Summer Wishes (Desire #1.5) (6 page)

In silence, Matthew and Jocelyn passed one filthy cell after another, peering in with the hopes of finding Jacob.

Looking at the dirty, lice-infested men, Jocelyn wondered if she’d be able to recognize her own brother.  The conditions were sub-human and her heart ached for every one of them, but the thought of Jacob… it was too much to bear.

“I can’t believe Jacob is in a place like this, Matthew.”

Reaching the end of the corridor, Jocelyn grunted her dismay, but refused to admit aloud that finding Jacob alive was becoming less and less likely.

Matthew tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to a narrow and short door with a small barred opening at the top. “Over there.”

Jocelyn hurried to the small door and knelt to peer through the opening.

Curled up on the rough stone floor, her brother laid, his back to her, his legs curled up to his chest, his hair shorn.

“My god, Matthew, it’s him.”

Matthew knelt beside her and peered inside.  “How can you tell?  You can’t even see his face.  Like this he looks like all the others.”

“I know it’s him, Matthew.  I just know.”

Without so much as a piece of cloth to cover him, he shivered and shook, rattling the bones that were so tightly wrapped with nothing more than transparent skin.

“Jacob,” Jocelyn whispered, with tears in her eyes.

He waved her away, not even turning to look at her.

“Jacob, it’s me, Jocelyn.  We’ve come for you.  I’m with Matthew.  We’re going to do all we can to get you out of here.”  She grabbed the tiny bars of the opening and stuck her face in further.  “Jacob?  Can you hear me?  It’s Jocelyn.  Please look at me.  Jacob?”

A group of cockroaches scampered across the floor.  Jocelyn recoiled, but quickly returned to wake Jacob out of his lethargy.

“Jacob, Melanie is at the house.  She’s asleep in your old room… and the baby is fine. She’s doing great. They’re doing great. I promised Melanie I’d find you.  Jacob, Melanie loves you and she’s home waiting for you.”

At this he stirred and twisted around to peer at her with fuzzy eyes. His gaze was unsure, as though caught in the gloom too long. “Melanie?” he grunted.

Jocelyn smiled, ignoring the heartbreaking sound of his familiar voice. She’d made it through to him and that was what really mattered. “Yes, Jacob.  Melanie is home, with your unborn child.  I came here to bring you back to her.

With great difficulty he shifted his frail body onto all fours and struggled to stand. He was horrifyingly thin - dirt and mud was caked to virtually every part of his body.

“I’m being transported,” he said as he came to the small door and settled his bones. He was skeletal, even thinner than Melanie.

Jocelyn glanced at Matthew in confusion, but he offered only a vague and confused shrug in response. She returned her gaze to her brother, taking in the distant look in his eyes. Could he be delirious? Was he already lost to her, even as he stood just inches away from her?

“Jacob,” she whispered. “What do you mean?  Where are you being transported to?”

He seemed far too frail to be transported anywhere.

“They’ve forgiven me. I’ve been exonerated.  They’ve offered me clemency.  Retribution.  Freedom.  It’s not so bad.  I’m good… a good Arcadian… good citizen.” He sounded more and more incoherent as the words tumbled through his chapped lips.  “I told them Melanie carried my child and they offered me a way out of here - Transportation.”

Matthew tapped Jocelyn’s shoulder. “Sarah said the Enforcers were incapable of mercy. They have no empathy.”

Jocelyn stared at him. She wanted desperately to believe her brother had been spared the awful fate that awaited prisoners on the field, but Matthew’s words rant true.  The blood thirsty brutes she saw up there seemed incapable of any and all empathy.  Even she had heard talk of the Enforcers and their capacity to be hard and harsh, but what she had just experienced was nothing she could have imagined.

Jacob grabbed the bars, his fingers brushing against Jocelyn’s.  “Little sister,” he whispered.  “Little sister who is soon to become a woman. You will be given a choice like I did at 18. Each has consequences.”

