Find Me--Chapter 9 ~Dillon~

             The dining hall is much emptier than usual. Those who aren’t here are in the infirmary—or what’s left of it. Olivia was there, getting her burns treated, and Scarlet was there too, still unconscious. Marcus went with his sister, as did Violet, and Rae followed her. That left the seven of us, eating in silence.

            Skye had been pushing her porridge around for a while before saying, “Here. I’m not hungry,” and sliding her bowl toward me. I look over to her, worried. She hadn’t eaten since dinner last night and even though our portions had been cut in half due to the food supply and crops being destroyed and I was hungry, I slide the bowl back toward her.

            “Skye, you have to eat,” I tell her. I could tell that she’d grown skinnier just in the time that we’ve been here. She shakes her head and gets up from the table.

            “I’m gonna go visit Olivia and Scarlet.” Before leaving though, she turns and picks up the bowl of porridge. I get up and follow her.  

            The two of us make our way to the infirmary without conversation, Skye leaning on me for support. We stop once to ask a nurse which rooms Olivia and Scarlet were in, and she informed us that they were both the same room and led us there. It was normally quiet here, but it was in a state of chaos tonight. Nurses in light blue-green scrubs were running from room to room, some pushing people on gurneys, others carrying medicine. We stop as a patient is wheeled by. My mouth gapes open and I put my arm around Skye and she lets a tear escape. Almost every inch of his skin is charred and black, and there’s dried blood on top of that. His chest heaves up and down as he gasps for air. A pang of guilt hits me as if a bullet had been shot straight at my head. It’s not like it was our fire that burned him, but it was our presence that led to the fire.

            We thank the nurse and slide open the door to the room. Olivia sat in one bed, looking relatively fine except for a few patches of burned skin and a splint on her left wrist. Scarlet looked fine too; she was lying in bed peacefully, as if she were sleeping. But the solemn look on everyone’s face told me otherwise.

            “Is she o—” I start to ask.

            “She’s in a coma,” Violet cuts me off. She didn’t say it harshly, but she said it in a way that told me she didn’t want to deal with the question. Guilt rushes over me again. We leave her and Rae and sit with Marcus and Olivia.

            “How are you doing?” I ask Olivia.

            “Better, but not great,” she replies. We’re silent then. After a while, Skye sets the bowl of porridge on the table next to the bed Olivia was in.

            “One of you can have this,” she says quietly. Neither Marcus nor Olivia makes a move for the porridge; they probably have as much of an appetite as Skye did.

            “We’re leaving,” I blurt out then, “tomorrow night.” I didn’t leave much room for argument, but no one will disagree anyway. “We’ll meet at your room, Skye and Olivia, around curfew, then, I guess we’ll just make a run for it. Toward the forest I suppose.” Everyone else nods. We all knew that there was no doubt that this would be easier said than done. But staying here would be an even bigger risk; at least leaving put no one else in jeopardy besides ourselves.

            The other five came in later, telling us that it was almost curfew. Rae hugged her brothers goodnight, then resumed her spot by Scarlet’s bedside next to Violet. Skye and I get up and say goodbye to Olivia, Marcus, Violet, and Rae and tell Scarlet that we hope she gets better, despite her unconsciousness.

            I walk Skye to her room and open the door for her, but she hesitates before going inside.

            “I don’t want to be alone,” she says quietly. I remembered that she shared a room with Scarlet, Violet and Olivia, all of whom were spending the night in the infirmary. I take her words as an invitation and wrap my arm around her and lead her inside. We push her and Olivia’s bed together. Skye lies down and I lie down facing her. “Where are we supposed to go?” she asks me, voice low. She pauses, waiting for my response, but I don’t have one, so she continues as if I had spoken. “What if we get caught? What if we get lost?” She sounds more panicked as she presses on; as she explores all of the possible things that could happen. “What if—” she stops suddenly. “What if we don’t make it?” She dropped back down to that hushed tone that was so soft and frail and possessed so much fear.

            “Shh,” I whisper as I stroke the side of her face with my hand. She sighs. “You’ll be fine.” I would make sure of it. After giving me a despondent look, she rolls onto her other side, her back facing toward me. I drape my arm around her and soon after I do, she laces her fingers with mine. Neither one of us says anything after that; I just listen to her breathing as it steadies and she drifts off to sleep.

            I close my eyes too, and attempt to clear my mind of everything. All of the pain, loss, doubt, fear, and try to not to focus on anything except for the current moment in which Skye and I were alone. Together.

