The Runaways

The Runaways: Chapter 10: Cathlina

The smell of the bodies lying about the cafeteria floor is enough to make an elephant faint. They are still just lying there, soaked in the blood staining the tile floors. I still have no idea how to get them out of here so we don't begin to retch.

Without Mr. Leight or Siana here, I'm blind. I have no clue how to run a group of orphans and keep everyone healthy and safe. Kids years younger than me will have to help in order to keep chaos from breaking loose.

The cafeteria workers offered to help clean up the mess, but we don't know where to begin. We can't just carry the bodies with our hands, and if we could, where would we put them. It wouldn't be respectful to pile them at the end of the alley and let someone else deal with it. I let these people die, I will take care of this.

“You could call someone to organize a ceremony for them,” one child requests. Her older brother had been killed by Jedda and it was hard for a five-year-old to take it in. It's hard enough for me.

“That's a good idea, but we can't expose our secret location. It wouldn't be much of a secret anymore. Nice thinking, though,” I tell the little girl, trying hard to keep her feelings in tact.

She blows her nose in a tissue I gave her. “Oh. I thought they would excuse our secret.”

“Sorry, sweetie. We can't risk it. All of our parents would find us,” I tell her as calmly as I can.

More ideas are tossed up in the air, but none of them stick. We don't have anywhere to dispose of them. Even if we did, how would we get them there?

The best we can do is cover the bodies with large sheets of plastic used to keep lots of food fresh at once. Now they are used to keep smell and disease on the corpses until we have a plan.

The room smells better, but I still can smell death and revenge lingering in the humid air. I have a feeling it will stay there for a while longer. It will always remind me of the massacre that took place in our little headquarters. I will always keep this memory close and secure. It is sad, but it just tells us we have to protect our hideout better, make sure no uninvited guests come through the hole. We will not have another visit from the witch known as Jedda.

Video cameras, traps, guards, a door, whatever we need to assure we do not experience this again, will have to be placed outside at the end of the alley. All precautions must be taken. We can't afford to lose any more members.

The group that had survived gives up on ideas, so we all go back to our cabins. I stay back to help deliver dinner. A few others help. The cafeteria is in no shape to eat in.

The people who stay back to help are all around my age, maybe one or two years difference. I'm grateful to see them getting involved in the true meaning of this place – to help the other children going through the same thing.

We get to work loading up carts of food, stopping at each and every door, delivering water, a sandwich, and apple to every person. It takes us a half hour to do this, but we got to know each other better.

A boy around thirteen helps deliver the sandwiches. His name is Caleb. I've never talked to him until today. He had a younger brother who was killed by Jedda. He was only eight. That's a young age to die. He had so much life to live. I hope Jedda is happy, ruining all of these lives.

A girl who looks to be fifteen helps with the water bottles. She won't tell me her name, but she looks new. Her eyes have that scared look they all have when they first run away. It is a mixture of thrill and fear and regret. I've gone through it. We all have.

To me, the girl looks like a Kayla or a Kelsey. Something that starts with a “K.” I'll just call her Kayla.

Well, we load up the food on carts, each of us has a cart. Caleb places trays of sandwiches on his, Kayla stacks packages of water bottles on hers, and I fit as many large bowls of apples as I can on mine. We begin with the youngest kids, and work our way to the high-school age hallway.

Mr. Leight thought it would be best to put children of close age in each hallway. That way, younger kids wouldn't get trampled by teenagers. Another reason was to help people of the same age get along. Lots of fights break out over stupid things.

As we give the younger kids their dinners, I hear more about Caleb and Kayla. They've never met before today, and they both helped defeat Jedda.

Caleb has a color of hair I've never seen before. It looks like a black color, but when the overhead lights hit his head, it looks red. When I ask him what color it is, he shrugs.

“I dunno. My parents thought it wasn't natural. They always called me a witch, but I never understood why they would call me that. My hair doesn't resemble a witch's,” he tells me.

His eyes are a crackly green. The shades of green look like they are cracking his eyes, but I know it's just the way they are.

Kayla has plainer features with silky hair barely touching her shoulders the color of sand. Her eyes are dark brown and her skin is a slight tan. She isn't quite as tall as me, but is about half an inch taller than Caleb.

Even her clothing is simple – a cotton blouse with a low neck-line dyed the color of storm clouds and dark jeans. Her tennis shoes are pure white.

“My parents said I wasn't exciting enough. They thought I should be noticed more, so I gave them something to notice,” Kayla says in a soft voice.

“I'm not sure why I ran. My sister was upset with my parents, so she left, and she took me with her. I was only four,” I tell them.

“Oh. Did Jedda kill her?” Caleb asks. His eyes are innocent, not meaning to hurt my feelings, but I can't help but let my heart sink a bit. I'm trying to get the image of Siana's blue face, her mouth gasping for air, out of my head. It isn't working as well as I had planned.

I nod. That's the best I can do without bursting into tears again.

Kayla nudges Caleb. “You shouldn't bring it up,” she whispers.

“No, it's fine. It happened, so I should accept that I will never see her again. It's all part of life,” I tell them, but it is hard to be strong. I don't like being the one to set examples. I want to cry in a corner, but I can't. I can't be weak and vulnerable. That's what Jedda wants – to break our hopes down.

“Hey, if you don't remember, my brother just died out there. He was trying to save me, even though he's younger. He was being a true hero. That's who Siana was. A hero,” Caleb tries to comfort me. He shouldn't have to do that. I'm older. I should be the one comforting the younger ones.

I hear a sniff. It came from me. I've begun to cry. I can't do that, though. I'm not allowed to.

Kayla leans into Caleb's ear. “Nice save.”

Caleb gives her an evil stare with those crackling eyes. “If that was any of your business, Violet, I would've asked.”

Violet giggles. “Sorry.”

“Caleb, you're right. She was a hero. She stood up for me before Jedda could take her anger out on me. She saved me from being strangled, letting me live to help,” I tell them, breaking up the argument forming between the two.

I wipe my eyes and continue down the hallway to deliver everyone's dinner.