A/N: Hey folks! It's Crazy Em. Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, but I assure you it was definitely worth it. Marc and I like to make the chapters longer to give all our characters equal treatment. This one was pretty difficult to master, because it's a totally new character and a new setting. We get to see how the children arrive at the facility, and what the outside world looks like after war, poverty, global warming, and natural disasters devastated it (not to mention cannibals heheh) Look on the bright side, at least America doesn't have the childhood obesity problem anymore, right? Anyway, thanks for sticking with us, I hope you enjoy it, and don't be afraid to tell us what you think. We don't bite, because that's too cliche, but we might, I dunno, lick you?
Sand, sand, and more sand. Sand and heaps of trash were the only things left outside the major cities. The neighbourhoods and farmlands were long covered over with dust and wreckage due to prolonged droughts, dust storms, and other disasters both manmade and natural. No matter how many inventions the city people created, they couldn’t control the weather. Maggie sat next to a tiny window on the high-speed bullet train that those men in suits forced her into. The train was jet black and so fast that the landscape was a blur of singed brown and scorched orange. Occasionally she saw something green, but it passed so quickly that she wasn’t even sure she saw it.
Despite how nice the outside of the train appeared, the train car was packed tightly. It was approximately fifty by twenty feet, and there were at least fifty children inside with only enough space for half of them. Many of them were squished into the corner or sitting in the aisle.
All Maggie had to do was glance at the kids surrounding her and somehow they knew not to go near her. She was dangerous. Perhaps it was the set of her jaw, taut and unmoving as if she was ready to scream at them or strike them down with venomous words. Or maybe it was her impressively muscled arms and legs; anyone who could survive the slums and keep meat on their bones was not someone who you messed with. Or it might have been the hollowed look in her eyes. Most of the children had an echo of that expression as if their world had caved in around them, but Maggie’s eyes were dark, and deeply sunk in her grimy eye sockets. It was as if she was retreating somewhere far away. There might have been a spark of vitality in her eyes once, but it was quenched and hidden now. Whatever it was that kept the children away from Maggie, she was grateful for it. She had enough human contact for a life time. Not that those men with the shaved heads and black suits were, strictly speaking, human.
Maggie didn’t go with the men without a fight. After escaping the first time, she planned to escape again but, as if on cue, all of the men took out their semiautomatic handguns and strange, glowing chrome guns with wide barrels that Maggie had no name for. If she were to run away now, she’d be blown to pieces. They wouldn’t bother chasing one girl again when they had a train full of children to worry about. At least that’s what she told herself. Maybe that would be the better fate compared to what we’re in store for, Maggie thought.
Out of the fifty children in the train car less than a quarter were older than twelve. Maggie was fifteen, so she was one of the oldest. The younger children were whimpering, and after a few hours the whole cart smelled like urine and shit. One little girl tried to sit on her lap, but she pushed her away roughly. Maggie couldn’t afford to make any friends. Friends don’t live long. I have to survive. That’s it.
“Shut your trap. Stop crying,” she growled to a little boy sitting in front of her. He randomly burst out wailing for ten minutes straight, but when she yelled at him he stopped for a second and looked at her with his reddish brown eyes and then started crying again. Those eyes reminded her of someone. She sighed, leaned forward in her seat, and pressed her palms into her eye sockets as if she was trying to hold in her tears.
Poor bastards. Sold away so young, Maggie thought.Human trafficking wasn’t exactly uncommon. If you didn't live inside one of the big cities there was nothing you could do but accept the risk. She figured the facility was for sex slaves, child labour, or organ donations for the black market. Sometimes families willingly sold their children to the facility for what little money they could. That’s what her parents did less than a day ago.
They weren’t really her parents. Her biological mother died before Maggie could retain memories of her. Maggie lived with her biological father until he died when she was ten. For as long as Maggie could remember, her Dad had been slowly dying. His lungs didn’t agree with the polluted air. Most people didn’t survive past fifty, but there were some humans from the newer generations whose bodies began adapting to the new environment. They needed less oxygen to survive, and the pollution didn’t affect them as much.