Tears filled her eyes as she met his crazed gaze.  She was looking at a stranger… a man she barely recognized.

“I came for you, little sister.”

“You shouldn’t have come back,” she blubbered through tears. “It’s not worth it. Not you in here, and Melanie…” Her heart was suddenly heavy with memories of the big brother who’d always protected her.  He had been her hero on more than one occasion, making her proud, making her feel important. Despite being from the Ruby District, he had always been the football hero in high school and the boy all the girls in his class had a crush on, handsome and strong. He and Melanie had been so much in love. The only other couple in school that appeared just as in love or more so, was Kama and Liam. In a way, despite being from different districts, and despite Liam being the Governor’s son, Liam reminded Jocelyn of Jacob. Would the same fate happen to Liam, if he decides to challenge Kama’s Life’s Plan? Jocelyn stared into Jacob’s vacant eyes as reality sank into her head. Even Liam would not get mercy so why should Jacob?

She controlled the urge to crumble and weep helplessly.

The inmates suddenly became restless and loud, shaking the bars of their cells and crying out like animals. The one closest to Matthew and Jocelyn shook his head back and forth with such violence spittle flew from his frothing mouth, landing at Jocelyn’s feet. “Don’t just stand there, get us out!” he said.

“Someone’s coming,” Matthew warned. “We gotta go.”

“Jacob…”

He smiled. It was a crooked and awkward smile that was far removed from the glorious smile she remembered. It exposed the two teeth he was now missing and the rot and decay of those that remained.

“After the last fight,” he said. “At the main terminal of the top level…  that’s where they’ll prepare me to be transported.”

Footsteps inched closer.

“After the last fight,” he repeated.  “The top level. Take care of yourself, Melanie, and the baby.”

Jocelyn gripped his fingers through the bars.  “I love you, Jacob.”

“Come on,” Matthew urged. “We gotta leave… now.”

She rose as her heart fell to the floor. With complete faith in Matthew, she followed him blindly, disregarding all they passed by. The shock of everything, especially seeing Jacob like this, disoriented her, and she couldn’t think. Matthew stumbled here and there as they made their way through the maze of endless cells.

Cries of horror bounced off the walls and followed them at every turn. Prisoners could be heard calling for mercy as they were escorted out of their holding cells and up to the field of certain death.

“He said the last fight,” Jocelyn muttered.  “This is pure horror. How much more?”

“I have no idea.  I would have never guessed there were so many prisoners in all Arcadia to begin with. Some of them have been there a long time. Did they keep them there all this time…for this?”

“I can’t believe we’re peaceful, beautiful Main Street is but an hour away…all those people who disappeared, all those people who said they were leaving Arcadia…here?”

They settled into a quiet alcove and waited.  Two long and excruciating hours passed before the final combat was announced.

“Should we start heading for the terminal now?” Even as she asked the questions something sounded wrong.  A transportation terminal within a coliseum of death; it didn’t make sense.

They headed to the nearby flight of steps.  The Stone Age walls gave way to bright white halls. Well-lit and amply-suited for the transportation of many, the halls offered Jocelyn a glimpse of optimistic hope.  The floor were immaculate, the walls pristine and the windows offered an enchanting view of all Arcadia.

“He was granted clemency,” Jocelyn said, clasping her hands together in a gesture of hope.

“I guess being a future dad saved him.”

“I don’t even want to consider what could have happened to him had he been sent to that field down there. It’s certain death.”

“How is he going to be transported and where is he being transported to?” Matthew asked.

“That’s precisely what I was wondering.”  Again, that gnawing sense of wrong came to her.  It was an odd place for a bus terminal, stranger yet for a train.  “We’re on what…? The sixth floor?  Who puts a terminal so far from the actual transportation vehicle?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe they just have the ticket office way up here and we’ll have to go all the way back down to actually see Jacob leave.”

