Pure

The House On Walden Street

Pain presses on my eyelids but I'm in fact still breathing so that's probably not a bad thing. Footsteps echo around me, I play coy attempting to keep my breath steady as one does in sleep. I feel sheets between my fingertips and the rough material of a woolen blanket underneath my chin.

"Finn, It's just me and I know you aren't asleep by the way. You should really work on your acting." Peter flops down on the matress beside me as I open my eyes peering around the bright room.

"Where are we," my voice doesn't even soiund like me. It's gravelly like an old man's and cracks on the vowels of my words.

"The cabin." I try to sit up but fall back to the matress with a cry of pain as my shoulder lights up like a flame,"You don't want to do that, the wound in your shoulder is pretty nasty. I got the bullet out but it hit your shoulder blade and pretty much shattered it. It's going to be some time before you can move it again and I have no idea if you'll ever get the same movement out of it since I'm obviously no doctor." He shrugs and gets to his feet, the boards beneath his feet creaking as he walks to the big picture window. Peter pulls back the slick, expensive looking, silk curtains letting in an even sharper light into the room. Black spots crowd my eyes and I have to close them. "Whoever it was didn't pursue us after I got you into the house. It was weird. I saw the bullet hit you and then the firing stopped instantly. It was as if they thought that was good enough."

"Maybe they didn't see you," I suggest though the knot in my stomach tells me that's not true. Peter was right behind me, we stepped into the clearing within seconds of each other. The assasin would've heard him screaming too. Why didn't they fire at him? The question lingers in my mind as Peter sets a pack of gronola bars in my lap twenty minutes later.

Between bites he tells me that I've been out for three days and he thought I was dead for two of them. "Peter, what if they don't know?"

"Who and what are you talking about?" He looks confused with a chunk of gronola hanging from his lips, forgotten.

"What if they were the Radicals from camp? They know about you being Pure. What if they don't know about me? We always assumed they did, they seem to know everything. You escaped from their camps so they have records of you but I'm just a roamer. They wouldn't care if I lived or died, I'm worth nothing in their eyes if I'm not labeled Pure. That would explained why they didn't even pursue you."

"Finn, we aren't actually sure that's who blew up the camp. It was just a good guess, could've been anyone, thugs or rebels.. And if you know you're Pure they probably would too. Plus they wouldn't have just let me go after all that work. That's a big waste of ammunition just to let me slip away."

"That's not true, my whole family died from the disease and it didn't effect me, that's how I know Peter. And what if they didn't just let you go. Maybe they knew they hadn't killed me and we'd just be sitting ducks here because I obviously can't leave and it's probably a good guess you wouldn't leave me here to die all alone. They've set up the ultimate pig pen. We'll just be here until they're ready to cart us off to the slaughterhouse!" My voice is growing louder and more hysteric as I continue but I can't keep calm, the knot in my stomach has bowled through my inner organs, turning them to mush, "Peter, we're dead. This is it."

"Finn, please calm down," he's looking around nervously and brushing the back of his neck with his fingertips, a habit I've learned he does when he's stressed out. My words have definitely rocked him but they haven't shaken him as bad as they have me. My heart is racing and can't stop rubbing the sweat off my palms. I fell like screaming crying all at the same time. We fell right into their hands. My paranoid ears hear the russling of leaves outside of the window like someone is moving to look in at us- to enjoy our panic.