Kaden

Chapter Two

"Hey," Anivia calls out to me. I open my eyes. She's sitting there over me, smiling. She's nursing me back to health, like she always has. I smile back, trying to blink away the strange light at the edges of my vision. When I manage to do so, Anivia fades to a stranger. I scan her. A homeless girl. Three years younger than me. I feel my happiness fade, and the smile drop from my face. I force one, but then the pain hits me. Searing, blinding, white-hot pain. Stars cloud my vision, and I grab at my leg out of instinct. My head is pounding. I feels like someone is slamming the front of my head into the butt of a gun repeatedly. The girl puts a cold cloth onto my forehead, and spreads something cool and moist over my leg. The pounding in my head starts to fade, and I'm able to turn the constant throbbing pain in my leg into focus. I get a glimpse of my leg. She took the bandages off. It's bleeding, but only a bit. I can tell that she took the three bullets out with very little damage to the wounds as she did so. A nurse-in-training, I realize. But who's training her?

"My name is Souris," she says. She smiles a bit, brushing back my blood-stained hair from my watering eyes. "I'm with a group of teenagers who're trying to spark a rebellion." Souris. Mouse in French. I scan her face. She does look like a mouse, I realize. I scan her again. Western African. Most likely from Mali. Long, dark curls for hair. A hint of green in her eyes, so she's partly-- maybe a fourth-- european. Definitely a nurse or doctor-in-training. 4'1". 42lbs. Eleven years old. Homeless. Hints of childhood trauma. Broke. I stop scanning. She reminds me of myself when I was that young.

"Is she awake?" I hear a voice holler. The noise makes my head pound harder. I manage to turn my head to face it. Young girl, maybe a year older than me. Pacific Islander, possibly Filipino. 5'3". 115lbs. Dark, straight hair, dark eyes, olive skin.

"Yes," Souris replies. The girl comes over and sits down next to me.

"Get some sleep, Souris. You deserve it." Souris gets up hesitantly, walking away from me and settling down on a tan blanket. I take a second to take in our surroundings. We're by a river in the industrial part of town. Large, blocky, stained, grey buildings shoot up into the sky in the distance. We're right next to a smaller one that's only one story tall. The girl turns to me. "She took care of you. She stayed up with you, not eating or sleeping for three days. She treated you really efficiently. You were dying when we found you, and now you're only injured. I admit, it's not a mild injury, but what can you do? We have no supplies, and you were shot three times and then laid down in a puddle in the dirtiest part of town." She sneers a bit. "How did you do it, anyways? How did you get around without being seen for so long?"

I pause. "So you all know?"

"Everyone knows, but of course, they told the public that they killed you." She adjusts the way she's sitting. "So how did you do it?"

My head is fuzzy, but I know that I can't trust this girl. I have no way of telling if she's a spy. She sees my hesitation, rolls her eyes, and changes the subject. "Fine. I'll ask later. Anyways, my name is Moana. What's yours?"

Moana. She seems to have trust issues. Even when sharing her name she's extremely hesitant. But Moana. That's a Hawaiian name. I scan her again. Half Filipino, half Hawaiian. Interesting. She notices the way I'm scanning her and her face hardens. Tough. No issues with self-confidence, or at least no major ones. Not very friendly, or trusting. "You gonna tell me, or not?" she asks. Impatient. Suddenly, I realize that I'm all of those things. I'm tough. I'm self-confident, I'm not friendly to strangers, I'm impatient, and I don't trust anyone but Anivia. Anivia. I feel my eyes begin to swell up with tears. Moments flash through my head like a slideshow. When I first met her. When we first broke the law together. Tricking police officers. Her going to great lengths to get me supplies to invent things. Her reluctantly agreeing to go to the fort. Her falling. The soldiers. Her eye contact with me. The bullet going through her brain. My mind seems to be stuck on that last one. Moana seems to realize that I'm thinking of the other girl who was there, the one who they no doubt broadcasted videos of. The one who got shot.