Turncoat: Turncoat Trilogy Book 1

Chapter 5.2

I pushed myself out of my chair and crossed the room, covering my mouth with my heads.

“Tawny? What’s wrong?” Vicki asked.

I motioned to the computer. “There’s what you want, just leave me alone,” I said.

Vicki walked over and sat down at the computer, looking at the screen. She looked up at me after a moment and sighed. “I didn’t want you to have to see that,” she muttered. “They’re always listed as livestock. And with your parents being taken—”

“Shut up!” I shouted. “Don’t you dare mention my parents!”

Vicki opened her mouth to speak and I whirled around, running out of my home and sprinting across the bridge. I could hear Vicki shouting after me but I just kept pressing forward. I lunged from the butcher’s rooftop and dropped ten feet onto the metal grate flooring in front. The world spun for a moment and I was on my feet once more. I made a hard right and saw the next drop down onto the next level down.

Shacks shifted through my vision as I ran away, tears blurring my vision. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, which is really more limited by my lungs than my legs because those would run until the kinetically charged batteries gave out. As my breath started to hitch from sobs, I slowed to a stop somewhere in an alleyway in the slum. Trash piled haphazardly around me offered a few places to hide.

Mother and Father’s faces that night flashed into my head. Mother looked paler than normal as they dragged her out of the house. Her feet moved sluggishly and she barely held her head up. She fell to her knees once and they hit her for it, but she didn’t make a sound. Just recoiled away from the hit and lay there on the ground, unmoving. They picked her up and shoved her into the back of a truck.

Father looked royally pissed, his face contorted either in anger or pain, it depended. When mother fell, he broke free of their grips and started to run for her. Then the truncheons fell and didn’t stop falling until he stopped moving. Blood ran down his face when they picked him up and carried him away with mother.

The fear, the panic, the desperation of that night seeped back into my chest and I whirled around looking for somewhere to hide. Someone appeared at the end of the alleyway and something on their arm flashed. A Dead Head, it had to be. They found me. I ran away from the only people who could have protected me and now the Dead Heads found me. I turned and took two steps away when someone else emerged from the other end of the alleyway, blocking my path. I turned back to see the other one approaching slowly, holding their hands out. I turned the other way as panic continued to build, forgetting for a moment that that direction was also blocked. I barely managed to turn around again when a pair of arms clamped around me.

I threw my head back and felt a satisfying thunk as I made contact with something. A wetness seeped into the back of my hair. My captor grunted but didn’t release me, only tightening his grip on me. My arms were pinned to my sides as I struggled furiously. Kicking and twisting my body around as much as I could. The other person approached me quickly. I lashed my legs out at him, catching him square in the chest. He fell to the ground with an thud.

“Tawny, stop it!” I heard Vicki shout. Her voice came from below me and I looked back to the figure lying on the ground. Pain laced her voice and she rolled onto her side. Her arms wrapped around her torso. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“This place is a fucking maze,” Nick said as he ran up to us. He knelt down beside Vicki and curled his arm under her, sitting her up despite her protests. He wrapped his arm under her shoulder and stood her up. She stood hunched over, holding her side with her free hand.

“Will you walk or do I have to carry you?” Kai asked me with his mouth an inch from his ear and frustration in his voice.

I nodded and he released me. My feet hit the metal and I felt my hands shaking. “If you guys knew how the prisoners would be listed, why didn’t you warn me?” I asked.

“We need to know if you can handle this type of work,” Kai said. Blood covered his mouth from his crooked nose. “I can’t have a coward sitting behind my computers, knowing she’ll go running off at the mention of something insulting.”

I sucked back my tears.

“I should have never mentioned your parents,” Vicki said through clenched teeth. “This is my fault. I knew they were a sore spot for you.” Sore spot might be a slight understatement. Even after all this time, my parents were like a ragged wound that refused to close.

I shook my head. “I over reacted,” I said. “I’m sorry I kicked you.”

Vicki shook her head and put her good hand up. “Don’t worry, I think its bruised,” she said. “I’ll survive.”

I nodded. We started the slow walk back to my house, passing through the market where I shelled out the little kredit I had left for some medical tape and a bottle of pain killers two months past the expiration date. When we returned, Nick lowered Vicki onto the ground and helped her out of her shirt, revealing the large bruise that blossomed on her torso.

I took my seat at my computer, a confirmation of download flashing on the screen. Someone must have backed me out of the servers before they came running after me because I sat at my home screen. I opened the files and pushed the manifest to the back, the small holoscreen struggled to display all of the information as it floated in the air and fritzed on the occasion.