She dragged her bare feet through my perfectly raked stones, her head up, proud. Stupid. She didn’t know. She would soon understand. I was not Este, crazed, obsessive, and I certainly wasn’t Sekimbo, a drunk, or Poltinov, stupidly agreeable, old, and clueless. My turn was coming. My way was the only way.

The chair moved awkwardly over the carpet as I wheeled right up to the window. They had recommended I change my home, lower it to the ground. But I knew this was temporary. They even suggested an electric chair, but I needed to feed my own movement. My toes bumped the glass; I couldn’t feel it, just the resistance. From here, I could look down on them, but it was a pathetic victory. The girl’s jacket swung below her knees, and I was reminded that she was a child. A foolish, insignificant child.

I clenched my fists on my chair arm when her eyes met mine. She didn’t shy away from my gaze. She glared directly into them, those odd eyes, that spirit. It fueled me because it was begging to be broken. I wheeled back from the window, unused to anyone giving me such extended eye contact and smiled to myself. There was so much I wanted to show her.

JOSEPH

I thought about her always. She was just there, in my mind, by my side, smirking, frowning at me. Because she was a ghost. I tried not to think of her broken, bleeding body surrounded by dead soldiers, toppled like Orry’s blocks, but it was a flashcard wedged permanently inside my brain. I tried to bend it, push it aside, and think about Orry and what she had done for me. But the strongest feeling was wishing with every part of my hopeless body that she hadn’t done it.

We sat around a campfire, except for Rash, who was standing as far away from me as he could. I was the plague to him, and I kind of agreed with his assessment. He glared down at me from behind the circle of crouching people. His face was pure hatred glowing behind the fire. It didn’t sit right on his usually jovial face. He should be smiling, joking, and I took that from him.

For twenty-four hours, we’d done nothing but walk in silence. After they found Rash and convinced him to stay with the group, there was nothing to do but continue with the mission. I came because they wouldn’t let me go back to the Superiors’ compound, and they wouldn’t let me return to Orry on my own. They didn’t trust me.

Now, we were resting briefly before more walking.

Matt came and sat next to me, his whole form heavy with grief and responsibility. “How are you?” he asked warily.

“Do I need to answer that?” I replied as I drew circles in the dirt with a stick.

“No… you don’t,” he whispered, his voice small and broken into pieces. “So… we’re heading to Birchton first.”

My shoulders were set. I didn’t want to talk. So I didn’t. Matt sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He wanted to get through. I didn’t know how to tell him there was no point; there was nothing on the other side of this wall I’d put up.

Desh nudged my leg with his knee as he sat down on the other side.

“Give him a break,” he pleaded. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to Matt or me, but silence followed, which was fine.

After about five minutes of awkwardness, Desh finally started talking again.

“I’m nearly finished adapting the projectors,” he said to Matt over my dipped head. I continued drawing. An image of Rosa’s dark face pushed out of the dirt, her forehead creased with pain and then suddenly peaceful. Even in sleep, she never looked peaceful. Only when she was dead.

I let out a huge sigh, trying to breath out the hurt.

“Great,” Matt said. He turned and grabbed the bag of image discs behind him. The plastic rattled around like shell casings. “Here are the images. Will you be able to get this done by tomorrow?”

I saw Desh nod his head in the corner of my vision. He grasped the bag and put it by his feet.

“Easy,” he replied confidently. Something other than the mush of crappy emotions I’d been feeling surfaced, just for a second. Pride. Desh was the smartest guy I knew.

Matt leaned across me. “Easy?” I tilted my chin up to see his eager eyes full of wonderment. “Can you talk me through it?”

Matt was almost as bad as Alexei when it came to new technology, new information. He ate it up like a hearty meal. I pictured Alexei holding Orry’s hand and leading him ‘up’. That was all she’d said, Take him somewhere ‘up’. I shook my head. Somehow, everyone knew exactly what she’d meant. When her words failed, her eyes, the emotion in her voice, did the rest. Grief was as heavy as a backpack full of lead bricks. I slumped down further, my fingers swirling in the dirty pattern in front of me.

I don’t want to forget her. I don’t want to remember her.

Desh laughed, and I was pulled back to their conversation.

“Sure…” He put his hand on my back, and I flinched. “Do you need anything before I go?”

My back muscles tensed, and I stood up suddenly. I pulled my hands through my hair, scanning the group of people. They were all watching me, waiting for me to do… something. Rash mirrored my movements and moved around the circle away from me as I tried to exit it.

“Joe?” Desh questioned.

I grunted and made my way to a gap in the trees, leaving the smell of sweet tea and smoke behind.

Sharp, grey rocks tried to trip me as I climbed away from the group. Leaves rustled in the background and I swung around to Pelo’s face, lit up by my torchlight. “Where are you going?” he asked, concerned.

Stop being nice to me, I wanted to scream, holler, punch into the ground, and wear across my chest. My fists vibrated at my sides. I wanted to do more than shout. I wanted to push him back towards the campsite, hard. Violence lived in me like a virus. I breathed in sharply though my nostrils. The shock of pine and crushed grass swirled around me like a memory I wanted to keep and forget.

“I’m not running away,” I said through gritted teeth. “I just want some… space.”

His eyes were so hard to look at. His sad, grieving face even worse.

I need space from everything and everyone except you, Rosa. Space between us is like a wall of knives.

I stormed away from him. I heard the branches snap back and his footsteps fade away.

Do you want me to be there for your father, comfort him? I shouldn’t ask because I can’t do it. I’m hollow. There’s nothing left inside me to give.

My breath felt like a hard ball in my chest. Cold and concrete. Panic kept rising and subsiding with thoughts of her. Was she angry with me for deserting her? Was she suffering?

Putting a hand out, I grabbed at a jutting piece of rock to steady myself. I gulped back tears. If I started thinking about what they were doing to her, it would kill me. It was killing me. This guilt, this fear, was living and growing inside, trying to take over. I didn’t know how to stop it. If it could just ease for a second, maybe I could breathe. Keep moving. Live. Like she wanted me to. I gripped the rock so hard I felt I could almost rip it from the ground.

Voices carried to me from below, a small, orange glow visible through the trees. Someone laughed. I couldn’t stand the way everything just went on. Without her.

I kept climbing, desperate to escape their noise, until all I could hear were the leaves bristling against each other and the echo of wind deepening the curves of the stone.

My palms were roughed up by shards of rock. I was sweating even in this cold. The breeze picked up as I got higher, and I shivered. Her arm wrapped around my back, stretching to shield me. She could never quite reach, but her hand always found my heart. She patted it once. I put my hand through her ghost.