Her father always instilled the belief that Maggie was special. “We may not have thick skin or shells like reptiles, or huge teeth and claws like wildcats, but humans change. We will adapt to survive,” he’d tell her. He’d grasp her shoulder as they’d stare at the dusty wasteland of their home. “This… this world is just another challenge for us.” Maggie knew he didn’t really mean her and him. He meant humans as a whole. Her father was quite a smart man, but she wasn’t sure where he had learned everything he knew. As a rule, people in the slums knew how to survive, but they didn’t know classic literature, particle physics, or genetic manipulation. All of which her father knew a lot about.
He made sure Maggie understood the importance of reading anything she could get her hands on. “Your mind and body must be as sharp as your weapons,” he told her. She enjoyed reading more than his discussions on particle physics. Her favourite book was an old copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Her father called it an epistolary novel, meaning that it was comprised of letters and stories written by the main characters. It was warped and moldy, but that only made the correspondences all the more real. Maggie loved the honesty of Doctor Frankenstein’s creature. The creature craved love, but he was so hideous that no one could love him. He turned miserable and bitter, and began committing horrible atrocities. The creature’s crimes weren’t any worse than Doctor Frankenstein’s, but Maggie thought the creature’s reasons were nobler and more honest. No one received a happy ending like most of the god awful children’s books she found in the dump.
Maggie could tell her father liked particle physics better than literature. He explained that the world was made up of atoms that no one could see, and then the things that were tinier than atoms were particles. She remembered asking why he wanted to study something that he couldn’t see. What if his theories were wrong and particles were imaginary? That’s where the fiction books came in handy. Maggie decided that particle physics was less real than Frankenstein.
When his process of dying sped up, he couldn’t walk as fast as Maggie. They usually didn’t stay in one place for very long. But he spent his last few days outside one of the only standing houses on the outskirts of the slums. It was dilapidated, but there was a family of five living inside. He made Maggie spy on them to discover what they ate. Maggie thought he wanted to rob the family of their food stores, but she realized later that he wanted to know if he could trust them with his daughter. “You can’t trust people who eat human flesh,” he’d tell her. When she told him they scavenged for leaves, mushrooms, rats, and food from the city’s trash, his face and shoulders went slack as if a weight had been lifted off of him. He could finally die in peace.
He began to sleep more often, and when he wasn’t sleeping, he was coughing. They were horrid, wet, rattling coughs as if he had a rattle snake hidden in his chest cavity. His lips were often stained red. Spatters of blood and dust-laced mucus stained the pages of Frankenstein when he tried to read it to her. Soon she’d read it to him instead. Even during his last day he still had enough energy to complain that Mary Shelley didn’t explain the scientific process of reanimation well enough. Maggie preferred the ambiguity. Knowing all the scientific secrets took away from the horror of the act.
After her father died, the family took her in right away. They barely asked questions. Maggie learned to love her adoptive parents, her two sisters Rosie and Millie, and her brother Greene. She thought they loved her too. But they sold her after five years of living together. Somehow the betrayal hurt more than when her father died. When he abandoned her, he didn’t have a choice. He thought she’d be safe with that family, but they didn’t care what happened to her. As long as they didn’t have to witness the horrors, they weren’t happening.
A commotion at the back of the train car startled her out of her memories. Some kid tried to open a window and jump out of the moving train. The suited man with the gun pushed him back into his seat. Maggie lifted her gaze to the window again. She saw the edge of a huge wall in the distance complete with the monstrous air filters attached to the top of the wall. The city folks loved their walls. It was how they ignored the poverty and corruption on the other side. Corruption was deeply rooted everywhere; it was just hidden in the main cities. It was like the black walnut trees producing an acidic poison that silently kill surrounding plants; roots like tentacles expanding and overtaking. Those trees are the only ones who survived the ruinous state of the environment.
