I, on the other hand, moved quietly but carefully, around the trees, under the branches. I inhaled and reveled in the smells of the woods. I treated them as I would my home, with respect.
I followed them until we found ourselves at the Great Wall.
Pietre spun around to face us, running his hand through his hair for the hundredth time. I clambered my way through the brush, always lagging behind, and stood before them. Pietre’s body lurched as if stunned and he strode towards me with an angry look on his face. I suppressed the feeling that I should run. He grabbed my arm and jerked it to his face, inspecting it.
“What?” I shook him free, looking to Careen for help. He pulled a cloth from his back pocket and clamped it to my wrist. His stare was intense and I didn’t like it.
“You’re bleeding,” he stated, wrapping a large gash on my arm quickly and tightly.
“Huh,” I remarked, fascinated with the fact I hadn’t felt a thing. I peeled back the cloth and the cut bubbled blood like a backed-up plughole. It was quite deep but I had no recollection of how I did it.
“You need to be careful; you’re not paying attention to your surroundings,” he snapped, irritated. “Remember, you have a low sensitivity to pain at the moment.”
“Are you concerned about me, Pietre?” I teased.
His eyes flicked to me disparagingly as he kicked off his shoes. He wasn’t concerned, just annoyed. I was a bothersome bug he wanted to squash.
“Just help yourself, so I don’t have to.”
Help yourself. The words crushed me as I remembered the last time I’d heard them or thought them. I tightened the bandage over my bleeding wound, and wrapped a mental bandage around the oozing wound Cal had left in my head.
“Fine,” I said shortly. “What are we doing now?” I gazed up at the wall. It was in full shadow, with the sun hovering just past the turrets. It felt cold and oppressive. I didn’t like being this close. It still gave me the chill associated with being closed in. I’d managed to find some history books, books with real facts in them, during my stay in the hospital. The Wall had been built to protect the Chinese Empire from various threatening groups but also to control trade. The books also revealed there were bodies sandwiched between the great stones that made up the beastly structure. It was a towering graveyard.
Careen narrowed her eyes at me as she handed me the booties. “Put these on your feet and follow us.” I wondered what her chilly stare was about but I had no time to ask.
I watched as Careen and Pietre approached the wall and jumped suddenly, landing on the surface like two lizards. They scrambled up the wall, keeping their bodies pressed as flat as they could to the sandy, grey stone. I followed, slipping a little, but managing to keep my grippy hands and feet flush with the wall. They were both sitting between the turrets, legs swinging over the edge, when I got to the top, somewhat breathless, but my heart drumming in a fulfilling rhythm. That was much more fun than throwing knives.
They held hands. Careen made a point of leaning her head on his shoulder and glaring at me suspiciously. Her mood had changed since our altercation in the woods and I had the sense she was jealous at Pietre’s concern for my arm. I scoffed at the thought. Pietre was not interested in me, and I certainly wasn’t in him. We were just stuck with each other, as he’d said.
“Well, at least we know you’ll survive getting over the wall,” Pietre said, grimacing. I think he’d hoped I would fail at this also. “Now, let’s discuss the rest of our mission.”
We talked and planned until the sun dipped below the wall and bits of fluffy, pink clouds wafted towards the sky. I’d lost track of time. I was going to get home late, after Joseph.
I lowered myself over the turret and scrambled down the Wall, skidding and scraping my arms as I went. I felt less in control, like I was sliding down ice. I tried to put my shoes on as I walked, hopping on one leg whilst trying to jam a shoe on my foot, but I tripped over. “What’s the rush?” Careen said as she caught my arm.
I explained to Careen I hadn’t told Joseph about the training and he would be angry. She nodded through my huffed explanations and waited until I finished to speak. She blinked at me with her perfectly symmetrical blue eyes. “You have to tell him, Rosa. He’ll understand.” Her faith in him was not reassuring. She flipped her hair and shrugged off her seriousness. “That was fun wasn’t it, the climbing?”
I looked at her, confused by the sudden change in her mood and conversation, I should have been used it by now but she was so strange sometimes. “I guess…” I said, raising my eyebrows. We slowed down to a walk as we approached the edge of the trees.
Careen said goodbye and I watched her gracefully pluck her way between the plants at the tree line. She made sure she stayed just out of sight, practicing her camouflaging skills.
Pietre stayed with me. He was acting shifty and it made me uncomfortable. I stepped out of the cover of the trees, peering back and forth to check for people. I could see our house from here. I wondered if I had time to run to Odval’s and collect Orry before Joseph returned but decided against it, too much too explain. I took two steps towards home and Pietre called me back. I turned around and he approached me. He took both my shoulders and sort of shuffled me into position so my back was completely facing my home. He held up my arm and ran his fingers along the blood-soaked cloth. “Take care of this properly,” he said and then he leaned in slowly and whispered into my ear. “There. All done—now he knows.”
I turned and felt the sound clipped from the air, my heart stopped beating and the ground wobbled under my feet. Joseph was standing at the top of the road, having just stepped off a spinner. He regarded the two of us for a moment, then his eyes fell to the ground and he walked calmly into the house. Panic rose. I don’t know what he thought he saw. All I knew was—Pietre was a bastard.
I shoved Pietre’s chest hard but he was unaffected, giving me an unfeeling stare. Unsympathetic. “Why did you do that?” I asked.
“I was doing you a favor.” The hell he was.
I thought about the way he’d purposefully moved me and leaned in so close, his lips brushing my ear. “But he could have thought that you and I were…”
At this, he laughed wholeheartedly and cruelly. “You and me? You know, that’s why I like Careen. She’s simple; she knows what I need and she gives it to me,” he sneered. “This,” he motioned between the two of us, “would so not be worth it.”
“You’re disgusting,” I spat.
I turned towards my house and ran with desperate, stumbling footfalls. Although, I wasn’t sure what I was running towards.
As I ran towards the house, I pulled out the handheld communicator I’d been given and called Odval. My fingers were shaking so hard I missed the buttons several times.
“Can you hold onto Orry for a while longer?” I asked, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt, my feet trying to pick their way between the cobblestones and only managing to trip up on every loose one.
She paused. I could hear Orry babbling in the background. “That’s fine. Is everything ok?”
I forced myself to smile while I spoke, “Yes, yes, everything’s fine. Um… Joseph and I just wanted some time to ourselves, if that’s all right? Just a couple of hours…”
“You know I love having him here. How about I keep him overnight and you pick him up in the morning? I need you to have a look at my bed; I think some of the springs need…”
I cut her off. “Yep! That’d be great. I’ll come by early in the morning.” I was at the door. I cursed myself. We were leaving tomorrow. How had I let it get this far without telling him?
I’d ruined everything.
I steeled myself, taking a deep breath and pushed the door ajar, listening to it creak and screech with anticipation. Or maybe that was just the noise in my head.