“Leave it to Arcadian administrators to come up with that confusing and frustrating idea.”  Jocelyn suddenly remembered when Jacob was first banished.  No one had transported him out.  He had to walk out of Arcadia on his own two feet. Why the special treatment now?

An Enforcer, tall and wide with menacing eyes, glared at them as they crossed him in the hall.

Matthew squeezed Jocelyn’s hand as he smiled amiably at the Enforcer.  Jocelyn took Matthew’s cue and smiled politely at the brute.

The Enforcer’s scowl softened into a brief and tight grin, but once Matthew and Jocelyn had passed him by, he halted with the loud stomp of his heels to the neatly tiled floor.

“What are you guys looking for?”

Jocelyn felt the hair at the back of her neck stiffen.  Her heart caught in a vice of pain and fear.

“Transportation,” Matthew said matter-of-factly.  He sounded as if he roamed these halls on a regular basis.

“At the end of the hall take a right then follow the red hall.  Don’t take the blue hall; that’ll lead you to waste management.”  He chuckled his way through a grimace. “Seen any of the ‘entertainment’?”

“Uh, no,” Matthew said. “We just got here. Um, thanks for the directions.”

Jocelyn smiled but remained silent, certain her voice would give away just how completely frazzled she was.

After a quick nod, Matthew and Jocelyn proceeded toward the terminal. 

“That was close,” Jocelyn muttered as she allowed herself to breathe again.

“Hey,” the brute called out. “What do you guys need with transportation anyway?” He’d turned around and was heading straight for them.

“Stay cool,” Matthew ordered.

“I’ve never seen you guys around before and…”  He eyed them with suspicion.

Jocelyn’s hand immediately dampened and she had to work hard to continue breathing.

“Yeah, we don’t usually come around, especially so late.”

“I see.”

Jocelyn looked at his vacant eyes.  Other than following orders, he probably could deduce little on his own.

“And why the exception tonight?”  His hand played with the gun belt at his waist.

Matthew whipped a business card out and held it up to the Enforcer.  “Mrs. Stone sent me. She’s rather busy lately and she hasn’t had time to come collect transportation reports. I’ve been giving her a hand, running errands and such and tonight… well, here I am.”

Jocelyn had to stare at him in disbelief.  When had he become such an efficient liar?

The Enforcer turned his questioning gaze to Jocelyn.

“My girlfriend thought I was brushing her off to go see another girl, so I brought her along to prove I had real work to do. I thought it would impress her too.”

The oaf grinned and gave Jocelyn the once over, leaving her skin crawling to places it had never crawled before.

“There’s one more transportation to tend to and the reports should be ready after that.” The Enforcer spun on his heel and left them.

“Matthew,” Jocelyn whispered in amazement. “I can’t believe what you just did.  I can’t believe you made it look so easy.  You were so convincing, so natural, so calm.”

He grinned and gave her waist a quick squeeze.  “See how you need me around?”

She smiled, happier than ever to have him on her side.

The hall forked, as the Enforcer had said, and they took the red corridor.  At the end of the hall, clearly indicated with a flashing sign was the transportation room.  The huge glass doors showed a brilliant white room, almost blinding in its intensity.

Men were fiddling around, moving like worker bees while women seemed intent over the analysis of a report.  Much of the action centered around a table.

“It looks more like an operating room than a transportation unit.”  Matthew halted his advance and glanced at Jocelyn.  “You want me to go ahead and take a look?”

“No,” she said with conviction.  “I want to see Jacob.  Whatever’s going on in that room, I want to see him.”

With slow, steady paces they advanced. A worker moved away from the table, giving them a glimpse of a metal object lying atop it. Two tubular shafts were joined together with a spring, a hydraulic system giving it freedom of movement. One shaft ended with an odd looking claw or clamp while the other was bound to a larger encasement of smooth shining metal.  Topped with a dome of smoky glass, it made for an enigma.

“What in the world is that?”

“Looks like they are building his transportation device.”