No matter how hard Maggie tried not to, she couldn’t stop thinking about her family. In the five years she lived with them, she let herself believe being blood related didn’t matter. They sold you. They don’t want you. These thoughts were accompanied with a sharp pain in her gut. They only sold her three days ago, but it felt like an eternity. At the time Maggie wasn’t sure what was happening. She came back with her older brother, Greene, from foraging for what little food they could find outside the city. There was a sleek black car in front of their house, but no one was inside it. Greene didn’t know why it was there. He was mentally challenged. Sometimes Maggie felt like she was the oldest sibling.
They entered from the back screen door. She dropped the leaves and mushrooms on the counter. Her whole family was sitting at the kitchen table. Her sisters and her mother were sobbing uncontrollably. Her dad looked composed, but Maggie could tell it was a facade. He was just as upset as the rest of them. “Why is that pretty car outside, Daddy?” Greene asked.
Greene’s question made her mother cry out louder. He put his hands over his ears and began humming to drown out the noise. Maggie hands began to shake at her sides and her heart palpitated frantically like a cage animal. Something horrible must be wrong. “Yeah. Why is that car there?” Maggie pressed.
Her sister, Rosie, had been staring at her hands and crying, but her head suddenly jerked up to stare at Maggie. “He sold you to the city freaks! They’re waiting for you in our room right now!” she shrieked.
Maggie’s face paled. She knew by her mother’s and her sisters’ expressions that they weren’t joking, but she still couldn’t believe it. Maggie’s father stood up from his chair and walked towards her. He was about to raise his arm to grab her hand. She flinched away from him. It must’ve hurt to see her act like she was afraid of him, because he fell to the ground at her feet and finally broke down. “I’m so sorry, Maggie. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to.”
“You didn't have to you!” her mother cut in. Her voice was shaky. Tears and snot ran down her face freely. She stood up, grabbed a wooden spoon off the table, and hit him repeatedly on his back. He didn’t even flinch. He took the punishment; he knew he deserved it.
Maggie backed away from her family and ran up the stairs into the room she shared with her three sisters. She had to see if what they said was true. It couldn’t be. But when she threw her door open, they were waiting for her. Three men who looked nearly identical to each other stood in front of the window and blocked the setting sun. They wore fitted black suits that Maggie had only seen in pictures from the city. Their presence was surreal. She had to blink a couple of times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. The only thing she heard was a muffled buzzing noise. She was going into shock.
“Hello, Maggie,” said a soft, female voice. It didn't come from one of the three bald men. The men shuffled around in the small room to reveal a petite, middle-aged woman with golden hair like Maggie’s. Except, unlike Maggie, hers wasn't covered in dirt with twigs protruding from it.
She's from the city too. Maggie narrowed her eyes at them. “I don't want to go,” she said in a weak voice.
“Oh, Maggie,” she picked up one of the only framed pictures her family had of her and her siblings. The woman held it gently. She had long claw-like nails, and Maggie watched as the woman’s nails ran along the thin glass over her photo. The woman’s eyes roved over the picture of her siblings and herself laughing and hugging each other. Maggie watched the nails tap on the picture frame. The fingernails were unusually long and so crimson it was as if they were blood-stained.
“That picture is ours! You shouldn’t be touching it!” Maggie shouted at the woman.
She ignored Maggie’s outburst. “At this point it really doesn't matter if you want to come or not. Your father already sold you and has used some of the money. You're ours now.” She said in a sickeningly sweet voice. The woman put a hand on her shoulder as if she actually cared about her. “Now gather your....” She scanned the room. There was a window encrusted with dirt and cracked panes and one yellowed mattress for three girls to share. Dust and dead cockroaches littered every inch of the ground. “Belongings,” she finished with a tinge of disgust. She looked as though just being in the room contaminated her. Placing the photo onto the bed, she wiped her hand on one of the men’s suits. She gave Maggie a stern look and then tiptoed her way out the room while the men in suits followed her. Maggie heard them walking down the stairs.
