What if all transgender people were imprisoned, deported, and slaughtered by the government? What would you do?
Finley Grayson carries on after an ex-boyfriend brings so much shame and regret he loses the will to live, that is until a rude young man...
"I'm sorry Kaeden, I can't have the kids around one of...you know,"Ms. Hardwick points out as I enter the classroom for work only to be met with a look of pity.
"One of what? A transgender man! What? Are we afraid I'm just going to sneeze and they'll catch my gender dysphoria?" I ask and she rolls her eyes, flipping her red hair back.
"The law is the law, I'm going to have to ask you to leave before I call security," She says as she walks back to her desk. I look at the class to see my 1st-year students were all watching me closely with fear.
But one student was missing.
"Where's Petunia?" I ask.
Fearing the answer containing the fate of my favorite student.
"You mean Brian? He's at a special school now. You know where they'll teach him how to be a real man," Ms. Hardwick says with a small shrug.
"You mean to tell me they sent a five-year-old to a conversion school?" I stutter with my hands forming a fist, she starts to back away just as terrified of me as the other students.
"It's not my fault, it's the law Kaeden," She gasps. I don't take another step towards her but she acts like I'm some wild animal about to hurt her. The law, of fucking course.
"I lost my job," I tell Finley as he tickers underneath the desk with the speaker system while the guys put on the play for a full audience.
I can hear him let out a sigh before he yelps with a small thud.
"You okay hon?" I peek under to see him holding his forehead, covered in plaster after fixing a human-sized hole in the back of the theatre with drywall and putty before the play had started.
"Yeah, I was just tightening the connectors and dropped the Allen wrench on my forehead. Fuck," He mutters squeezing his eyes shut as he holds his head. I put the cue's on autopilot before getting out of my chair and sinking to the floor next to him.
"I'm sorry about your job but we both knew this was going to happen," he says with a hint of sadness in his blunt tone. He comes out from under the desk and sits up.
There was something missing from this close interaction. It only takes a few seconds to figure it out before I grab hold of his wrist.
"It's not vibrating," I say in shock as I look at it.
"Oh yeah, Vahn figured out a way to turn it off, he's a tech genius which is good because now I can finally..."
A loud bang interrupts his sentence and the UK Immigration Service's Enforcement crashes into the door of the booth causing Finley and I both jump up.
"Esther Tremblay, you're under arrest..."
With my heart racing at a mile a minute, I turn around and jump out the open window of the booth. Once I hit the ground I start running down the aisle of the theatre. I ignore the gasps from the crowd and look back to see my boyfriend had followed. We were being heavily pursued on all sides as we make our way to the main stage.
"GET DOWN!" Finley screams and I look up just in time to see the green dot on my chest only to stop drop and roll into one of the seats.
The sound of a gunshot goes off and a woman in front of me screams as the taser bullet hits her and she falls into a seizure.
"Shit," I whisper under my breath as I start crawling as fast as I can. I roll to the stage and duck behind the curtain.
"Where to now? They probably have the place surrounded," He whisper yells to me as I bump into a ladder in the dark. I start climbing like the fastest monkey you've ever seen and Fin follows my lead.
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I reach the top of the catwalk with him right behind me when the ladder starts to shake and an agent grabs hold of his ankle. Fin gasps in surprise as he holds on tight while trying to kick the agent.
I grab hold of his arms and with my burst of strength like his life depended on it, I yanked him upwards and he falls onto the metal catwalk with me causing the entire structure to shake.
"Go!" He yells and I look both ways before picking left and grab hold of his hand before I book it.
I can hear the clang of the officer's metallic boots hit the catwalk as he makes our way to the front of the stage.
"Run Kaeden!" I hear Noell scream my name from below and looks down to see my friends had stopped the play and were now fighting the immigration officers on stage, trying to keep away as many they could. Tizzy even joins in, running on stage and grabbing one of the prop canes before whacking the shit out of a small male officer trying to fight Noell.
"Kaeden!" Fin comes to a stop above the center of the stage and I look back up to see officers slowly coming our way.
He presses his back against mine and I look over my shoulder only to discover what I feared. We were surrounded.
I put my hands up, but if they shoot, they were were going to hit my Finley. And there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen.
As soon as the idea pops into my head I put it into action.
There was no time to think twice about stupid decisions.
I head their weapons being charged to full as they fire I turn and grab Finley with one arm and leans back against the weak railing.
I feel us falling and I hold onto Fin with all the adrenaline given strength I had left before grabbing hold of one of the ropes controlling the curtain.
Sliding down the rope and now swinging in midair, I turn us just right.
There was only one shot at hitting the plaster he just put up.
