Keep Running

Chapter 1 - Sunny

I was eighteen years old. College friends talked me into going to a club. Fake ID. And I didn't usually look beautiful. I never felt like I looked pretty. But my friends helped me put my make up, glitter all down my face. And I felt pretty, and the music was so loud. And after a couple of drinks I couldn't recognize the songs. But I knew that I'd only be young once.
And a boy with brown eyes was smiling at me across the dance floor. He was standing alone. In a stupid orange t-shirt and ill fitting black jeans he didn't even look like he knew what he was supposed to be doing. But he must have felt my eyes on him because he turned. And he smiled.
I had enough booze in me to give me the courage to walk up to him. I put a finger through the loop of his jeans and tugged him over. He put a hand on my arm so gently.
"What are you doing here brown eyes?" I asked.
"Ah—under age drinking?" He laughed. His breath smelled like whiskey, "These are called old-fashioned' s apparently."
"Oh I'm under age drinking vodka," I said. I wanted to get lost in those sweet brown eyes.
"Come here," he said, taking my arm gently. I followed him off the dance floor. He looked over shoulder. But I was too drunk then to know that meant trouble.  "I'd say let me get you a drink but to be honest I've been swiping these."
"What, you don't have a fake ID?" I laughed.
"I don't even have an ID," he said, slurring his words probably as bad as I was.
"What's your name?"
"Do you know I have no idea?" He said.
"Brown eyes is fine," I said, putting a hand on his cheek. He tipped his head, kissing my hand. I hadn't even been kissed like that. My spine crawled, but pleasurably. I leaned against him.
He leaned down and kissed my nose, very quickly, as if gauging the reaction. I kissed his lips. We both were sweating alcohol by that point, him whiskey me vodka.
He looked over his shoulder again, glancing around, "My head is spinning."
"I'll set you straight pretty boy," I said, and I tugged him into the bathroom. The women's room. A couple of girls scurried out, laughing. College bar. College club. Of course they knew what we were doing. They'd been there before. Pinned against the chipped plywood door, skirt around the knees. I didn't know I intended to be there. But that was where we were going.
He pinned me to the door, hands on my sides, mouth on mine. At first clumsy but then, within moments, so expertly. His teeth slid along my lips, slowly, measured, precisely how I didn't know I needed to be kissed. I was so warm against him yet I didn't want it to change. I'd slept with my highschool boyfriend but that wasn't like this. Perhaps it was alcohol. Or perhaps it was him. This was fun.
He unbuttoned his shirt, he was rippled with muscles like an athlete. I could feel scars though some raw on his skin. Too drunk and full of lust to care I kept on kiss him. His hands did all the right things, and soon I was tugging down my skirt and panties, sliding out of my glittery top. I wore a nice bra he might as well see it.
He did, hands on my breasts, then smoothing over my ribs and down my side, so calm and nearly methodical in his love making. Yet as deliciously drunk and giddy as I was. We laughed as he lifted me onto the cold counter of the bathroom. Our reflections in the mirror, the way the glitter from my face was no stuck to his in the dim light. The music from the club was pounding in my head.
And we were no longer bracing the door.
A bathroom with plenty of stories etched into the walls we weren't the first drunk young lovers to scramble in. And I did intend to get his real name or something once he got through making love to me. But I was too drunk to care and I was having fun.
I have no clue how long we were at it. Long enough. We'd disappeared to kiss for some time the song outside had changed I know that. So long enough.
One moment we were content in each other's arms him kissing me like I didn't know I needed to be kissed.
The next he was being ripped forcibly from me, and thrown across the room. No less then ten men with guns poured in.
"Stop it!" I screamed, I jumping up. I was mostly naked. Nobody gave me clothes.
"Leave her alone —leave her alone it's my fault—it was my fault—leave her alone—I'm sorry I'm so so sorry—," the boy sobbed, and they tased him. I'd never seen someone be tased before. They did it right in front of me, even as he had his hands up. His head smacked the wall and there was blood down him and the floor.
"Stop it I'm sorry I'm sorry, stop it," he whimpered. They did it again.
