The Pariah

"Here's some advice: stay alive." ---Suzanne Collins

"Where did he get you?" Nick asked her gently with a sigh. He knew she was freaked out. He knew she didn't know what to expect.

Nick watched as Mia lifted up her shirt and showed angry red marks on her stomach and lifted part of her jeans up to reveal the bruises on her ankles. Nick knew he used a baton or some other blunt force object to hit the crap out of her. He was going to tear him apart when he got the chance. He was going to make the man drown in his own blood.

"I'm going to tear him apart for what he did to you," Nick told his sister, his eyes going dark with anger and hate. "I'm going to make his life hell."

"No you're not!" Mia cried, her green eyes piercing Nick's amber ones from across the van. "Don't you get it?! We're terribly out manned, out matched, out everything! We don't know where we are. We don't know what this whole 'slave' thing is going to entail." Mia lectured as she looked down at her hands which were trembling. "Making threats like that is going to get you killed or worse."

Nick frowned, he wanted to reach out and grab her hands but he couldn't. He was stuck and he couldn't comfort her. "That doesn't mean we should lie down and take it though," Nick said with a shake of his head. "I am not going to be a slave Mia, I'm sorry, but we've come way too damn far for that nonsense." Nick said firmly and looked at her. "You let me worry about living and dying, you worry about not getting the crap beat out of you again."

Mia made a noise of annoyance in her throat as she glared at him. "You don't comprehend our situation do you? Do you know the odds we will survive this?" Mia said glaring at her brother. "There is about a ten percent chance we escape and come out alive, there's a ninety percent chance we work for these people for the rest of our lives. Those aren't fantastic odds Nick. I don't care that you can't see, I don't care if you don't care about yourself, because I care about you."

Nick sat back as he closed his eyes. He was trying to find the words and trying to find the patience to deal with his kid sister. She could only see things from the logical side, she couldn't see it from the survival side. While Nick could see only from the survival side, and he thought he was right. Nick thought he was right because he had kept the both of them in one piece for more than five years by himself. So what if he was someone's government issued, property? It was just another obstacle to find a way around. His sister maybe smarter, but Nick knew how to survive. He was like a cockroach, he could get out of anything.

"Mia, if we lie down and submit there will be no chance of us getting out. Let me fight, you submit. I'm going to create enough of a stir it gives you a chance to run," Nick said and Mia looked like she was going to argue but he quickly kept going on. "You've got a better chance of getting to Mrs. Lang or getting to a friend of hers or something. You can get help and somehow get me out." Nick was lying and both of them knew it. They both knew he wasn't getting out of this if they went that route.

Mia sighed as she undid her braid and let her dark brown hair fall to the sides of her. When her hair was down it went to the middle of her back, it was a bitch to clean. Nick used to have to do it for her when she was really little. Washing Mia's hair was the biggest pain in the ass because they never had enough water or the water was freezing cold and Mia didn't want to sit still. There was just a small window of opportunity for Nick to put the shampoo and conditioner in her hair and wash it out.

Mia laughed at her brother's persistence after she made herself more comfortable on the bench. "You really don't get how this all works do you?" Mia asked her older brother. "Even if you wanted to, they would track you down. They put trackers in our arms, remember? Usually they do it at a government building but I guess where we're going is high up enough that they have their own tracking devices. If they have their own tracking devices it means they have their own security system."