Grant growled at the guards, who both stood to attention as he spoke. “Be careful with her. She is not yours to harm.” My stomach flipped, and my heart joined it.
“Wait!” I said around the bile pushing its way through my teeth. The men paused as I hung between their arms like a coat on a hangar. Grant stared at me incredulously but if I was going to die, I needed to know one thing, “The babies… are they okay?” Grant smiled, sharp like it was drawn on, turned away from me, and said nothing. My body jolted from sadness and nausea. “Bathroom,” I pleaded desperately to the guards as I tried to suppress the heaving inside. The blue liquid was trying to leave my body the only way it could and if they saw me vomit blue, they would know something was wrong.
The guards dragged me down the hall, my feet galloping to keep up with their haste. It was darker than a secret in this part of Este’s compound. The lights lit up as we walked and turned off after we passed under them. Strips of deep red and gold shone from the carpet as my body crimped and straightened like a cooked and then uncooked noodle. Hold it in, I warned my stomach. It shook its head in reply and folded in half inside me. I let out an anguished moan as the cramping worsened.
At this, the guard jerked me up close to his face and I thought he was going to hurt me, but he whispered in my ear, his breath hot and smelling of stale coffee. “He saved them all.”
Then he suddenly let me drop, my knees burning as they dragged me across the carpet.
The last light clicked on over a gray metal door. One of the guards slammed into it with his shoulder so he didn’t have to let me go, and then they hurled me into a bathroom stall, the curtain flying off as I tumbled towards the porcelain toilet bowl. I put my hands out on the seat before I hit my head, grasped at the curtain, and pulled it under the door. I kicked the door closed with my bare foot as I pulled the velvet around my shaking body and vomited blue.
Grabbing some toilet paper, I wiped the blue stains from the corners of my mouth. I searched out every blue splatter and quickly mopped that up too, flushing the toilet as the guard opened the door, his cheeks red with embarrassment at my pathetic state.
I stole a deep breath and tried not panic. My chest tightened. My heart was elastic, stretching thinner and thinner with every step Joseph took away from me. I knew I’d done the right thing, the only thing, but it didn’t stop the aching, the fear of being left alone in this place, with these people.
JOSEPH
I hadn’t moved since I told them what had happened to Rosa. My back was against a tree, my body tense and rough. I pictured her blinking her beautiful eyes open to the white light, cold and stark over her bare skin. A lonely light. It would drive in the realization that I abandoned her. It would tell her—in certainty—that I wasn’t coming back. I could feel her devastation. I could hear the empty sound of the glass moving away from her body. Exposing her, leaving her to fight without my help. I should be there.
My sighs lacked breath.
After a few pats on the shoulders and small bursts of tears, everyone had started to busy themselves. Move around me. But I was waiting for something, though I didn’t know what. When they did look up from the ground, from their packs, which they were mindlessly rearranging, it was too much. Their eyes were red. Wet. Angry. I banged the back of my head against the trunk harder than I should and watched the sky, clouds tearing open to reveal the stars. My tears had stopped but the raw, empty feeling was only beginning. I wanted to wish for something, anything. A different outcome, a way through, but there was nothing. Just the bruises on my back and the blood on my hands.
Rash was missing, my fault as well. After Pelo pulled him off me, Rash shoved him too and ran deeper into the forest. They were sending someone to get him. I would have volunteered, but he didn’t want to see me.
I wish I had the option of escaping myself like he had.
A shirt landed in my lap. “Put this on, you must be freezing, man,” Desh said, attempting to sound light and failing.
“I’m not cold.” I’m as cold as stone, but I can’t feel it because I’m not here. I wonder if I’m dying inside?
“Please, Joe, you’ll get sick,” he said quietly. If I were myself, I would have told him people didn’t get sick from being mildly cold. Cold was a state, not a sickness. But I was a man I couldn’t recognize, so I sighed and pulled the shirt over my head.
Desh held a cup in front of my face. “Here. Drink.”
I shook my head but took it. I knew he wouldn’t leave me alone until I drank, so I took a sip. It tasted like blood and bitterness, stinging all the way down to my empty stomach.
“It’s just water. Why the face?” Desh’s head leaned to one side as he blinked at me, confused.
A man I hadn’t learned the name of yet threw a metal flask at me. It landed in the dirt, the word ‘courage’ etched into the silver metal.
“Maybe he needs something a little stronger.”
I picked it up and smelled the contents. It was pungent, like sterilizing fluid mixed with honey. I replaced the cap without sampling it, holding it in my fist. Desh yanked it from my hand and threw it back to the man.
“That’s the last thing he needs right now!” The thick eyebrows skimming the mustard-colored beanie the man wore rose slightly, then he shrugged and put it in his pocket, patting it like an old friend.
I stared at my friend, kneeling in the dirt with concern plastered all over his face. It was hard to handle. I didn’t want him taking care of me. I didn’t deserve it. I planted my hands in the grass and eased myself up, looking left and right, but there was no direction I wanted to go other than the one I wasn’t allowed to go in, so I collapsed back down.
How would I get a grip on this? I was a father too. I had to be better, for Orry. I owed her that at least.
“The handhelds,” I whispered. Desh didn’t know what I was talking about. I rolled my eyes and searched for Matt, finding him stacking packs against a tree. As I approached, he stopped, still bent over.
“Where are they? Where’s…” Patiently, he waited for me to finish. Her name felt like a gravelly lump in my throat. “Where’s Rosa’s handheld?”
Matt’s face fell as he stood up straight. “We hid them, past where the wolf carcasses were hanging, where we’d arranged with you. You didn’t retrieve them?”
I stood very close to him now. “Does it look like I did?” I growled, my palms open and empty.
Matt put his hands on his hips and took a breath. “Right.” I thought he was going to tell me I couldn’t go back, but his kind eyes relaxed. “We better run then.”
Desh stumbled across the campsite towards us. “I’ll come with you,” he said breathlessly.
I shook my head. “You’ll slow me down.”
He looked deserted. Scared. She would feel deserted. Scared. I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the windmill of emotions that kept turning in front of my face, never giving me a chance to catch up.
There was no guarantee, but I said it anyway. “I’ll be back soon.” We emptied our packs and put a single water bottle in each.
“We won’t wait for you if you’re late,” Gus warned. He tapped his watch.
We nodded.
We wound through the black trunks of the trees, sprinting as though we were being chased. My muscles burned, but it was a welcome distraction.
Matt kept up easily, running next to me. He didn’t try to talk. I got the sense no one knew what to say to me anyway. It was just the sound of our feet hitting wet ground and our own breathing.