What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) (15 page)

Then it’s over. She pulls back. “Don’t ever do what I just did, Jendra,” Moira says. “It’s awful. Simply dreadful.” She makes an animal grunt to indicate the disgust she feels. “Only touch them when they’re dead.”

The flashlight’s beam floods my face again. “One more thing,” Moira says to me, her voice dripping with contempt. “I came upstairs to warn you, my dear. If you do anything to hurt one of mine ever again, we
will
put you to death. But first we’ll start out with these.” The flashlight picks out Stace, then CJ, then Terry, all cowering on their cots like I am. “Snuff them out one by one. And I know that you know how I’d enjoy doing that. I’d love nothing better than to see how you react.”

She cuts the light and, although I strain my ears, I hear nothing else, no footsteps, no rustle of clothing—until I flinch at the sound of a door slamming shut behind her from far down the hall.

The Runaway

I’m back in
the cellar. It smells terrible in here, like some wild creature had been hiding in a corner for weeks, gave up the ghost and was left to rot. Now I know what William was talking about when he unlocked the door to release me two days ago.

William has unlocked the door for me this time as well, waited for me to go in, then relocked it. Before I can take more than a couple of steps into a space I used to be so familiar with, I have to let my eyes adjust. Let them adapt to murky daylight that works its way through the cracked and broken panes of the small cellar windows.

At first I see the hulking shape of the furnace, its ducts still stretching across the ceiling like enormous arms. Then there’s the mattress where I lay for so long, surrounded by the clutter of bike frames, boxes of junk, tool handles, broken desks and chairs.

And on the mattress I can see the semblance of something human, curled into itself tightly, like a wounded animal.

The smell is so bad that for a moment I think,
Is this what the smell of death is like? What you smell right after someone has died, while their body cools?

I have to force myself to edge closer to the mattress in order to get a good look at what’s there, to see if maybe there’s some sign of life. The motionless shape reminds me of what I saw so many times in the countless homes I entered while on the road. Houses where I crept into a back bedroom only to find a half-mummified corpse lying in the same spot where the poor invalid had succumbed to the disease.

When I reach that same ragged mattress where I lay for so many hungry and thirsty hours, I stop and listen but am not sure I can hear breathing. The figure doesn’t move. I lower myself down, squatting on my heels, trying not to be repulsed by the smell. Trying not to be too frightened to examine minutely what lies before me.

I don’t want to have to touch this shape, this once-human thing. Only want to listen to what my ears can tell me—but the sounds of the cellar work against me. Beams in the ceiling start creaking. Metal pipes groan and somewhere water is dripping. A broom chooses this very moment to tumble over, the wooden handle slapping the floor with a sound as loud as a gunshot. I’m so startled I fall back on the floor.

I push myself up and try again, lean in closer. Little daylight reaches this area of the basement but I can make out jeans and a coat, clothes that are blood-stained and muddied. It’s the body of a boy with his head turned away from me. I lean over farther and am able to see a spray of long dark hair obscuring everything but the side of his right cheek and the tip of his nose.

Then I hear it—low, shallow breathing.

The realization that he’s alive gives me the courage to reach out my hand and place it on his chest. I can feel his ribcage rise and fall, not much but steadily.

Who is this boy and why have they done this to him?

He must be taller than William but very thin. All William would tell me was that the wounded creature the Black Riders had dragged in and locked up below was a runaway. William made me guess at his gender, calling him
that thing downstairs
. Tetch said nothing about him, looked away when I asked. None of the children spoke his name. CJ, Terry and Stace had never seen him.

There is some food and water I brought with me but I have left the tray and bottle by the door on first entering the room. Looking at him now, I’m positive he wouldn’t be able to swallow a morsel of food but I go back for the water.

Leaning over him again, I try to shift him toward me, onto his back. As soon as I start to move him he lets out an unearthly groan, as if I’ve just taken a knife and stabbed him deep in the belly. I jerk my hands away, jump to my feet and pace back and forth frantically, cursing myself, wondering aloud if there’s anything I can do.

