Genesis Lost - Books 1 - 6, page 69
I kicked the door open and gestured everyone to give me some fucking space.
“Take Brandy back home where she belongs,” I mumbled. “I’ not killing for you.”
I stepped outside, immediately surrounded by the villagers and a few of Xavier’s men, who had followed behind me.
“What was going in there?” River asked, pushing his wife Ayanna behind him. “You need any help?”
Xavier gave me a manly pat on the back. “Just a talk between two chieftains. Am I right, Rowan?”
A low grunt came as my answer and I jumped off the trailer and hurried over to Max. Some older girls came together and swooned over Xavier. Too young to marry. Too old to pretend they didn’t notice the charm he had around the females.
“That guy inside the longhouse scared me,” Autumn said. “He acted like he knew everything and the way he was so sure of how he provoked you…”
“Doesn’t take a genius to do the math,” I said. “Rose is almost too young to fly under the radar to be mine.”
“Only by a few weeks. Maybe we should make her older when people ask, just to keep the noise down. Do you get now what I meant by things aren’t as simple?”
“Oh, come, on,” Max said. “There will always be someone who sees himself as chieftain. Things will calm down eventually.”
My sister pinched her bottom lip, her eyes dull and lost in thought. “I’m not so sure about all this anymore. That guy, the video, pastor William… it’s getting way more complicated to bring her back.”
“Why?” I asked. “What is with Max’s dad?”
Oriel ran up to me, hands in his pockets to play it cool, but his eyes had sparkled as soon as he set sight on this massive pile of metal and fuel. “I can maintain her. Talked to one of Xavier’s guys about how to check on the mainframe and take the engine apart. Maybe I could even… like… fly her?”
“Not gonna happen,” I said. “Brandy will go back home tomorrow morning.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Max asked. “I haven’t heard from my dad in over two weeks. A helicopter is exactly what we need right about now.”
“We can’t just invade the Districts with a helicopter,” Autumn said. “What if they shoot it down or something?”
I took a deep breath. “Good point. We should wait until we hear from your dad, Max.”
He raked his hands through that shaggy thing he called a beard, concern making him look away from us and deep into the forest. “What if we don’t hear back? The last time I spoke to him over the satellite, he said the council was cracking down on them. He might be dead for all I know.”
“Don’t say that!” Autumn caressed his face and pressed her head against his chest.
“How is this thing supposed to work out,” I asked, “if you got nobody left on the inside?”
Max closed his eyes and rubbed the center of his forehead. “My old co-worker. Ruth. I got in touch with her a while back, and she will help us execute everything. The council never disconnected my holo-band, and I’m able to track down Ruth’s location once the day comes. We just need to make sure Darya will be with her when we come.”
Oriel crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood up tall. “Rowan, I’m telling you I can fly that thing if I get my hands on the manual. Just give me a chance and you’ll —”
“I said no!”
My shout echoed through the village center and made everyone turn and look at me. For a while, we all just stood there. Saying nothing. Pretending everything was alright, and awkward silence was the new norm.
Xavier leaned against the trailer and stared at me from a lowered head, the collar of his black leather jacket barely covering the red marks my hand had left behind. One of his men leaned into him. He sported a deep cut at the back of his bald head, beads of sweat either running down his neck or steaming into the frigid night.
The chieftain nodded at each whisper and gave his man a thankful pat on the upper arm. Then, he looked straight at me and moved toward us.
I quickly turned back to Max. “In that case, we will delay it until we heard from your dad. Anything else would be too risky, and I can’t lose more people.”
Max and Autumn exchanged a quick glance, and both dropped their heads, their eyes frantically chasing for something to focus on in all this fucking snow.
“Alright, spit it out,” I demanded. “Something’s not right, and you two suck at hiding it.”
“It’s just…” Autumn’s voice trailed off, and she bit her upper lip a few times before she continued. “You said you wanted nothing to do with this plan, so we thought it would be better not to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Autumn shook her head and gazed up at me, tears welling up behind her blue eyes. “Rowan… they…”
Her undertone of desperation stabbed my heart. “They what?”
No answer came, and my heart skydived into some sort of deep abyss I did not understand existed inside me. Something inside me screamed to stay away from the edge. Not to gape down. But once again, my mouth set into motion without formal consent.
“Holy hell, spit it out already!”
Max stepped in front of my sister. “They put her in a deprivation room for weeks, and they might put her in there again. And if they do, we’re not sure if she…”
His voice trailed off, and the fact that nobody here seemed capable of finishing a sentence started to piss me off. I took a deep breath. One. Two. Three.
“Ok,” I said. “What the hell is a deprivation room?”
“My dad once told me it’s a completely white room. I mean, everything in there is white. They put noise-canceling plugs into peoples ears and put them in white rubber suits. Basically, they are depriving them of all sensorial stimulation.”
“People lose their sense of time,” Autumn added.
