The Five Unnecessaries

The Five Unnecessaries //Excerpt from Chapter 18

seven weeks after the 188th Generation was announced: 

My hair stuck to the back of my head from the sweat. My breath was labored, and I tried to keep my arms as still as possible. The Sentry's footsteps seemed louder, hitting a few puddles we had passed just a minute before.

We made another turn. Before I could catch up to Katerina, she was one rung up a ladder, swinging around it, grasping the old metal, wrenching upward on the plate, and pulling herself out into the alley.

"Go," I whispered after her, then started to climb. I was halfway up the ladder when the light hit me.

"Freeze!"

I did. I don't know why. I could have kept going. I was dead anyhow.

He must have seen us cut to the left. The flashlight came closer. The person behind it kept talking, telling me not to move. I didn't listen; I didn't care. At least Katerina had gotten out. She would live. But the soul in my arms, protected by both me and her, would die. The baby stirred; his eyes barely open. His arm twitched and then fell beside him as he closed his eyes again, perfectly content and peaceful.

This baby had been fighting death his whole life, and he was about to lose.

Hopelessness drowned out my anger, feeling a desperate need to run anyway. But I had been paralyzed by the fear of the inevitable wound that would bleed the life out of me.

I grasped the cold metal rung more tightly. A couple seconds to ponder the end of my life felt like a long time. 

Instead of attacking or fighting the Sentry, I wished he could see the world I saw. But he couldn't. He was blind to everything I saw. I summoned the intensity of everything I felt for this baby and stared him down. I wasn't afraid of him; I was afraid he'd never see the real me or this child, clinging for life, because we deserved to breathe.

He stopped walking forward, only a yard away, the flashlight steady on me. It was next to the barrel of his gun, which was pointed at my head. I clenched my teeth to stop any quivering; if I spoke, he'd know I was about to cry.

"Who are you?" he asked, finally.

"I think you know," I answered, shifting, bending down as if preparing for the shot.

But it never came. 

He wasn't killing me.

And I didn't know why.