The sight of this boy—who may be dying—lying alone on a soiled, tattered mattress in the grim, dreary basement of this place fills me with rage, a howling rage more intense than I’ve felt at anything that’s been done to me. I want to grab the best weapons I can find and kill them all, all the Black Riders, all the so-called Elders who are such fools that they obey those crazy, diseased ones’ commands.

But I drive all these thoughts back, tamp them down, try to focus on what I can do. What’s possible for this boy lying helpless in front of me.

Just like Larkin lay before me on the last night we were together.

I scuttle over to the boy’s other side and let some water trickle across his lips as I had tried to let water dribble into Larkin’s parched mouth. I push the hair back from his face. His lips are cracked and bloodied, there are deep bruises along the side of his jaw and around one eye. From what I can see, there’s a good, strong face underneath all the damage.

I lift up the edge of the coat he’s wearing, trying not to cause him any distress. Holding up a flap of the coat, I gingerly touch a splotch of blood that’s bloomed across the fabric of his shirt like an exotic red flower. It’s still wet and warm near the wound and I yank my hand away.

What can I do? What can I do?
The question flits around my brain like a frightened bird, unanswerable, making me panicked. But then the thought hits me,
I’ve got to get him upstairs
. I’ve got to clean him up. Find some clean bandages somewhere, some antibiotics. There
are
things I can do. I touch his forehead and it feels warmer than it should.

The idea that I’ve got to get him upstairs to someplace safe—warm, clean—gives me a way to channel my rage with something immediate I can accomplish. Since Moira’s visit last night, I’ve only seen William and Tetch left to keep watch over the Orphanage, the same as it was before. I haven’t seen any other Elders since William brought me up from the cellar.

I stand up, take a deep breath. The stench of this place no longer bothers me. The determination I feel overpowers everything else.

I know that there’s no way William and Tetch can stop me. I
will
get this boy upstairs and do whatever I can to keep him alive.

“We’re moving him
upstairs, William.”

He’s right above me, blundering his way up the steps.

It’s dark in the stairwell. We have to feel our way, hand over hand along the iron railing, stubbing toes against the risers, trying to set one foot after another down on something solid. Only a band of hazy gray daylight seeping into the stairwell from under the first floor door penetrates the darkness.

I wonder if it scares William to be alone with me in the dark like this. He’s clearly heard what I’ve said but doesn’t slow down, doesn’t pause for a moment to turn and answer. The only response he makes is a derisive snort, the sound you make when someone is being far too big an idiot to take seriously.

William left me in the cellar for what felt like an eternity before deciding to let me out. I kept pacing back and forth, feeling helpless, wanting to pound on the heavy steel doors, kick at them until William heard me. But I was afraid of making it worse for the wounded boy.

I was so furious I was shaking when I finally heard him fumbling with the lock, the rusty creak as he pushed the door back to reveal his pasty, smug little face.

I could have shoved him against the wall, screamed right in his face.
What was that about—what the hell did you think you’d accomplish, leaving me here so long? You know I will make you pay.

But I wait to speak until we’re in the stairwell. Alone together in the dark. Until he’s just one short stair-step above me.

“He’s
dying
, William,” I yell at his back. He tries to speed up, desperate to stay ahead of me. “I can’t do anything for him down there. It’s filthy. I need medicine and bandages, anything we can find.”

“He’s not
dying
,” he says, like that last word is the most ridiculous he’s ever heard. “They don’t want him to die.”

“You know that for a fact, do you? You need to take a look at him.” He’s almost reached the first floor landing. I can see that band of daylight pass over his shins. “I mean it.
I want you to come back down with me right now and take a look at him
.” I bellow that last sentence like a drill sergeant but I can’t make him stop and pay attention to me.

Reaching up on tiptoe, almost losing my balance, I take a big swipe at the empty space between us. My fingers are like talons and I manage to hook the sleeve of the bulky sweater he’s wearing. I pull back on the soft wool, feeling the threads stretch tight in my hand. He never stops moving. The fabric starts ripping at the shoulder but it doesn’t slow him. I come to a complete stop and keep pulling like I’m trying to reel in a fish and soon I’m left holding an empty sleeve.