"Leave him alone!!! He wasn't doing anything!!" I screamed, two men held me back, naked as I was.
I didn't understand. Stupidly, and drunk as I was, I thought someone had called the cops saying he was raping me? It didn't make sense. It soon did.
They tased him again, one slapped cuffs on him the other put a muzzle over his head.
"Get dressed. Now." One of them said.
"He didn't do anything wrong—don't arrest him—we didn't do anything—,"
"Ma'am put your clothes on."
They hauled him away, bound and gagged. The last time I saw the boy's face was as they dragged him out, eyes red rimmed, soaking his own sweat with blood running down his face from where he cracked his head.
I was swiftly ushered to a waiting ambulance. And then I first heard the word.
Mutant.
"You engaged in willing sexual activity with a mutant?"
"I didn't know he was a mutant," I whispered. But he was pretty. And nice. He was being nice.
I had heard of mutants before. They were all locked up or something? I didn't care, what did it affect me they just locked them up because they were dangerous. The boy didn't seem dangerous.
I was taken to a hospital.  A full rape kit, and de brief upon de brief. My parents were called. My parents. I was being charged with under age alcohol consumption.
"I was just having fun, I swear he didn't hurt me please do not hurt him," I said.
"Ma'am the mutant will be contained accordingly. You need to read and sign recognizing you were exposed to a registered telepath—," they talked about him like he was a dog.
"He could read my mind," I whispered. I closed my eyes, praying he could still see me and knew I was okay. "Is he okay? What's his name he didn't—,"
"Mutants are assigned case numbers. Please read and sign that you recognize you were exposed to a registered telepath."
I read and signed. Everything was a blur. I was hung over. My parents, furious. I had said I was studying of course I did I was eighteen.
The rape kit was dehumanizing. No less than three doctors.
"I wasn't raped," I said.
It didn't matter. They swabbed me anyway. I was angry. I was still in my night club clothes my make up melting off. I cried I don't know how many times that awful day. They wouldn't tell me if the boy was all right. 
"Can you tell his—people—handlers that it was my idea and I'm fine and he shouldn't get in trouble for that?" I asked, "We were being stupid it wasn't—he didn't hurt me."
Nothing. Nobody even cared. They went through the motions.
"Take this," a doctor gave me a cup with a pill in it, "Plan B. You still need to take a pregnancy test at four and six weeks, and contact a center if you get a positive result."
I took it, angrily, swallowing the pills with a cup of water they hand me. Finally after nearly a full twenty four hours they dismissed me. Still in my club clothes. Charged with underage drinking, and throughly humiliated.
My parents were furious, possibly understandably given the call they'd gotten. But I was pissed too.
The government people that discharged me gave me a binder of resource material, cautions, explanations of my rights given I was exposed to a telepath. And two boxes of pregnancy tests with the card of who to call taped to it.
I kicked all of it under my bed, and went to take a shower. I wanted to wash the touch of their hands off of me. Not his.
He was fine. And as time went on I got angrier about it. He didn't do anything wrong it was my idea to go to the bathroom and if I wanted to kiss him so what? And it's not like he was dangerous. Why have him locked up like that?  We could have sex if we wanted. We were consenting adults who cared if he was a mutant? He didn't hurt me. It was wrong. I was angry and disgusted with the whole thing. All my friends saw it. I was dragged out mostly not clothed. And my parents weren't about to forgive me over it. I was supposed to be going to college and I was, and doing well. I was the talk of campus after that. But within a couple of weeks I was half wanting to forget about it, or at least for everyone else to forget about it.
I did forget about the stupid literature, and the stupid pregnancy tests underneath my bed. That is, until my period was two days late.
A solid two weeks from the entire incident. I hadn't had sex since my old boyfriend which was over a year ago. And I was never late.
The third day after my period should have come, I dug the boxes out from under the bed. Mostly to allay my own mind. I'd taken the Plan B. It wasn't as though—
Positive.
I stared at the little white stick as the two blue lines slowly appeared, distinctly. No doubt. That was a positive test. In the middle of the afternoon no less not in the morning like it was supposed to be.
