To survive without them

chapter 9

"What the hell are you doing here?" I mutter, my hands gripping the net tighter.

"I could ask you the same thing, are you safe?" he answers picking up his gun again and putting the safety back on.

"Yes, just because I am wearing a stupid Deathdog uniform doesn't mean I am going to kill you" I shout, anger etching up my spine bit by bit.

"And what 'bout him" Taylor nods his head in Chace's direction. I can feel his body tense beside me.

"One, my name is Chace two, if she is not going to freaking hurt you why the hell would I?" Chace blurts out. Taylor was never really the one to put two and two together, in fact he was always one of the dumber kids at school. His looks though got him through tough times and his normal excuses for not doing homework were "Uh miss I was training with the basketball team, big game coming up", pathetic if you ask me.

"I was just checking smart arse" Taylor replies gruffley.

"What did you just call me?" Chace challenges, his face turning red and his chest puffing out, this is so stupid. I mean I have heard of girls fight buts this is getting ugly.

"smart arse and what are you gonna do 'bout it, your the one trapped in a net dufus"

"Guys come on just stop it, you sound like a bunch of ten year old girls come on let us out"I interrupt before some colourful language can escape Chace's mouth.

"I will let you escape after we finish talking, aka why are you here, and why are you, I am guessing you are Deathdogs" He picks at some flesh on his fingers, just making it worse.

"Okay then you better sit down this may take a while" I sigh, i fold my hands into my lap and scoot closer to Chace.

Taylor plonks himself onto the ground and crosses his legs, outside of the net, I think this is a form of teasing, that bastard.

I tell him about my, lets just say my journey into the Death-dogs and Chace tells his, how we got here. Chace wraps his arm around my shoulders as I fume about Alfa and how Chace is going to move and how much I hate this stinking place. I purposely leave out the bit about...................................

"Hey. so whats happened to Jacob, my man and um Rose, whats their jobs."

I take a big gulp and draw in a deep breath. "Well Jacob is in the warrior squad as they call it, doing all of Alfa's dirty work" I entwine my fingers into the net more, the smell of the room really making me feel disy, the pain of rope burn stops me from crying.

"And............ so what 'bout Rose". Taylor, was a family friend, before the virus, we practically saw them every holidays and weekends. He came from a family of him and his little brother. He had always wanted a little sister so he was always protective of Rosie and always calling her Rose instead, a pet name I guess. I was his best buddy until high school came and he suddenly became popular, after that I had ignored him whenever he came over.

"She, um, kinda, well.............."Chace gives me a tight squeeze"She hasn't made it" I let a tear roll down my cheek, dripping off my chin and onto the dusty floor, at least the floor will get a clean.

Taylor runs his hands through his hair."What. What happened?"

I shake my head.

"The virus, got to her after she was cleaning some dead guys room, Bitchon, Alfa's leading lady made her do so, she died that afternoon in a garbage dumpster"Chokes out Chace. The flashes start, flashbacks of her little face with her blond hair and big eyes, then the old wrinkled prune of a face staring back at me.

"But I thought.........."

"WE all thought that Taylor but obviously that is not the case, because Rosie is dead" I mumble, can he ever keep up, Chace just told him the story and then now he goes"but I thought" well who cares what he thinks.

"Wow" he breathes. My fingers dig into the net as a slight tear rolls down my face. Come on I can be strong.

"So that's how bad it has been for you huh?" he chirps up.

"Well yeah pretty bad"

"You look so skinny" he comments. I look down at myself, I can count my ribs and I have definitely lost weight. I was chubby before the virus, but now I would say I have lost something like 12 kilos. I look at Taylor, well he hasn't changed much, still a regular size.

"Oh well thanks" I say sarcastically. Seriously he needs to keep his mouth shut.

"No probs" he grunts.

"So how have you been living, you have heard our life story but can we trust you?" I tease maybe this will lighten the mood.

"Please, I have know you since I was two, I think you can trust me, but anyway, when the virus hit, my parents went pretty quick, so  I thought, hey I better stock up on food so off we went, me and Chris, and we went to a supermarket, we started stashing our pockets when we ran into a bunch of kids, like around Chirs's age, just hanging there so we made our own tribe. We called it thunderbolts" he smiles proudly. I grunt Thunderbolts, what a gay name.

"Anyway we came to this place and have lived here the whole time." He has definately had this easy.

"Wait so where are those kids now?" Chace asks, boredom clearly in his voice. I cant blame him, I could almost fall asleep right now.

"Oh yeah, hey guys its okay you can come out now they are friends!" he yells at the top off his voice. If there was  Death-dogs outside right now we would all be dead.

A small shuffling of feet creep out from the darkness. They all sit behind Taylor, but Chris, Taylor's little brother comes up and gives me a smile.

"HI Ab's" he waves. How cute Chris was always a cute little kid.

There are about four dirty looking children sitting behind Taylor in a line. All have their hair mattered and pants dirtied. The boy with the orange jacket gives me a cautious stare.

"Which one brang you here?" asks Taylor.

"Oh it wasn't his fault, we are, especially Chace, very good at tracking and seeing things, we are kind of trained."

"I don't care I just want to know"

"Okay then, the one there in the orange jacket with the red hair" I point to the boy. Taylor turns around.

"Why were you spying on them Tim?" he says in a careful voice.

"They were in the meadow was going there to have a bath, so I thought I would watch them, because you know they are Death-dogs, and they were just sitting around."Replies the boy, Tim in a gruff voice.

"Okay fair enough".

"I hate to interrupt your get to know everything session, but we are kind of stuck in a net and we have to be back at the city square in half and hour" interrupts Chace.

Chris, lunges forward with a knife and begins to cut us out of the net. I stand up and stretch my legs. I pick up my skateboard and backpack.

"We better be going" I say as I slowly walk towards the door.

"Wait are you ever coming back?"

"Probably, I will definitely tell Jacob I saw you, Maybe I'll come tomorrow as Chace is moving jobs, so I will be pretty lonely."

"Cool, because I think we should get you and Chace's families out of there, whatcha say?"

"I'll talk tomorrow".

I walk down the stairs and into the gloomy hall. I reach the door and Chace pushes it open. Fresh air wafts into the place. Oh great, I was about to suffocate in that stink. Tomorrow I should really tell Taylor some proper ways of sanitation. Rule one, don't poo on the floor!

"You will tell me if you are planning to get out because I want to be apart of it" aks Chace pulling on the back of my t-shirt.

"Of course I wouldn't escape without you" I smile at him.

We push off and roll through the alleyways back to the car waiting at the square.

I just found Taylor, Jacob will be over the moon.