William sprints across the first floor landing and slams the door open. A burst of daylight hits me in the face. I raise my arms to protect my eyes and wait for them to adjust.

But the light blinds William as well. The back of his narrow-shouldered body comes into focus, a dark smudge against the light, and I can tell that he’s also paused for a moment, half out the door.

It occurs to me that I’m still holding the empty sleeve of his sweater. I grab both ends of it and yank it tight like a short piece of rope. A vision of slipping this thing over his head and throttling him into submission flashes through my mind but just as it does he starts to move. I toss the sleeve aside and heave myself up the last few steps. He’s out the door and it starts to shut but I bang it back open with my hip and hurl myself at him, tackling him like a linebacker, throwing my arms around his legs as I fall forward, knocking him down.

We tumble out into the hallway.

He writhes and kicks, tries to crawl away like his legs are caught in quicksand but I don’t let go. My knees hurt from the impact of the fall, my left hip stinging where I slammed it against the crash bar of the door. To stop him kicking, I clamber up his body like I’m climbing up a ledge, letting my weight hold his legs down.

William sits up and tries to pry me off, frenzied and squirming like I’m a python coiling my way around and around him. He starts to slap and claw at my face and the pain of his fingernails digging at my skin enrages me so completely that, without thinking, I slam the heel of my right hand into his soft, pulpy face. I push myself up and use my full weight to slam him back hard onto the cold, linoleum floor. I hear the back of his head hit the tile with a hollow
thwok
.

In seconds, I’ve got my hands clamped over each of his arms and a knee jammed hard into his belly. “Had enough?” I’m panting, my voice a ragged whisper.

He still squirms, but feebly now. His face scrunches up, like he’s about to cry. “What do you want?” It’s a little boy’s voice, quavering, his skin red and hot. The moon-shaped scar above his right eye is ghostly white against the backdrop of his flushed face. He won’t look at me, looks everywhere but directly at my face, as if searching for somebody who might magically appear out of nowhere to help him.

“What I want is for you to listen to me.” I scoot up far enough so that I’m able to pin his arms down with my knees, sitting on his stomach. I cup his chin with the palm of my hand, my fingers digging into his cheeks, to keep him from turning his head. I force his eyes to meet mine. I’m sure that if he could simply sink through the floor—disappear into the cracks between the tiles like a block of melting ice—he would do so gladly.

Some small part of me doesn’t want to hurt him, wants to pull back from what I’m doing. The
thwak
as he hit his head concerns me. I don’t want him to have a concussion, to be damaged, to suffer
too
much. But I do want him to suffer. All the pent up rage I’ve felt at how they’ve treated me, threatened me, hurt me—and what they’ve done to the boy in the cellar—wells up in me, floods my entire being, makes it hard for me to keep from hitting him. Again and again. And again.

“What if he does die?” I spit the words out, my face right above his. “Do you really want to be the one they blame if that happens?”

He jerks his chin up, trying to pull his head out of my grip. Doing this makes his neck jut upward—a soft, vulnerable, lilywhite neck with a quivering Adam’s apple. “No.”

“No what?”

“I don’t want him to die.” It’s hard for him to get the words out.

“Good. Then we’ve got to move him upstairs, somewhere clean and dry. Where I can see what I’m doing.”

He’s silent for a long time, turning this over in his mind. Calculating. He’s staring up at the ceiling as it recedes down the hall behind him. Row after row of dead fluorescent light fixtures mark the way. Finally he says, “I’ll have to ask.”

This takes me by surprise.
Ask who?
I wonder. The Elders? The Black Riders?

I ease up on my grip and he moves his head back to a normal position, looks up into my eyes again. “What are you going to do after we move him?” his says.

“We could move a cot into one of the offices down here. We can get some clean water to wash him, maybe find some way to heat it. Get blankets, clean clothes.” I bring my face down close to his. “Both of us together—
we’ll
get these things. You and I. Understand?”