Page 15 of Juniper Unraveling

“What is it?”

Abandoning the fruit in his palm, he lifts his hands—five fingers on one, the broken index finger on the other. Six. He gestures a sequence of numbers that strike me as familiar.

“The number on your head?”

He nods and goes back to eating his stockpiled fruit.

“That’s way too long to remember. I’ll just call you Six.”

His broken finger catches my attention, the way he favors the others around it, and I know it must hurt. I merely twisted my ankle a few months back and could hardly walk.

“Did the others do that to your finger?”

He holds his hand out from his face and bends the digit that’s begun to turn black and blue, squinting at an undoubtedly painful movement. He nods.

What kind of hospital breaks bones?

“Are they doctors there?” I tread carefully with my questions, not wanting to frighten him again.

His nod only drums more confusing thoughts inside my head. Ones I know the boy won’t answer. Perhaps if I frame the question right, I can ask Papa without rousing his suspicion.

I find there’s little room in my heart for compassion, or love, as a general rule, but my soul aches for this boy. “How old are you?”

Finished with his fruit, he glances over at me and reaches beyond my view. With a thin twig, he draws a one and a nine in the dirt. Nineteen. The nineteen-year-olds on this side of the wall are big, with muscles and small minds, dreaming of the day they can wear the black suits and become one of The Legion. Some are only sixteen when they venture out on the other side of the wall—lively, if not privileged, little shits who are never seen again. They occasionally march through town, like a herd of drones, their height being the only distinguishable feature.

A sounding horn startles my muscles.

Six scrambles to his feet and, like the day before, dives through the crowd of Ragers, leaving behind a few fruits.

Only this time I don’t worry.

I have a feeling I’ll see him tomorrow.

Chapter 5

Dani

Heat pours over my face, and I tip my head up toward the bright sun. Abel’s laughter mingles with my sister’s, as they play together somewhere, but doesn’t carry over the melodic sound of my mother’s singing. I’m lying in a bed of orange desert poppies, with the scent of a passing rain shower on the air. I smile, concentrating on the warmth that blankets my skin, and I could stay in this place forever.

A man’s voice filters in, and I focus on it. Dad?

It’s deeper. Foreign.

My siblings’ laughter turns to screams. My mother’s singing becomes a high-pitched wail.

I snap my eyes open.

The bright lamp above me casts a blinding light that begs me to shield my face, but mentally willing my arm to do so leaves me panicked when I can’t move. I can’t raise my head. Or fully open my eyes.

The light dulls at the same time that a silhouette moves into my periphery, and I stare up at the dark-haired man, who stands over me with a mask across his face. Not one of the scary masks the soldiers wore. A white mask, like a doctor’s.

“You won’t be able to move for a bit.” He tugs the mask away from his mouth and removes the rubber gloves from his hands.

Sickness twists inside my stomach, spreading across my belly, and I heave. My head is turned just enough to vomit all over the crinkly white paper below me. Clear fluids expel on a cough, and a plastic cup is set beneath my cheek, collecting the next round that hurls past my lips.

The acids burn my throat, and when my head is set forward again, the phantom strings of slime cling to my cheek.

Mask back in place, dark-hair twists a cap onto the plastic cup and sets it off to the side, outside of my view.