promise.

I ran my tongue along the inside of my cheeks. My mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on an exposed electrical cable. Charred and metallic.

I was disoriented and couldn’t seem to backtrack to where I was
before; only that it was a nice place, somewhere safe, warm, and peaceful. I shifted, the cold surface under me slicing into my skin. I shivered involuntarily.

I heard a dull
, but impatient-sounding tapping above my face. I took a breath and the air felt new, like this was the first breath I’d ever drawn. Something tightened around my stomach and little slivers of a scene flashed at me like warning signs. Joseph lunging at the young guard, the tip of a knife glinting under soft light, my body used as a shield, a barrier. A realization as chilling as the cold, wet blood that poured out of me hit slowly, numbly. I was dead. I died. I was sure of it.

My breath caught again.

Joseph.

The tapping continued, but it was hard to open my eyes. It felt like I was learning to do everything anew. My muscles reacted slowly, waiting for my memory to kick in. I forced my eyes open like an uncooperative blind, and unfamiliar light flooded my sight.

He was a shadow
. Then, slowly, his face pulled into focus, a face I knew from a long time ago. His eyes tightened, wrinkles spread like Vs from the corners. His smile was cruel and painted on. “Waell, at least we knaow it woarks.”

JOSEPH

Questioning eyes
tried to find mine, but I couldn’t meet them. I was a void. A shell. I watched as their faces fell to the forest floor. I hadn’t even opened my mouth, but they knew. Here was Deshi by my side, but there should have been three. It sucked any victory right out of the picture. Deshi had a hold of my arm, as he had most of the journey to the meeting point. It was a comfort to me, but mostly it was to stop me from turning around and heading back into the Superiors’ compound.

How
could I leave her there?

Matthew
eyes asked the question, and I shook my head. I wanted to say, ‘Wait. Don’t start grieving yet. We don’t know,’ but was that worse? Maybe.

He walked away from the group, far into the
trees, until he was just a shadow amongst the other shadows. I saw him kneel down and put his hands to his face.

The lump that was lodged in my chest worked its way up to my throat.

Everyone else was bewildered. Because, somehow, Rosa, with her temper, her passion, and her unstoppable nature, had become the heart of this broken, wounded community. She pushed them, pushed back at them, but she was a Survivor now.