Like a mature adult, I decided to ignore it. False positives were bound to happen. I was fine it was once and I'd had the Plan B.
A week later my period still hadn't come, and my breasts felt sore. Another three positive results over the next three days confirmed what my body was slowly telling me.
I was pregnant.
Sore chested, with breasts swelling out of my usual A cup, gagging at the smell of car fumes, and inexplicably starving in the middle of the night, I was slowly being shocked into accepting the truth. And I was too pragmatic to deny it for long.
And I wasn't about to call the number on that card.
What so they could touch me again? Put their hands all over me? Test to see if the baby was a mutant like its father? Yes that's what they wanted to. But it was the last thing I wanted. The memory of that poor boy being shocked again and again. I wasn't about to let anyone do that to my baby.
I started cutting classes. I needed to research everything I could about mutants. And how to hide one but I knew that would be harder.
Six weeks to the night I conceived, I had to finally cave and go to Walmart for bigger bras. Soft, sports bras that would accommodate my swollen aching breasts. I wanted to hide how much I'd grown but I couldn't stand anything tight. And I knew I had to hide. I was pretending my belly wasn't looking bloated. Not yet. I had time. My jeans still got up. I was hidden. We were hidden.
It was becoming we. No prenatal appointments. If I was going to do this I had to disappear completely. To that end. I started getting money together. I had an old truck. I started to slowly get supplies. I figured I had five months till I had to bolt, disappear somewhere and give birth alone. Most mutants are taken at birth. And if the child wasn't a mutant. Well, we could rejoin society.
I read everything I could about living off the grid. Hunting for food. Purifying water. And then the always present topic, giving birth alone. I wasn't going to trust anyone. And I was growing deeply paranoid.
Eight weeks gone meaning ten weeks as it's counted from the last period. Time was ticking, and what's more I could no longer reliably get my jeans up. I was pouring myself into them with my once taught gut, now oozing over the top of a painfully tight buckle. I started over eating, hoping weight gain could hide the more suspicious weight gain, and in lieu of maternity jeans or the like I just bought a few sizes up.
I got a gun, stockpiled ammo. My part time jobs offered overtime I took it. I was dead on my feet, eating all the time and yet still hungry. I knew how to shoot but not how to skin an animal. I finally found a book at the library on home births. I stole it.
Twelve weeks gone, size eighteen jeans were getting too snug again, my only pair that had fit and I couldn't get them buckled at all. Drinking melted ice cream for breakfast left me with a roll of fat around the middle, yet even that couldn't disguise that my belly had officially popped out. A round firm little baby bump. The scale in my mother's bathroom said I'd gained a good twenty pounds already. Half of that I was sure was in my breasts, which were now pushing out the top of the sports bras.
Thirteen weeks my mother finally commented about the weight gain and said I needed to start a diet. She threw out all my necessary knocked up girl food, like pringles and ice cream. We had a fight. I resorted to hiding food in my room. I was officially constantly starving. And my baby was growing steadily unaware of our need for secrecy.
Sixteen weeks, I was amazed I'd lasted a full four months. My belly refused to be confined to any jeans, even with the buckle undone I couldn't zip them. A good round pregnant gut, I padded myself with two or three shirts to try to disguise the shape as time began to run out. I'd hoped I'd make it longer but it wasn't to be. The baby was nothing like subtle on my short, now stocky frame. I'd gone from a size four to a size twenty, and my skin bore the stretch marks to prove it.
I could feel the baby kick. It was the size of my fist, and my belly reflected that, chubby enough to make sleeping on my side unconformable.  I knew my time was up, or nearly. I'd hoped to swing an extra month by overeating to hide my gut with fat. But the baby belly was rapidly taking any calories and converting them into making me look more and more pregnant.
On my seventeenth week my mother found food I'd been hiding in my room. She and my father somewhat correctly deduced that I had an eating disorder because of what happened. The ensuing argument was more than I needed, and a firm reminder that I needed to be gone.