Find Me--Chapter 5 ~Dillon~

“Couldn’t you escape?” I ask the next morning at breakfast.

“People have tried,” Chase responds, “but no one has since they threatened to kill anyone they catch.” Skye and Olivia both stare at him, open mouthed.

“Kill them?” Skye repeats in shock. Chase nods gravely.

“But don’t they need workers?” I ask.

“The figure anyone who’s rebellious enough to try to escape wouldn’t make a very worthy worker,” Chase answers. “They made this rule a couple years back when a sixteen-year-old guy tried escaping and after they caught him, tried killing the officials here.” I’ve only been here for a day, but I can’t say I blame him.

I push open the door to the stuffy factory with Violet and Chase following behind me. In the midst of making a pair of shoes, I try to figure out what we’re supposed to do next. The idea of escaping seemed like a pretty good one, until I learned the risk. Even if we did manage to escape, where would we go? I was clueless as to where our village is. But we couldn’t just stay here either.

“How do you stand it?” I ask them. “Staying here with no freedom and being ordered around.”

“I don’t know,” Chase sighs, “I’m not sure I really can stand it.”

“I suppose we just got used to the constricted lifestyle,” Violet tells me. “I wish there was something I could do for Scarlet’s sake, but I don’t know what.”

“Scarlet’s sake?”

“Yeah…I guess I just feel sorry that she didn’t have as long of a good life before we came here as I did.” I think about my life before my parents were killed, but recently, that time has been hard to remember.

When I was younger, about six, we would all sit by the fireplace in the winter. My mother would knit and I would sit on my father’s lap and he’d tell me stories. My favorite story was a true one. For the first Thanksgiving my father and mother spent together, he wanted to snag a turkey for dinner. But after a whole day of hunting, he hadn't come across any turkeys, and by the time it was dark, he hadn't shot anything. The last thing he wanted to do was go home empty handed, but he couldn’t hunt in the dark. He sulked home, shrouded with guilt that he hadn’t caught any meat for dinner. My mother wasn’t angry or disappointed. She simply said that they weren’t hurt, hungry, or dying and they should be thankful for that. They didn’t have turkey every day and made it along fine, so why is Thanksgiving any different? They had each other, and that was all that mattered. That was one thing my parents always tried to teach me; to look at what you do have, rather than what you don’t.

At twelve, we report to the dining hall for lunch. Scarlet attempts starting conversation several times before realizing that none of us, including her, are really in the mood for talking today. For the next half hour, we all pick at the vegetable stew we were given.

“Who do you think could’ve done this?” I hear an official ask as we’re walking down the stairs to the basement after lunch. Shards of glass sit under an open window frame. The nearby walls were dotted with perfect, round bullet holes.

“I don’t know,” Headmistress Baumann sighs. “But we have to make sure no one attacks the building again. We can’t afford anyone getting hurt by whoever did this.” An official sweeps up the broken glass, and everyone clears out. I begin to continue down the stairs, and then catch the pain stricken expression wiped across Skye’s face. Marcus catches it too.

“No,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opens them again, a tear glides down her cheek. She looks at me pitifully. I know what fear is running through her mind. It’s not as though we didn’t see the men finding us a possibility, we just didn’t want to believe they would. But now, that was reality. It could’ve just as easily been some drunken man with a gun, but something in me just knew that it wasn’t.

“What are we supposed to do?” Skye asks in distress.

“There’s nothing we can really do but wait and see what happens next,” I answer and wrap my arms around her. The weight of her head rests on my shoulder.

While working, I still can’t think of a way to escape, but while the risk of getting caught escaping is big, the risk of staying here might be greater.

Find Me--Chapter 1 ~Dillon~

It seemed like yesterday I was riding the train home from the orphanage. Then they attacked our village, chased us, fought us, and they’re still out there. As long as they’re after us, we will never really be safe.

I sit on a bed with sheets that I suppose were once a flawless white, but were now had stains splotched on them. We were brought to an infirmary when we got here; a massive, gray concrete building which was surrounded by rows of farmland, grassy fields, a forest, and if you went far enough, a twenty-five foot fence. But I still had no idea where we really were.

