Born (27 page)

I look at my forearm and know it's the
truth. I've always had enough. It wasn’t grand or amazing but it was enough.
Something cold presses against my hand. I look at Leo's wolf face. His muzzle
is wet.

"Hey boy." I scratch his face.
"This is Leo."

She nods again slowly. A smile creeps
across her lips like she's in on a joke and I'm not, "He's the reason
everyone knows who you are kiddo."

I smile at him, "You're a superstar
Leo."

She looks intimidated by him.

"Well Nan it was nice meeting
you."

"If you planning something you let
me know."

"Oh this is me letting you know. Get
me about seven or eight of the more dirty looking guys you know but who can
fight and keep their temper at the same time. Meet me at the south east side of
camp in two hours. Pack light, food and water."

"Sounds good kid."

I stand and leave with Leo next to me. I
need to do this with a small group of people. It needs to be done delicately. I
know exactly how to do it.

I walk to where the group of women had
been the last time I was at the camp. There are less of them milling about as
they peel vegetables.

Most of the others are watching the
arguing going on in the tent between Will and Marshall.

The older one smiles at me, "Got out
I see."

I smile back, "I did. You know of
any women here who can fight?"

She looks at the four women beside her
and opens her arms wide, "What are we chopped liver?"

I shake my head, "No."

Putting her hands on her hips, she blows
a piece of hair out of her eyes. I notice now how much they sparkle. "I
was in the military before. I left to start my own business after twenty years
was up. Good thing I have that military pension now or I'd starve."

They all laugh. I'm lost.

"I was a chef. I can do a lot of
things with a knife." The woman with the scar on her face says.

"I'm going after the women in the
breeder farm." I say.

The dark haired one glances at the older
one. They exchange a look.

"We're in. How many women."

"Five would be ideal. They have to
be fit. Be ready to leave here in a couple hours. Pack light but bring food and
water. Meet me at the south east side of camp."

She laughs, "You little shit. You're
going to let them fight and sneak a small group of us out aren’t you?"

My eyes sparkle right back at her,
"I don’t know what you're talking about."

I walk to where the water well is dug and
start filling my water bottles.

Leo makes a noise in his throat. I glance
up and see Eric watching me. His dark eyes still show faded bruising under
them. I wave. He shakes his head and starts laughing. Leo growls. He puts his
hands in the air innocently and walks away. I didn’t know he was at the camp
here. I knew Mary asked him not to come back to the retreat. Too many fifteen
year olds for him to be tempted by.

I look down at Leo and rub his fur. We
could kill Eric in the woods quietly and no one would know. Leo could eat him.
I pull an arrow from my quiver and notice it's nearly empty. I decide I need
arrows more than Eric dead.

I walk into the forest off to the side.
Leo lies in the brush while I whittle new arrows. The forest here doesn’t feel
like home. I miss my cabin. I know Leo misses it. I know after this is all over
and I find my inner peace again, I am going home.

The feeling of need is burning inside of
me. It is a bad feeling that haunts me. It won't stop nagging at me to help the
girls in the breeder farms. I wonder if I will ever stop? Will the need ever be
filled and go away?

A giggle breaks my silence and thought. I
look up to see short shorts hanging off of Will again. He's talking to a man
with black hair and a big beard. She is clinging to him and hitting him softly,
like he's making jokes. My stomach falls and my chest feels heavy. I hate him.
I hate him for tricking me and making me care about him.

I get up from the log I'm sitting on and
walk deeper into the forest. I pull an arrow and pull out my bow. I hold it
steady and listen to the forest. A bird makes a sound and I release the arrow.
I feel sad when the arrow hits him because I'm not going to eat him but I need
the feathers. I don’t like waste.

I walk up to his dead body and pull the
arrow out. I pluck the feathers on the wings and try not to think about it.

"You should be using willow branches
you know."

I look back at him, trying desperately to
fight the scowl across my face. I want more than anything to not care about
him.

"I read it in a book. Willow
branches make the best arrows."

I roll my eyes, "Will, what do you
think my bow is made of?"

He smirks, "I don’t know."

"The bow has to be willow. The
arrows can be any wood."

He sits beside me, "Good to know. So
I heard a rumor."

"Yeah well if you're the star of the
rumor keep it to yourself please. My imagination works just fine for cooking up
ideas on the things you do that are noteworthy."

He laughs, "You're jealous."

I snap my face at his, "I am
not."

He kisses my nose but I back up fast and
fall off the log, "Don’t touch me."

I snatch my things and stalk away.

He grabs my arm sending my feathers and
sticks everywhere. I feel like I'm going to cry. My lip trembles. I will it not
to but I can't help myself. I am furious. I've never actually felt this
emotion. It appears the angrier I get, the closer to tears I get.

I feel my body shake back and forth. I
feel his arms biting into my skin. I feel his hot breath on my face but I don't
hear the words he's shouting.

I shut down. I feel limp in his grip,
like his hands are the only things holding me up.

His blue eyes are on fire. They narrow
and his lips thin in a sneer. He's very angry. His mouth is moving savagely.
His eyes dart to the side. He looks to the side and stops shaking me. I follow
his gaze to see Star standing and watching us. The world stops moving and his
fingers stop clawing at me. He drops his hands. He glances nervously at her.
She bites her lip. Everything moves slower. He runs a hand through his hair and
sighs. He points one of his big fingers in my face, "I'm watching you. You
don’t do anything stupid."