And so that night I left. I packed my things and in the cover of darkness loaded up my truck, and headed for the nearest national forest. Time to get lost.
I set up a tent in the back of the truck bed. Everything else I need in the front. I had cloth to sew baby things. And money saved up for emergencies. But I didn't plan on an emergency. I was going to either give birth, or die doing so. Alone.
My first relief at leaving was that I could finally put on a few spare maternity clothes that I'd packed. Stretchy pants, and no longer trying to disguise the bulge under a shirt, was liberating.
By twenty weeks I was far off the grid.
By twenty five in a stroke of luck I found an abandoned cabin. Dry, in the middle of nowhere. Miles off the road with no signal. Perfect.
Thirty weeks gone and I was waddling to the nearest stream for water. Set up as I could be, in a leaking cabin. My belly was a big round ball, like a watermelon and not a baby was under my skin. I was completely alone and nearly going crazy.
Thirty two weeks I was skilled at hunting my own food, and going outside to pee every five minutes. Winter blowing in. I talked to the baby all the time. and I thought about it's father. How I hoped he'd lived, and they hadn't hurt him. That he knew we were okay, if he did read minds perhaps he knew that. 
Week thirty four was my nineteenth birthday. Not how I expected to spend it. Due in a month I was huge and sweaty and miserable. Bad dreams plagued me. I was keeping myself and my steadily growing baby alive and that was it. I didn't know then if either I or the child would survive the birth. But I knew I had to try, for both of us. And I would rather die out there under the stars, than have those people poking and prodding me and rip my baby from me.
I first felt labor pains almost thirty eight weeks to the day. My life had changed completely from that glittery, alcohol fueled night in the club. And my every maternal instinct told me I was doing this right. I needed to shield this baby.
After all my fears, the labor was relatively quick. I had pains for a couple of days. Then my water finally broke one night just after sunset. I paced, clinging to my truck for support, knife in my hand my only tool to cut the umbilical cord. I dropped it in my pain and never got it back.
My daughter arrived, me sobbing in pain and struggling to catch her. Soaked in blood, and wailing miserably. I clutched her to my chest, I was wearing just a bra and was crying too. We both cried. A chubby, healthy looking baby fat from all I'd been eating but crying strongly.
"Hello Lydia," I said, wiping her little face as I wrapped her in one of my shirts, "Welcome."
She looked at me curiously, big brown eyes. I nearly laughed, she looked eerily in that moment like her father, for those few moments I knew him. I kissed her and cried.
That night was now fourteen years ago. We're still doing all right. We've improved since then. Mostly living off the grid, now in a camper bus I can park on National land and the like well out of the way of prying eyes. I can work odd jobs to make ends meet as we move around. Can't stay too long. Can't be too careful.
My little mutant proved all my paranoia well founded before her second birthday. Levitating toys gleefully, occasionally making the cutlery dace. We're the lucky ones apparently, she has to be hidden.
I naturally thought of Lydia's father over the years. And I told her the truth. That he was a mutant and locked up, that he didn't know about her.
But I can still recall his face. Even after all this time.
I joined a few online groups of mutant data bases, mostly it's people trying to track down family members, I've never posted but just in case. And tonight there's a new bulletin.
A mutant in the Seattle area, check. About mid to late thirties, check. Likely telepath, check.
And his picture. A grainy surveillance photo but it's him.
Name - unknown. Possible escapee his compound is no longer operating.
"Lydia, come here," I say, staring at my laptop. I was supposed to be looking at her school work. She's reading back in her bunk, headphones on. "LYDIA."
"I heard, what?" She asks, coming over, she's wearing a long old t-shirt and sweats for bed, bare feet on the dusty bus floor.
"I think I found your father, that's him," I say, pointing at the screen.
She frowns, studying the image, "Are those scars?"
"Looks like, yeah he didn't have those but—that's him," I say.
"He got out?" She asks hopefully.
"Yeah, but he doesn't know who we are, where we are," I say. I don't think I told him my name.
"Are we going to find him?"
I sigh. Yes. Thirteen years too late but we are, "Yes, we're going to find him."