The nurses had tended to all of us. They put stitches in the wound in my wrist and the cut on my back. We were instructed to stay in our tiny rooms and rest, but I wanted to find Skye. I ignored the ache that shot through my back as I stood up and wandered through the halls. From one open door, I saw a sweep of long golden hair rest on the pillow. It had to be her. I slip in the room and click the door shut. As I walk to her bedside, I see she’s still asleep. I slide my hand into hers and run my fingers through her hair.

After a few minutes, her eyelids flutter open.

“Dillon,” she says groggily, still under the effects of the anesthesia. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” I say simply. But after the words leave my mouth, I realize that there’s another reason. She tries not to wince as she eases herself up and props herself against the wall. Seeing in Skye in pain almost hurts me more. She moves to the far end of the bed and motions for me to sit next to her instead of kneeling on the cold floor. I see her try to hide a grimace as I press my shoulder against the stitched up wound on hers.

For moments, I just gaze into the distant look of her blue eyes. I wonder what she was thinking about. Probably about how stupid I acted. Then I break the silence.

“Explain to me,” I whisper as I cup her cheek in my hand. First she blinks as if my voice broke a spell that was cast on her. Then she turns away from me and looks out the window at the night sky rolling in. I take her cheek again, facing her toward me. “I’m listening. I promise.” A tear wells up in her eye, but she swipes it away before I can.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, because I do,” she starts. “You have no idea how much you and Olivia and Marcus and…” she trails off and I know exactly who she’s thinking about. I tip her chin up.

“It’s not your fault,” I remind her. She shakes her head and then continues.

“You have no idea how much you guys mean to me. It’s not that I like Marcus more than you. But it’s like the situation we’re in. It was just forced upon us. We weren’t ready at all. I’m not ready to love someone. Not now. Ever since Rose died, I’ve been drowning in fear. Fear that will continue to drown me until I know they’re gone. Until I know we’re safe.” I realized how afraid she really was. And how rash I was for getting mad at Marcus.

I pull her in my arms, forgetting about any pain she might be in.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper in her ear again, meaning it more now that I knew the truth. I feel her bury her face in my shoulder which I take as her forgiveness. The door slides open, sending a beam of light from the hallway into the dim room. Skye recoils, though it’s only Olivia who steps in. Her long auburn hair is in knots.

“Hey Skye. Hey Dillon,” she says, not really surprised I was there. I climb off the bed.

“Where’s Marcus?” Skye asks.

“In our room,” Olivia replies. “He’s still a bit hazy and can’t walk well. He wanted to see you guys.” Skye threw off the sheets and stood up. She was a little unsteady on her feet, so I put my hands on her shoulders. We walk silently through the hall, the tile floor cold on our bare feet.

We go into the room Olivia leads us to. It is identical to mine and Skye’s, but has two beds crammed in the small space. Marcus lies sleeping when we approach. Olivia leans over him and touches his cheek with her lips.

“Marcus,” she says in a low voice. He stirs, and then looks over at Skye’s swaying figure. Then at me supporting her. His lips form her name, but I don’t hear him speak. She gingerly breaks my grip and walks over to his side. I saw the pain in her eyes as they found the thick bandage wrapped around Marcus’s ankle. She strokes his cheek with the back of her hand, but nothing more. Tears well up in her eyes and she’s soon crying. Marcus leans on his elbow and lightly touches her arm. I move to her side, maybe with a little too much urgency, and put my arm around her.

“Skye,” Olivia says, coming up to her other side. “What’s wrong?”

“What are we going to do?” she says between sobs. “They’re still out there, after us.” I wish they were gone for good. So we wouldn’t have to worry. So maybe she could love me.

“Where are we anyway?” Olivia asks minutes later. Marcus shakes his head.

“Hopefully someplace where they can’t find us.” I hoped that was true.

Olivia, Skye and I are sitting on Olivia’s bed when the door opens.

“Oh, you’re all here,” a girl with loose red curls says. “The headmistress told me to tell you that she wants you guys in her office tomorrow morning at ten.

“Okay,” I reply. “Thanks uh…”

“Scarlet,” she finishes for me. “And you are?”

“Dillon,” I answer.

“I’m Olivia,” Olivia says. “And that’s my older brother, Marcus.” He gives a faint nod. “And that’s Skye.”

“Hi,” Skye says, wiping the tracks her tears left behind away.

“Nice to meet all of you,” Scarlet says. “I better go. See you guys tomorrow.” She slips out the door into the hall

“She seems nice,” Olivia comments. We nod.

I hoped she was as nice as she seemed. I’m tired of being around enemies.