I bend, and try not to fall over, to
collect my things from the ground. I wish I could leave them there. He has
humiliated me. I can feel a build up of emotions ready to burst from me. I hate
that he has yelled at me like I'm a child in front of his girlfriend of the
week. Maybe she's been his girlfriend all along.

I hear his feet crunching on the ground
and her giggle. My fingers want to grip an arrow and drive it into both of
their chests.

I feel Leo nudging my arm.

The fire in his yellow eyes reminds me
who I am. I am the hero of my own story. The girl who lived alone in the woods
and never needed anyone. The girl who is going to free the other girls.

The world is growing distant to me again.
My emotions are shutting off. When I am done saving the women and children I am
going back to my cabin.

The ragged group of people is exactly
what I imagined they would be. The desperate look in their eyes is exactly what
I was looking for. I pull out a map I stole when Marshall was out of the main
tent. It's one of the smaller ones he never uses, as far as I could tell.

"This area here is a high traffic
area." I point to a roadway a few miles from the farm. I look at the two
younger looking women, "We are going to get you and you to walk along the
road there and get picked up. You look pretty perfect. Once they stop I will
drop them from a tree on the side of the road with my bow. Who here can
shoot?"

A man, who reminds me of my dad a little,
nods. "I can. I have a rifle." He pulls it off his back.

"Okay good. You and I will shoot
everything down there but those two ladies. Everyone else hides at the edge of
the woods and ambushes after the initial are dead. We climb aboard and ride it
to the farm with us women in the back as captives. There are few guards at the
drop-off. Maybe four. They will expect you guys are guards too. From there it's
mostly doctors and nurses. We sneak inside and…"

"And what Emma? Blow up the
building? Kill every doctor you see whether they're guilty or not?"

I sigh and close my yes, "No one
asked you for help."

I look at the group of people and ignore
the giant angry bear of a man at my back. "We are all here voluntarily
right?"

They eyeball him and nod weakly. He must
look really pissed. I don’t care. I hate him.

"Honey you have to think this
through." I hear a sweet giggly voice.

I turn and try not to shout, "What
have you ever done besides fuck guys in a camp? What do you know about rescuing
people and avoiding death? Your short shorts and big boobs have pretty much
guaranteed your survival. Sorry if I don’t listen to anything you have to say.
For Christ sake. I'm not looking for advice on how to style my hair." Her
pretty face becomes stoic. She looks at Will and turns on her heel and stalks
back to camp. Will grabs my arm and drags me into the woods. I fight him but at
some points my feet aren't touching the ground.

I prepare myself for the shaking of a
lifetime and for his fingers to push in where the bruises are still fresh from
last time.

Instead he sits on a log and pinches the
bridge of his nose. I frown. He is quiet. It's more creepy than anything.
"You are a child Emma. You don’t realize it but you are. I know you've
lived through incredible things and you've been alone and that you don’t have
social skills like normal people but you can't talk to someone like that. She
was trying to help."

All I really hear from his sentence is
'child' and 'not normal'. My feet are backing away. I feel a sickly knot in my
stomach.

"You need her. Her brother is a
genius of sorts. He's holed up in a creepy old mansion. We need to go there and
get his help if you're serious about saving all the farm workers."

I don’t hear him. I'm backing up slowly
like I used to. Not making noise.

My plan was a good one. We're sticking to
it. I know it will work. I don’t need a bimbo like Star or her brother or the
moron she has wrapped around her fingers.

I feel a branch snap under my foot as I'm
about to turn and run.

He glances up and frowns, "What are
you doing?"

I swallow hard.

"Why do you look like that?"

I watch his face and roll up my sleeve on
my right arm slowly. His fingerprints are still in my arms. The red has faded
and instead a slight blue is appearing.

He focuses on it and shakes his head,
"What?"

I swallow hard again and pull the sleeve
back down, "I'm done with you bruising me and shaking me. If you want to
talk we can do it this far apart."

He looks frightened, like I've cornered
him and made him angry.

"What was that? Did I do that?"

I don’t say anything. Instead a memory
burns through my mind. A memory of being with my best friend Lana.

Once we hid under her bed when her
parents were fighting. Her dad was beating her mom. All we saw were feet. His
in black socks with jeans bunched at his ankles. Hers were bare with red nail
polish. She was on her toes and struggling to touch the ground. She made a
weird gurgling noise. Slaps and grunts filled the air mixing with his shouts.
Suddenly she was on the ground beside us. Her dark brown eyes widened when she
saw us. Her lip was bleeding making it look like lipstick as the droplets
rolled along her lips. A tear slid down her red cheek. She winked at us and
pushed herself onto her knees and crawled down the hall. He followed. His
shouts followed too. As she got further away we could see more. I looked at
Lana. She was covering her face and sobbing silently.

I looked back down the hall to see him
kick her until she didn’t move anymore. He stalked down the long hallway of the
trailer and went into the small kitchen. I heard the fridge door open. He made
other noises and closed the fridge. He walked to the end of the hallway and
looked at her. He opened the beer in his hands and drank a bunch of it. He
turned and walked out of my sight. When Lana was calm we snuck out the window
and went barefoot to my granny's. She made us pancakes and we made crowns out
of craft paper and sparkle glue.

The look on his face reminds of her dad
for a second.

"Emma."

As his feet move a step closer mine move
a step further.

I see the pain on his face but I fight my
urge to make it okay again. He has humiliated me and treated me like a child
and a victim. I am none of those things.