I woke up from my shaky, flat bed in the early morning. my back was hurting, like it always did this time of day. Completely exhausted, I groaned and sat up.
I had snuck out of the small window in my bedroom yesterday to go to my best friend Scarlet's house, and I planned on doing the same today so I didn't have to see my adoptive parents again. At least for the next 24 hours.
I was extremely tired, but I hopped out of bed still in my pajamas, and left. I shoved a pair of jeans and a top in a bag that I've always carried with me.
"Hazel! Not again! You come back here RIGHT NOW!!" I didn't say a word to my mother. Ive always felt that they don't care about raising me anymore (Her and her husband)(I don't even like calling them Mom and dad, mother or father)
I wondered what she was doing awake so early. It was 6:00 in the morning; usually the time when adults and parents in our Section were out preparing food, being self sufficient. The people who raised me, though, were asleep until the afternoon and left their child to fend for themselves to eat. I knew this was of parenting is wrong, but I'm somewhat used to it now.
Where do I go to eat? To Scarlet's house. I go there as much as I can. She is kind of my only friend, but I'm not ashamed of it. After all, I don't have a lot of things other young adults have where I live, like one of the most important thing to some : And education. But like I said, I'm not ashamed.
I walked down the rocky road that only went on for a short amount of time until almost the end. Scarlet's house was one of the last until the next Section over, which no one from Section 2 was allowed into.
I saw Scarlet in the distance behind her brick house in the field that always brought back memories from her and I always racing in this field. Scarlet was reading a book that must have been extremely old considering the rigid cover along with the stained pages that I saw closley as i walked towards her. Now in days, we don't get many books shipped to Section 2
"Hey. You mad?" I started off talking.
She always read when she was mad, or needed to get something off her mind.
"Nope. Just reading a book. I dug this one up from our attic! It's pretty good I guess..."
"Really!? You aren't mad? I noticed that you have been coming here a lot lately."
I laughed and sat down next to her, crossing my arms over my crossed legs. Scarlet quickly tucked the book away behind her back and sighed.
"I can tell you are mad though, Hazel"
"Well... My parents are just grounding me again. Hey! By the way, do you want to go to Section 3 tonight? We can sneak to that awesome field with the swing. We can go get Aspen on our way there," (Okay... maybe I had one other friend, but we only get to see him about once a month due to well... legal reasons)
Scarlet thought for a moment and swished her short dark brown hair out of her small face.
"His parents won't like to see a disgusting Section 2 over there"
"Oh come on! At least you in particular are not disgusting. But, look at me!"
"Haha, very funny."
"We can head over today to see if Aspen is even there. We usually have to set a specific time."
We ended up taking just one small backpack with water.
"You ready?" I asked
"Sure. Let's go."
I never really liked to think about it a lot. Aspen would get it trouble, lie and so on just for our sake. His parents didn't even know we existed. I shut those thoughts out of my mind because I don't like this feeling - guilt.
But, I know that if we ever get caught again, Aspen will not take the blame. And if not even Scarlet will, I will have to because it's the right thing. Because the punishment would be my only choice.
I looked up at Scarlet with a strait face and spoke again.
"I think that if anyone gets suspicious again, we will have to take the blame. I feel bad about it, and I know you do too." I felt way too serious now.
Gosh that sounded stupid.
I waited for a response wile I started to notice that my eyes lingered towards the ground, looking at nothing in particular. That response never came.
- - - -
The leaves crunched under our feet a little too loud as we walked into the dense woods that led to Section 3 to meat Aspen. I whispered a quiet shhh just so Scarlet was aware that we where making a little too much noise. At situations such as this one, even heavy breathing could be too much noise. We walked steadily for a wile but, we both heard a sound in the distance. "Quick," I whispered "Run behind that big tree." There was gigantic trees everywhere along with other dark green leaved trees but i assumed Scarlet knew which one I was talking about. She obviously did not know though because I ran behind one and she ran bahind another. "Scarlet!" I yelled so she would come over by me.
Then, all of the sudden, I felt a tug on my worn shirt from the back.
I looked over my shoulder and saw to boys about my age, 16, snickering right in my face!
"Look what we have here," said one boy.
"You stupid girl. What are you doing out here?" Said the other boy with a smirk on his face.
"I could ask you the same question."
At this point, my mind was buzzing with things to say, as well as do. I noticed that my answer to the boys question was a stupid one right away. They could obviously be here because we were in the wealthy area of Section 3.
You could tell from the way that they dressed that they were from 3. The boys had button down shirts and so on. They always look like they are going somewhere extremely nice.
I honestly have no idea why these woods are owned by Section 3. No one ever comes here, hence why I was surprised to see them.
I had to quickly come up with something to do by then.
I quick twisted my arms again and again to pull me out of the brown haired boy's grip right away. Then, I kicked him in the stomach as forcefully and as strongly as I could, desperately trying to knock the wind out of him. Wile he was struggling, I shoved the other shorter black haired one to the ground by grabbing both his arms and avoiding his legs, scared that he would kick me. This probably unfortunately wouldn't hurt them enough that I could run away successfully.
I couldn't do this all on my own. I didn't even think I knew how to fight. where was Scarlet, and why wasn't she helping me?
"Hey!" I yelled, paranoid that the boys I encountered would try and come after me a second time. "
Where are you!?"
"Here!" I heard, but I had no idea where exactly the soft sounding voice was coming from. I was out of time. I had to guess where it was from, because the boys were catching up, running with all there might and strength.
"SCARLET!" I screamed with all my might, looking around again to see if anyone is following me. I saw a blur of a person with all too familiar short brown hair and I'm no longer filled with terror.
I tried to catch up to her, reaching in front of me to find an arm. She screamed in paranoid terror. "We... We need to go... now
Why are they following us in the first place? I try to delete this from my mind. now sure that the boys aren't following us, Scarlet and I hide in a close ally way and decide how we can meet Aspen.