“Uh-huh,” Max said. “Because the lights are on the entire time. It’s tough Rowan, and we heard of people who… didn’t make it out alive. They become disoriented, hallucinate, and…”
Killed themselves. No need to finish the sentence this time. The abyss inside me seemed to have no end, and my heart continued in a never-ending drop. How could I ever look at Rose again, knowing I let her mother die?
Xavier stepped up beside me with his man, his posture less cocky with the way his shoulders had slumped, but the look on his face as sly as ever. “A word?”
He pointed toward one path that led away from the village, and the three of us broke from what had turned back into Yule festivities.
Xavier glanced over his shoulder and talked once we were a couple of steps away from the drunken brawls and dirty jokes. “I fear I failed at showing you how much an alliance between us would mean to me.”
We stopped a few hundred feet outside the village center. To the left stood a dead oak with the trunk gobbled up. To the right, a large boulder rested with a cap of snow, one side stained in something that glistened a reddish gray underneath the moon.
“I told you already to leave me out of your politics,” my voice came out a bark at first but lost more and more strength with each spoken word. In the end, I added an “I told you I won’t kill for you,” the rasp in the undertone of my voice barely convincing myself, and certainly not him.
Knowing what cruelty the council was capable of, what did two old scumbags from the mountains really mean to me? The thought put my stomach in knots, and the suddenly sweet and irony smell in the air didn’t help with it. Shit. Better two of his than one of ours.
The chieftain pointed at the other side of the rock, and we all took a few steps toward it. There, sitting in a puddle of blood, was the guy who had challenged me less than an hour ago.
They had tied his hands with his own intestines, which jerked and moved and would do so until a few minutes after his death. Then the gases would take over, continuing to move around whatever he had eaten today. For now, he still breathed, left to die a slow and painful death.
“I sent Eric here behind him when everyone left the longhouse,” Xavier said, pointing at the guy next to him. “When everyone went to look at Brandy, this one walked the other way. Probably for your little girl. You might not want to kill for me, but I won’t hesitate to do what’s necessary to make us work together. We live dangerous lives, Rowan, and so do those we love. And neither you nor I will make it another year if we don’t have each other’s backs. Two old men and a wife. No more. No less.”
Six
Darya
“Isabelle, you went through a very traumatizing experience.” Claire, the therapist, stared at me with a reassuring nod. She sat astride her chair like she always did, making herself look more approachable and less of a shrink. “The loss of a child was described by some as one of the worst emotional pains. It’s natural for you to go from denial to anger, and you know what? It is healing, as well. We want you to be angry!”
“Uh-huh,” said the guy to my right.
“Be angry, Isabelle!”, an older woman across from me added.
Our ergonomically correct chairs stood arranged in a neat circle, and everyone around me nodded in unison, pumped up by the jolly peer pressure of group therapy.
Heavy notes of patchouli hung in the air. Apparently, the revolting scent of dead hippie helped us unlock our sub-conscience. Or so they said.
Alright. One. Two. Three.
“Aaaahrgh,” I let out a gut-wrenching shout, emphasized with my clenched fists pressing against my thighs.
“Again, Isabelle!” Claire shouted. “You are angry!”
“Aaah,” I let out another scream.
Yes, I was angry. Mostly at myself.
“Give your anger a voice!”
Another scream, this time long, deep, and with something primal to it. It sucked a hole into my core as if this scream had been long overdue.
The vibrations of it worked themselves through my body and skittered across my skin. It was the scream I should have let out over a year ago — instead of leaving behind the man I loved.
Claire clapped her hands, a big smile hanging across her over-lipsticked mouth. “We are so proud of you.”
They were proud of me. I was fucking ashamed of myself.
“Now,” Claire continued, “Laura has also recently experienced the loss of a child, which is why I would like her to speak next. Remember, we don’t interrupt once someone began speaking.”
She waved at the young woman beside her who sat in the chair, moving her weight from left to right and back again. Her black hair hung across her pale cheeks in greasy strands. Anxiety and doubt were much in evidence, especially in the way she had chewed most of her fingernails down to a bright pink nail bed.
Claire placed her hand onto Laura’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, last week you told us you blame the doctors for losing one of your twins during birth. What are you feeling now?”
“Nothing,” she said, quick and to the point. “I feel nothing.”
“I see.” Claire nodded and looked into the chair circle with a raised brow, making us all bow our heads like a flock of foolish sheep.
We all waited for a while until Laura continued. “I just don’t think she died.”
“Oh love,” Claire said, her voice soft and soothing. “It seems you are struggling with a setback. But it’s okay to go back to denial for a while.”
Laura jumped up from her chair, which tipped back and hit the charcoal carpet underneath us with a muffled tock. “No, no, it’s not that. It’s not denial.” She paced the little space she had within the circle, her steps bouncing from one pair of toes to another. “What if she isn’t dead? They refused to show me her body when they took her out after the c-section. When I asked to see her later in the recovery room, they said they had already disposed of her. What if… what if she is not…”
Her words turned to incoherent mumbles, and she shook her head while swinging her torso back and forth. The man beside her picked up her chair.