She stood, frozen, in the middle of her room. She considered packing, but then she realized how pathetic her belongings were compared to the loss of her family. She didn’t need anything. Nothing mattered anymore. She heard someone coming up the stairs. It was her father. He stood in the doorway. Maggie tensed and stared him down. He took a ragged breath and ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, Maggie, I had to do it. We needed the money. I picked you not because I don’t love you, but because I know you have the greatest chance of surviving. You’re my strong girl.”
“They won’t forgive you,” she said. “Mom will never forgive you.”
“She will if the girls’ stomachs stop growling,” he mumbled. “The longer you stay alive in that place the more food they’ll send us. Rosie, Millie, and Greene won’t starve now. I did what was best for the family.”
“No. You don’t get to do that. Don’t make me feel guilty. We’re a family and we’re supposed to stick together. It’ll never be the same and it’s all on you, dad,” she said the last word bitterly. He retreated like a wounded animal. Deep down he knew she was right.
She turned away from the doorway, and it somehow felt like a great effort. It felt like she had turned her back on everything she had ever known. It was in that moment she realized that she wasn’t going to let them take her. “Right. So you have to run now, Maggie. Your time here is up,” she said to herself.
Almost robotically she unlocked the latches of the window. Her hands were no longer shaking. A strange calm overtook her. She stuck her head out of the window and pulled the rest of her body onto the rotting shingles. The air was still, hot, and held the usual sour scent of garbage, smoke, and chemicals. The temperature fluctuated drastically. During the day it was extremely hot, but at night it became cold enough to freeze to death. Maggie hoped she’d be able to find a pocket of warmth in which to sleep for the night, otherwise she’d have to sleep under rotting heap of garbage. The decomposition process thankfully produced enough heat to save her life. She found that out the hard way when one of her scavenging trips took longer than she had planned.
Where should I go? she wondered. She couldn’t go to the city. Only the elite lived there and the walls kept out the undesirable people. The rich city people defined undesirables as poor, uneducated, unskilled, deformed, or mentally disabled people, and generally considered inferior to the city folk. Maggie decided that she didn’t have time to worry about her destination. Right now she needed to run.
She grabbed onto the gable for support and used it to sidle to the edge of the roof. She dropped low and hung the rest of her body off the roof while grasping the edge of the eaves trough. Weeds, decaying leaves, and mud packed into the eaves made her hands slippery, and her right hand slipped from its hold momentarily. Catching her feet onto the trellis attached to the side of the house, she was able to hook the tracks of her boots onto the wood of the trellis, ducked over the awning, and then climbed down. The trellis almost came loose, but she grabbed onto a tangle of ivy and then dropped the rest of way to the ground. She bent her knees and rolled to her side as she hit the ground. Jumping up swiftly, she didn’t give herself time to recover from the fall. She started running.
The sky was a sickly green like the colour of vomit. She ran past ruins of red brick houses, or the bricks would have been red if the smoke and ashes allowed it. They were just skeletons of houses now; the families had long since died or disappeared. In the distance she could see chimneys and machinery out of which ceaseless serpents of smoke twisted and billowed forever. Any surrounding bodies of water were opaque with ill-smelling chemicals. It wasn’t uncommon to see pieces of corpses floating down the river. Maggie had to dodge the vast piles of putrid garbage and sewage the city officials dumped into the slums. The only sign of life came from the rats and cockroaches scuttling from cans and crevices. Sometimes faces appeared momentarily in the dark pits of garbage. Unnaturally pale and distorted, the faces blinked and then were gone. Maggie swore they were looking at her. They were the unspeakables; the subhuman products of nuclear waste spills. They were a taboo subject for a lot of people, because everyone knew somebody would was attacked and eaten by an unspeakable.
Maggie ran until her breathing was laboured and painful. Usually she was good at running. Her body could go on for as long as she needed it to, but she forgot to wear a face mask and the dust and pollution in the air made breathing extremely difficult. Just keep moving, Maggie. Keeping on going, she told herself.
