The Wanted Read Online Free PDF Page A

jacket. He threw it at my gaping mouth.
    “Here!” he said impatiently.
    Thick, canvas cotton scratched my face. I grabbed the jacket and put it on as quickly as possible. It went down to my knees.
    The guard bundled up the curtain with a look of disgust and plonked it on one of the passing stretchers without even checking to see if he’d put it on a body.
    I blinked up at him. “Thank you,” I muttered.
    He rolled his eyes. “Just walk.”
    I cast my gaze down to the rich and colorful rug, mashed and scuffed from boot prints, and moved forward. My bare legs and feet jutted out like matchsticks.
    As we left the chaos of the hall behind, I wondered, What happened while I was dead? Everything was unraveling like a ball of string tied to a bird-in-flight’s leg. A Superior had been murdered! It was unsurprising these people seemed exasperated rather than mournful.
     

     
    For no reason I could understand, the guards would sporadically shove my shoulder, sending me sprawling forward. It was like violence was just part of their job description, and they had to pepper it in every now and then to earn their titles. I shivered in my loaned jacket and scowled at them. It only seemed to amuse them further. The guard in shirtsleeves seemed to be regretting his choice and, in between shoving me, he kept his arms hugged tightly around his chest.
    “Are w-we w-walking the whole way?” I asked through chattering teeth. My voice was so loud, it sounded like I had a megaphone pressed to my lips, another side effect of the healer. Cool air battered my legs, swirling under the loose jacket, and my feet pricked with the sharpness of the gravel.
    The snake-like guard’s eyes lowered to me as I jerked and shuddered in the cold. “We’re on lockdown, thanks to you and your friends, so yes, we have to walk,” he sneered.
    We marched down Este’s driveway towards two immense, ornate gates. The guards stopped and jumped in unison. Then, one of them laughed.
    “She’s not watching us anymore,” he said, knocking the other one’s shoulder lightly. “We don’t have to do all that crap now.” They laughed heartily at the demise of their loopy Superior and undid the padlock to the gate, pushing it open. I expected it to creak, but it opened gracefully.
    “Zoo?” the jacket-less guard asked the other.
    “Nah. Let’s go around. I can’t handle the stink tonight,” the snake-like guard hissed, his eyes perching over me like I was a bad enough smell.
    My eyes followed the disturbed path, the footprints, smudged lightly into the stones. One of those could have been Joseph’s, Deshi’s… I bent down to touch it without thinking and got a boot in the back.
    The one in shirtsleeves, his voice calmer, humor hiding somewhere in there, pulled the other guard back. I turned to look in his eyes, the garden lights leaving them steel colored, almost grey.
    “Leave her alone,” he said quietly but forcefully. I started to hope maybe they weren’t all bad, that they hadn’t had all the humanity sucked out of them through their Guardian training. But then he laughed and said, “She’s going to suffer plenty once Grant has her!” My heart tumbled into the sharpened ground and was punctured by the small rocks’ tiny teeth.
    Snake eyes chuckled. “That’s for sure!”
    At least they stopped kicking and shoving me as we made our way towards Grant’s compound.
    We arrived at the outer fence of the zoo, ten feet high and grazed with barbed and electrified wire. We followed the fence’s perfect curve, the guards’ boots crunching down on pure white stones the color and feel of giant rock salt, edged in by neatly cut, one-foot-high stone walls. My bare, aching feet made little sound.
    The Indian elephant’s sad, lamenting trumpet sailed over the walls. I clasped my hands together and tried to face forward. The hours between Joseph and me lay in front of me like giant planks of wood. A barrier. What had I got myself into?
    As we left