He nodded and faked a smile. “Nothing.”
I clenched my fists and pulled my head up so I could see him better. Smoke from a campfire whirled around our faces and stung my eyes. “What do you mean—nothing?”
Desh patted my arm.
“Nothing yet, anyway. We always knew Birchton and Radiata were going to be a harder sell. We’ve left two of our own back there to wait and see. We do know people reacted to the film.”
I glanced around the camp. Gus squatted down near the fire, poking the coals under a tin of beans. Rash leaned against a tree, quietly seething.
“Where are we now?” My voice was dry.
“Between Birchton and Radiata; we have two more nights before the next show,” Desh replied, spreading his hands out and wiggling his fingers.
I chuckled despite myself. “Man I’ve missed you.”
He grinned, his dark eyes flashing concern. “It’s good to see you smile.”
Elise stood up straight, and she was almost as tall as Desh. “I’ll leave you boys to it.”
Desh raised an eyebrow as she walked away. Matt’s gaze followed her. I’d never seen him staring at a woman before and it made me laugh, which hurt my chest.
Desh elbowed him. “Like what you see, eh?”
I rolled my eyes.
Matt blushed and smacked his arm. “She’s a little young for me.”
I grimaced from pain and being uncomfortable. All this smiling, laughing, and joking was too much. I didn’t like how easy they could pretend, or maybe they weren’t pretending. All I knew was I didn’t like it. I didn’t want them to be sad all the time, but when they were joking like this, I saw her, or almost the absence of her. Like someone had cut a hole in the air in her exact shape, and I was just waiting for her to fill it.
I sighed loudly.
“You ok?” Matt asked, reaching for my wrist to check my pulse.
“I’m fine,” I snapped, the pressure on my chest feeling heavier and heavier. “Seems like you are too.”
Matt and Desh avoided my eyes. I knew I was being a jerk, but I couldn’t stop myself. “How long do I have to lie like this?”
“Another day. At least until the bleeding slows.”
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at them. It was a reminder. The last thing I heard was Gus discussing the next move.
“If it goes the way I think it will, we won’t be able to stay.”
ROSA
There was no clock. But there was ticking in my brain anyway. I counted the little bursts of movement from the camera in the corner. It told me it was after midnight. It told me I wouldn’t sleep tonight. My hands ached, and my heart ached. My eyes were like two purple, velvet pincushions.
At home, there was never a quiet place, no stillness where my body used to lay. Now silence smothered me like heavy-fogged poison. It pushed at me from every angle. That peace I thought I needed, that I craved, was all around me and I couldn’t stand it. What I truly needed was gone. The slip of sheets moving across bodies, the clang and thud of metal, wood, stone. Gone. I wanted it now, more than anything else.
I pulled at the sheets in my clawing hands, wondering what I could throw at the cameras. A metal bowl grinned at me from the bedside table. I reached out to grab it, sliding my fingers along the cold surface, but once they made contact, they retreated. I had to be good. Obedient. To stay alive I had to not… be… me.
I drew my hand in under the covers and shivered with the need to break something.
The latch clicked and a slice of light cut the floor. A tall, long shadow wavered in the entrance like heat, and then moved towards me.
Immediately, I clicked the lamp on, lighting up a calm, young face.
Denis.
I slithered up to sitting and watched him as he carefully approached me. Never not moving, but going so slowly that it was agony. I wanted to jump up and get behind him to shove him forward. But he continued in his sloping, loping way of walking. Like he was picking out each spot he was going to put his foot on before he stepped on it, the angle he would place his foot at, and how much noise his shoe would make. I ground my teeth together in annoyance.
He lifted his head slowly and connected with my eyes. “Look scared,” he whispered, his deep blue eyes ringed with darker circles like someone had taken a pen to his irises. I was kind of scared but mostly impatient. If he was coming in to hurt me, I wished he would get on with it. I nodded, which he seemed to be irritated by. So I clutched the sheets in my fists and tried to look wide-eyed and scared.
He was wearing just pajama bottoms and no shirt, which could have been intimidating if not for the old man slippers. His body was toned but childish, as if he’d never seen a hard day’s work in his life. Nothing about his demeanor suggested harm.
He stood two steps away from me. I found myself staring at his feet, trying to guess where he would step next. Left, left, right.
Finally, he reached me and I huffed. He kneeled down, neatly folding his legs over each other like a collapsible pram. Carefully, he put one hand on my shoulder and the other over my throat. I would have screamed but he wasn’t really touching me. His eyes bounced to the camera and he shifted his head so he was blocking my face from its view. His held me down with one hand and the other was like a collar, taut and straining but hovering just millimeters from my skin.
“Wha… what?” I whispered. His eyes screwed shut, and he shook his head to the left.
“Look frightened,” he whispered more urgently.
I was starting to be.
“Better,” he said with a slight, lips-pressed together kind of smile. He stared down at my own lips, and I started to feel uncomfortable.
“I’ll scream,” I threatened half-heartedly.
“No, you won’t,” he assured me. And he was right. I wanted to know what this was all about.
His hand still fluttered above my throat, and then he pressed down a little. My breath caught as it tried to move past the blockage.
“Stop playing along,” he whispered so quietly it was just air and small noise passing his lips. “If you keep doing as you’re told, he will kill you.” I raised my eyebrows. “The minute he thinks he’s got you figured out, that he’s broken you, you’ll be executed,” he said, his voice a whistle through his teeth.
I was about to nod, but he stopped me. “Don’t nod, throw your head against the head board in three… two… one.” I did as he said, and the hand on my throat moved with me but never pressed too hard.
Unfolding his knees, he stood with controlled movements. He turned his back to me and walked slowly out of the room, my eyes drilling into his back.
As soon as the door closed, I turned my head into my pillow and smiled. Grant’s son had just told me to stop obeying, to stop being the opposite of me.
I picked up the metal bowl and flung it at the camera. It cracked deliciously and fell off its perch, hanging by a single wire like a hung prisoner. The bowl slammed into the dresser, teetering and scraping until it came to rest, hard and unforgiving against the polished wood.
ROSA
Apella rattled the bars of her cage, the tidy place I’d made for her and the others inside. She warned me not to go too far. Patting my chest, I shook my head. I never listened to her when she was alive, and I wasn’t going to start now. It will be okay, I told my ghosts and myself.
Today would be the same. Breakfast. Escorted to torture. Lunch in my room. Dinner with the ‘family’.
I took a deep breath in and flipped through the pile of clothes placed neatly on the chair by my bed. A lavender cardigan with blue flowers embroidered into the collar. I looked down at my pajamas and smiled. The devil had a hold of me today.