Her powerful sprint slowly turned into a weak jog until she was only able to stumble over the empty cans and bags of trash. She stopped suddenly and bent over coughing up brown phlegm laced with dust. Her eyes were watering. When she blinked back her tears she noticed the leaves of a weed in front her. They were folding in on themselves. Maggie immediately recognized this as a warning: the cold was rapidly descending on the earth. The sun had almost disappeared behind the mounds of garbage.
Her family usually huddled together under warm blankets or built fires to keep warm, but she couldn’t afford to let the smoke signals give away her position. Maggie could already see her breath fogging up in front of her eyes. Shit! Out of all the ways to die freezing to death is definitely at the bottom of my list. Maggie kept trudging forward. She couldn’t trust herself to look back, because if she did she might just run back and into her mother’s arms. But she won’t. She can’t. Those arms aren’t open for her anymore.
Goosebumps prickled her arms and a cold shiver climbed up her back. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her biceps for warmth. She wore only a tattered pair of jeans, an old t-shirt, and an overlarge, yellowed sweater she found in the trash one day. The further she walked the larger the mounds of garbage became, until they were easily two or three stories tall. The stench of the putrid garbage was worse when it was warmer, but she was far too used to it.
Her legs wobbled and her body shivered violently. She felt the chill deep in her bones. If she had more fat on her body she’d be able to retain body heat, but she’s always been slightly malnourished, although her daily exploits allowed her to gain a fair amount of muscle. Maggie dropped to her knees and felt along the nearest pile of garbage to see if it was radiating heat. She lifted a few trash bags and sat down in the concave indent they made. Then she pulled the bags on top of her. It was marginally warmer than being out exposed to the elements.
Those city people were probably on her tail. She wanted to keep moving, but she couldn’t. What if I die here tonight? The thought crept into her mind like a dense fog and it lingered. She knew freezing to death took longer than burning, but it was slightly less painful. To instil the importance of coming home at night her real father taught her what happened when someone froze to death. Once your body goes numb, it begins to shut down, and your limbs and muscles become stiff. Shivering to generate heat will cease, and your mind will become foggy. Lastly, you will fall asleep and never wake up. This line of thought was dangerous. Maggie was aware of this. “I refuse to die here tonight,” she said aloud. “I refuse to give up.”
She lay in the trash pile for a while. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she knew she drifted to sleep momentarily. She awoke to a rustling sound emanating from a surrounding mound. Maggie sat up suddenly and pushed the garbage bags off of her. Sleep was the farthest thing from her mind now. She leaned to her right and grabbed the closest object to her hand: an empty can of peaches. Its edges were jagged enough to slice open the soft underbelly of a creature during close combat.
“Who’s there?” she asked. If I die I will go out the same way I came into this world. Kicking and screaming and covered in someone else’s blood! The rustling came from her right. She turned sharply. But then she heard it to her left. Her blood ran cold at the sudden realization at just what she might be dealing with. Coyotes. She could handle maybe two or three, but not a pack. And definitely not without injuries.
Her grip on the can tightened. She turned towards the rustling, refusing to be caught off guard. Left. Right. Left. Right.
“Come at me already! If you’re gonna kill me, kill me!” She saw movement in from the corner of her eye. Maggie turned and threw the can at the shadow as hard as she could. She realized how useless it really was, but maybe it would scare the creature.
“Ow! What the Hell was that for?” asked a high, squeaky voice.
“Since when did coyotes speak English?” she asked. Her pulse picked up and she wasn’t thinking straight. Bending down, she picked up a piece of broken brick next to her foot and lobbed it in the direction of the voice.
“Hey, hey! No more!”
“Shut up talking coyote!” She picked up another can and threw it. The figure leaped to the right and nimbly dodged the can. It moved closer and Maggie stepped stepped forward too. Her foot made contact with a rusty iron pipe, but she didn’t immediately retrieve it. She knew how to fight without weapons. It was so dark that she couldn’t properly see whoever spoke.