Claire was quick to place both hands onto Laura’s shoulders, leading her back to sit. “I understand this stage must feel terrifying to you, Laura, but you have reached the next stage of grief. Everyone, please repeat the stages for Laura.”
We all hummed the mantra in chorus. “Denial. Anger. Escape. Grief. Acceptance.”
“Again.”
“Denial. Anger. Escape. Grief. Acceptance,” I chanted along.
“Thank you, everyone.” Claire pulled a few reusable tissues out of a box from underneath her chair and handed them to Laura. “What-if’s are healthy, and they will bring you relief from your pain, albeit temporary my love. Take this time to contemplate over the what-if’s, but remember that each one of those questions is nothing but a cornerstone to acceptance.”
Laura let her shoulders slump, her body continuing the disturbing back and forth, which made the backrest of her chair creak. The pain in her eyes stabbed my heart, reminding me of my own what-if’s.
What if Rowan refused to take Rose in?
What if I would never see her again?
The surrounding room began to spin, turning my thoughts dizzy and my stomach foul. I fucked up big time, letting down the only two things I cared about in my life.
“Before we wrap this group session up and walk over to the coffee and pastries, I want you to welcome Ruth.” Claire pointed at the young woman also across from me, her blonde hair in a tight updo, legs crossed underneath her chair. “It’s her first time here today, and she has recently experienced a different kind of loss she needs our help with.”
“Hi Ruth,” we all chanted, and some added a quick wave of their hand to it.
She gave us a polite smile, dwindling into her chair at the same time. With her arms resting in a knot on her lap, she continuously scratched one of her nails across her elbow pit.
Her eyes darted across the room, though they always came back to me at some point or another. “Hi,” she said, any hint of loss or struggle absent from her tone.
“Ruth, before we fill the others in on your story,” Claire said, “I want you to know how deeply connected you are to Isabelle here.”
I sat up straight. “We are?”
“Uh-huh.” She folded her hands in prayer-position, looking more shrink than ever. “See, Ruth here lost her coworker, Max, during the exact same event when you lost your daughter. Not only is that horrible clanswoman responsible for the death of Rose but also the kidnapping of one of our scientists.”
Ph… kidnapped. Considering how that musty basement smelled like sex the night Ayanna and I arrived, the word kidnapping only made sense in a kinky roleplaying-sense to me.
“I see,” I said, digging my eyes into Ruth.
She didn’t shrink back.
“Ruth,” Claire continued, “would you like to share how you feel after this unexpected loss of your good friend and coworker Max?”
“How I feel?” she asked.
“Yes.” Claire paused for a moment and cocked her head. “For example… you could feel devastated or angry about what happened. They told me Max was a real people-person, surely losing him must make you feel something or otherwise you wouldn’t have reached out.”
Ruth’s eyebrows bunched up against the bridge of her nose. “Max? A people-person?”
She shoved in her chair some more, the scratching along her elbow pit turning audible. At least to me. I watched her every move. Listened to her every breath.
Something’s not right about her.
“Does it make you feeeeeel…” Claire stretched the word into a window for Ruth to answer. When no answer came, our therapist added, “sad?”
“Oh… sad..” Ruth stammered. “Yeah, um, yeah, absolutely. I am super sad that they took Max. Sooo sad.”
“Aww.” Claire cupped her own face with the tips of her fingers. “You guys, please give Ruth some applause for acknowledging her feelings and getting out of her denial.”
Excited claps echoed through the room. Except for mine — which came slow, lazy, and with a beat that drummed bullshit.
“Ruth, honey, since this was your first time today I would like to leave it at this. You came out of your denial over what happened to you, and that is the first step toward acceptance.”
“Um, yeah,” Ruth said. “Fine with me.”
“Great.” Claire got up from her chair and pointed at the table in front of the large window, stocked with almost-cold coffee and gross egg-free pastries. I had to know because the council ordered me to attend group therapy every fucking day of the week ever since I got out of my white nightmare.
“Isabelle.”
I swung around and found Claire standing beside me, her hands reaching out for mine.
“I would like it very much if you reached out to Ruth,” she said. “Overcoming grief is difficult work. Sharing it with others will take some of the burden from you. And her.”
Fuck you. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
The last things I needed were more twisted stories and lies about this so-called event, which the council was quick to declare the greatest attack of the Clan on the Districts.
“Thank you, dear. And please load up on the coffee so you can make it to the fireworks tonight. The entire sky will light up in bursts of orange and blue, celebrating a new year with new opportunities. And trust me when I say, there will be opportunities for you as well, even if it doesn’t look like it right now.”
She gave my hands a squeeze and left the room, leaving most of us behind to chat about our feelings and the five stages of grief. I left the room and walked along the bright corridor, knowing full well I would spend New Year’s Eve with my over-observing new roommate they had assigned to me, AKA the snitch.
Over a year ago, I had a Clan, friends, a family, and a husband who loved me. I poured it all down the drain. Thinking it wasn’t enough. Thinking it wouldn’t last. Thinking Rose could fill the large gap.
Now all I had was that gap.
Without Rose.
