Free What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) by Delany Beaumont Page A

kill me—I know that. Another flurry of icy wind rakes across me, makes the cage rock to and fro. I drop to my hands and knees, crouching low, trying to stay in the center of the cage’s floor to keep it steady.
    The wind stinging my eyes makes them tear up and I’m able to blink the rest of the gummy residue away. I touch my face and feel a large bump in the middle of my forehead painful to touch, covered with a sticky-sweet coating of blood.
    I scan the horizon. To my left are the towering offices of a city’s center. To my right I see a warren of warehouses and buildings only four or five stories high. In front of me, as far as I can see, is the broad sweep of the river and the bridges that span it. I count four of them receding into the distance.
    Creeping to the front edge of the cage, I slide a little, making that end tip down. I press myself flat, let my head rest against the rusted iron bars until I can peer almost straight over the rim. There’s a sheet of water the color of weathered steel spread below me. Weak sunlight pierces gloomy skies, skitters across the tips of wavelets driven by the wind. Starlings dive and swoop all around me.
    I shut my eyes as a wave of nausea hits me. My throat feels ragged, as if I’ve been gargling with sand. Then I hear voices, the chatter of voices somewhere nearby. The cries of the birds make it impossible to pick out actual words but I get an impression of cheerfulness, of young people casually strolling along, not a care in the world.
    Rolling over, I look up at the stained, scratched ceiling of rough wood above me, listening hard, trying to decipher what they’re saying. There is the metallic ping of someone rhythmically beating a handrail with a piece of pipe or a rock, something heavy. This sound grows louder, filling the space above me—the unknown above the roof of my cage. Then the pinging stops, right above my head. I can hear words clearly for the first time.
    “She’s still down there…”
    “What a great idea they had…”
    “Tonight we’ll…”
    “If she’s still alive.”
    Then a voice shushes the others like a teacher bringing a class to order. It’s a female voice familiar to me but it takes a few minutes for me to connect it to anything recent in my memory. My mind is moving slowly, as if my thoughts have to claw their way through thick syrup in order to come clear.
    “Are you still alive down there, Gillian? Please respond if you are.”
    An image of the self-satisfied, taunting face of Jendra with her platinum blond hair and doll-like features flashes into my mind, a face so healthy, so well cared for.
    Then William’s voice follows hers. “We have food and water for you but you have to say something to get it.” I see William offering me his sandwich with real bread back in the motel room, thick slices of soft, moldless bread. Memories of the smell, the taste of it from years ago fill my senses, make my poor, parched mouth water.
    “Maybe she is dead,” another voice says carelessly, like it hardly matters.
    “What’ll they do then? If she’s dead.”
    “We won’t have any excitement tonight,” Jendra says. “Everyone will be so disappointed.”
    “Delicious wa-wa, sweetie,” William calls down to me. “You must be thirsty. But you have to say something first, otherwise why should we waste it?”
    Involuntarily, a dull, rasping sound escapes my throat. It’s not loud enough for anyone to hear. The back of my throat burns, like I’ve been inhaling smoke from a building on fire.
    “We’re going to leave, Gillian. We might leave you dangling up here forever.”
    I try to frame a few clear-headed thoughts. They’re torturing me because I killed one of them. But something’s going to happen tonight. They want to prolong my suffering for some reason.
    As long as there’s even the smallest chance for me to find a way out of this, I have to do something, do whatever I can. I’ve come so far with my kids, my family—we’ve