AUGUST IS A FEVER

10

The both of you were panting. You were holding the boy's hands above of his head. Now that you were up close to him, you could see his features more clearly.

The blonde was a pretty boy, no doubt. He had light brown freckles that scattered across his face and onto  his cheeks and nose bridge. His skin was fair with pink undertones. He had green eyes that had specks of brown in them, they could pass for hazel. Your eyes went to his mouth, slightly opened from panting, exhausted from the chase. He had a slight gap between his two front teeth and his canines were abnormally sharp.

Your eyes flickered back to his green ones, they were quickly beginning to glow yellow as his eyebrows furrowed out of a mixture of fear and defensiveness.

"Get off of me or I'll fuckin' taze ya." He sneered. Looking at his hand, you could see the electricity that emitted from his hands fighting to get through the material of the rubber gloves.

"Damn, okay, jeez." You said, wiping the dirt off of your ash-stained pants. "Sorry."

The boy did the same, standing up. Now that you were near him, he didn't seem as tall as he did before. Yes, he was tall but he couldn't be more than a little more than half a foot taller than you. He could be a foot taller than you, but that was pushing it.

He was about to run off again as his brunette friend stood there trying to calculate what was happening, but you grabbed onto the sleeve of his jacket.

"Wait," You began, thinking of what to say that wouldn't scare him off. You glanced behind yourself for a moment before turning back to him. "Let me come with y'all."

"What?" The brunette boy finally spoke up. "No, no, no, no, no. No. There's no way. Clay, we already have so much on our plate with the whole Nick situation." You stepped back a bit, taken by surprise.

"Bitch, why the fuck are you British? We're in West Virginia, not England." You huffed a laugh.

"Have you ever heard of moving house?" Asked the boy. He turned back to the tall blonde, Clay, hoping for his response.

Clay turned to you, looking down into your eyes. He could practically smell the anxiety off of you as well as he could the smoke. He was deep in thought.

"No." He finally said, taking your hand that gripped onto the fabric of his denim jacket, forcing it off. "I'm sorry. With that big boom from earlier, we're not safe here. PSFs could be nearby, and I'm sorry if this sounds rude but you're a Green. It's not worth it."

"Get one whiff of me and look at my burned sleeves. Do you really think I'm a Green?" You asked. "Look at my hands!"

"Yeah?" The brunette cut in, slightly confused. "I mean, look at you're uniform." He elaborated as he looked at you.

"What's ya name?" You asked, turning to him. He hesitated before answering, glancing at Clay.

"George." He replied.

"Well, for your information, George, I'm not a Green." You said.

"Well, what are you then? Purple?" Clay joked, earning a laugh from absolutely no one. The two of you ignored the blonde. "I'll shut up now."

"Who do you think made that boom? The explosion?" You asked.

"So you're... a Red?" George hesitated just in case he got it wrong.

"Finally. Y'all are slow as fuck." You said.

"But - how did you - how did you escape the whole military program thing?" George asked, eyebrows knit together.

"I keep hearing about this famous military program. What is it?" You asked. Clay and George glanced as each other before Clay finally spoke up.

"Operation Jamboree - from what I've heard its brutal. The government saw that Reds could be destructive. They saw you guys as weapons and started the operation to take the Reds and put them through torture until all they were, were weapons. Kids full of hate for the world." Clay said.