La Resistance

1: 4

Eric approached me with slow steps, his hands in his pockets. He looked so relax, unlike me. My hair was tangled and knotted and clinging to my sweaty face. I could feel snot dripping from my nose. I looked exactly like someone captured for breaking the law.

"You're not the first to run away from us, Summer. I'm sure you won't be the last."

"You didn't have to arrest me. I wasn't doing anything wrong."

"You disobeyed the law."

Disobeyed the law. I was sure I would hear those words again. And again. And again.

"If you had followed the rules, you wouldn't be here right now. Your mother would still be alive."

I gripped the fence tighter, the metal scrapping my skin.

"You would still have both your eyes."

"Why don't you tell your men to shoot me?"

"We believe our program will be able to rehabilitate you back into a law abiding citizen once more."

I wasn't normally a rule breaker. When my mother asked me to pick something up or clean up our tiny home, I did it. I didn't argue or complain. I just did it. When she asked me to go to the warehouse for food, I did it. I didn't whine about the heat or the people I would run in to. I did as I was told. But at the Sector, I didn't want to follow the rules. I didn't want to do as I was told. I didn't think there was any program that could get me to do that.

He walked up to me, standing just inches away. I could smell his blood and sweat. I could smell the cologne he was lucky enough to own. Cologne at the warehouse was far too expensive for anyone to purchase.

"We're going to fix you, Summer."

"I don't need fixed." I spat back, not letting him intimidate me.

"No man is going to want a girl that doesn't do as she's told."

"That's fine by me."

He wrapped his thick fingers around my bicep and held my gaze. He was trying to threaten me.

"Your program isn't going to work on me." I told him.

"Our measures are very persuasive."

"When you get tired of dealing with me, what will you do?"

"It won't get to that point."

"You don't know what I'm capable of."

As the guards approached, Eric straightened up and pulled me alongside him.

"We're going to get started with step 1. Use caution and never let her out of your sight." He announced.

The guards nodded and some went back to the building. Only a handful stayed with Eric as he led me back inside the building. As we walked alongside the building, I saw the shooter on the top of an abandoned building across the street. It was a short man with dark skin. His face was burned and disfigured and there was a black bandana wrapped around his forehead. He held my gaze as Eric led me inside. The gun was hidden from my sight but I knew he would get it back out if he needed to.

But I knew Eric's orders were to scare me but not harm me. He wanted to do that himself.