Touched (book 1)

Life on the streets

Authors note:

I own all characters, names, and story ideas of this story. Everything in this story is made up, including street names. I'm not sure how often ill be able to update this but ill try my best to do it often (:

-kris.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~

"My name is Parker McCormick.", I repeated to the lady behind the desk for the third time. God, this woman is already making me dislike her. I thought bitterly to myself. "How old are you?", asked the woman, as she looked me up and down.

I guess i'd do the same, if the tables were turned. But, either way she was still pissing me off. "I turned 16,
on my birthday, August 12th.", I mumbled, refusing to look her in the eyes.

"I see.", she said snappily, sounding a bit bored. "Do you have any other possessions, besides the ones you have on your person right now?", she asked, as she leaned around her desktop trying to peek behind me.

Slowly, I shifted the old purple backpack, the one I had back when I was still able to attend school, from one shoulder to another. Everything that I had, which included nothing more than a few shirts, some jeans, a few travel sized toiletries, my journal, and my beat up black vans I had to stolen a few months ago, was currently on my person.

"No, this is all I have. Nothing else.", I told her, finally looking up at her face. She was in her mid 50's, maybe. She had a thin face, dull brown eyes, and small, gold, rounded framed glasses. Her clothing looked new, crisp and smelled of soapy detergent. She was one of the lucky ones. The name plaque on her desk read Lucille. Lucille Wilson.

From my standing position I could see right over her head, out to the street behind her. It was empty, as it had been for as long as I could remember. The only living thing in sight were a few black birds, pecking at the ground looking for crumbs. Other than that the sky was bright, a great contrast against the heavily graffitied buildings and dark streets below it.

*click click clickety click clickclickclick* the small noise made me jump a little, as I turned my attention back to Lucille, who was now typing away at the humming computer in front of her.

"Well, Ms. McCormick, as of right now I just can't allow a minor to receive vouchers. Not without a guardian, or at least a foster program of some sort to supervise. I'm sorry.", she said, not sounding the least bit sorry at all.

I could feel my heart pounding, as my face slowly turned bright red. My hands were shaky and I knew I had to get out of here. As I turned around to walk out Lucille spoke again, "do you have a guardian Parker? I can arrange one for you if that-",

I never heard the rest of her sentence. I ran out of the room, down the creaky wooden steps and pushed open the glass door as hard as I could. It was stupid to come here. I needed vouchers, or else I would have to continue to steal to survive. Ever since the Dark Ones had shown up in New York 3 years ago, everything, and everyone, had changed. It started off with public murders. Cruel, bloody acts of pure evil, being recorded and sent to local news stations. I was 13 at the time. I still had my dad and my little brother Carson. He was only one then, a little curly red haired baby, with big grey eyes, and huge dimples. Most of the time it was up to me to take care of him. My mom died shortly after giving birth to my brother, due to complications from labor, and ever since then my dad wasn't there much. He said his son reminded him too much of her. They shared the same dimples, and the same eyes.

I had long wavy strawberry blonde hair, all the way to my waist, dark green eyes and a single dimple, on my left cheek. I was slightly small for my age, weighing only 86 pounds, and I don't mind too much, being so small makes it easier to hide. I remember seeing my father die. They left him hanging from a tree in our front yard. By the time I got there, they were long gone. It took me awhile but I finally found my brother, fast asleep under my fathers bed, thumb in his mouth, wearing nothing but a diaper and a old dark blue Pokemon t-shirt that was about 10 sizes too big. I didn't tell lucille about Carson, because I was afraid she would take him away if I did. Being almost 4, he was smart enough to do what I told him without questioning it too much. I ran down the broken sidewalk, careful to look for any hunters.

Hunters worked for the dark ones. They searched for and turned in anyone who didn't have the chip implanted in their palm.

The chip allowed the dark ones to track everything you did, where you went, how many vouchers you had and even who you associated with. Vouchers were now the new money. They came in books, each colored page meaning something. White vouchers were food.

You got 2 pages of white, each page having 20 stickers, each sticker good for one meal, or 3 items for any food group. Green pages were like money, and purple was to use to get medicine or one stamp per doctor visit, All having the same concept.

I turned the corner off to the right and finally saw my destination, a rusty chain linked across the front of the stairway leading down to the old 18th street subway. I ducked under the chain, pushing the plastic aside and ran down the stairs. Nobody bothered coming down here, since the street above was known for having a lot of dark ones and hunters wandering around. Which is exactly why I liked it.

Turning to the left just before the turn styles, I made my way down the dirty hallway and finally into the women's bathroom. I pushed open the door slowly, and started searching for my brother.

"Carson?", I called out, "Hey bud, i'm back! And I brought you a present!", I said as I threw my bag into a corner on top of the pile of sleeping bags and old sheets that made up our bed. Looking to my right I saw my brother walking out of the last stall, the only one that still worked. Carson was growing up too fast, and watching him struggle with his zipper and button only reminded me of that.

"I do it self!", he had cried out when I tried to help him. He was wearing dads dark blue pokemon shirt, he refused to ever take it off. He finally got his pants right, and came and sat by me. "Present?", he asked, holding out his dirty little hand. "After you have a bath and eat, then present.", I told him standing up. He stuck his lip out at me, but allowed me to help him up. Walking over to the sink I flipped the water on to warm and took a old shirt I had ripped and washed his face, hands, and under his nails. Then I handed him the towel, clean undies and some shorts and pointed to the first stall. There had never been a toilet in there so, we used it to wash off. I taught him awhile ago to clean himself because I felt weird doing it after he turned 2.

Mumbling under his breath he went into the stall, and after a moment I saw his dirty underwear drop to the floor. With that I turned my attention back to the mirror. My hair was frizzy, and my face was still pink from running so hard. My long sleeved green plaid shirt was still pretty clean, so I didn't bother changing them. My dark skinny jeans though, we're already starting to tear, everything though I just stole them a week ago. Sighing to myself I grabbed my backpack, and changed into some sweats. After sharing 2 hotdogs I had nicked from a food cart vendor while he had his head turned, we laid on our makeshift bed, staring at the ceiling, I felt my brother sit up, "present now pwease?", he pouted , poking my arm.

With a sigh I sat up and pulled his present out of my bag. A small silver game boy color. The ones that took batteries. I had found it a few days ago, abandoned inside of one of the many now empty cars that lined Hawthorne street, which was right above our 18th street subway home. "We'll have to find batteries for it.", I told him.

"And find a game somewhere. But, it'll give you something to do.", without a word, he leaned over and left a slobbery kiss on my cheek, cuddled beside me and hugged his new toy. I wrapped us both up tighter and wondered what tomorrow held for us as I drifted off to sleep.

Hi guys! I'm sorry if this sucks so far but it's my first story. I'm also sorry about the cliff hanger but ill give more of their back story, and how they got where they are in the next few chapters, comment how I can make it better or what you like/hate. Thank you!

Xoxox

-kris.