The figure took one more step towards her. That was it. She stepped forward and punched her arm out swiftly. If he was taller her blow would’ve broken his nose, but she caught him right in the neck and he doubled over gasping for air. Good enough, Maggie thought. She located his wrists, grabbed onto them, stepped forward so one of her feet were between his legs, and forced all her weight to the right. He fell to his back easily, and she pinned him down with her knee on his abdomen and her hands pressing his arms into to bumpy terrain. She felt him twitching and trembling under her.
He was still gasping from the blow to his trachea. Maggie knew if she let go of one of his arms so that she could punch him he’d probably attack. But she decided it was worth the risk. She raised her right hand swiftly and was about bring it down in a crushing blow.
The boy didn’t attack. He covered his face with his free hand. “Please don’t hurt me,” he squeaked.
Her fist froze inches from his head. He didn’t attack. Maggie blinked rapidly and took a deep breath. When she was in fight mode it was difficult to reason properly. Her body did most of the work. “How do I know you’re not going to attack me if I let you up?” she asked.
“I’m more of a runner and a hider than a fighter,” he said. His voice was both raspy and squeaky.
Maggie growled, exasperated. She kind of wanted a fight. It relieved her of the chill that plagued her moments ago. She made sure to press her knee hard into the boney boy as she stood rapidly and backed away. Picking up the pipe she stepped on earlier, she held it aloft.
“If you try anything I'll bash your goddamned head in! I mean it!”
“Will you calm down? I'm just trying to make sure you don't die out here. In case you haven't noticed, this place is fucking dangerous at night. Never mind the fact that half the shit out here you can’t eat, and the other half will eat you. Oh and then there’s also the fact that it’s fucking cold out here.” His voice was slightly pained and angry. He was trying to reason with her. He knew how to talk to people.
“I was doing fine until you came,” she said.
“It hasn’t even reached the coldest point yet. A couple bags of garbage won’t do you any good.” He sat up, crossed his legs, and reached into his pocket. Maggie heard the sound of liquid being shook inside a container and then the little area surrounding the two people was lit up with a bluish light. The boy held a clear tube filled with what looked like glowing gel.
“What is that?” Maggie asked.
“My invention. I call it a Tubey light thing.”
Maggie didn’t laugh, but her lips twitched into a slight smile.
“I experimented with the reactions of some of the chemical pollutants in our river. It turns out they have their uses. Some of the hydrophobic substances emit light when disturbed,” he explained.
“You’re smart,” Maggie said. It was a statement rather than a question.
When he held the light higher, Maggie saw that he had wild, brown hair. His skin was caked in dirt, and his eyes had an odd, red tint to them. Periodically he tilted his head up and sniffed the air with his pointed nose. But the weirdest thing about the kid was that he kept scratching at his skin and making jerky movements every few seconds. His head jerked to the side and he inhaled deeply.
She glared at him and held the pipe higher. If he made a wrong move then his head was as good as gone. He leaned forward so that he was on all fours, and then he inched closer to Maggie. She was ready to hit him, but as she struck he dove to the left. Letting loose a sharp cackle, he stopped, stood up, and raised his hands.
“You’re smart too. And you smell funny,” he said. His laugh turned into a snort and then he abruptly stopped laughing.
“I smell funny?” Maggie lifted her arm and took a whiff of her armpit. She had a bath at least three weeks ago, so she couldn’t smell that bad yet.
“Yeah. That’s what helped me find your location. You don't smell like a normal slum dweller. You smell a little cleaner. People here tend to have a pretty distinct smell. They either smell like the water people shit and piss in, or they just don't wash so they smell like sweat and garbage. But, with choices like that, why even bother to clean?” He gestured with his hands at his own dirty skin and then his head jerked to the left.
“I'm not from the outskirts of the slum. Me and my fam—” She stopped herself. I no longer have a family. If I go back home, I’m dead. It couldn't have been more than twelve hours since she ran away and yet it felt like an eternity.
The boy could tell he hit a nerve, so he tried to distract her. “You lived on the outskirts? By yourself? How the hell are you even alive? You just can't live there alone. Are you insane? You have to be insane! There’s no other reason why you'd be there alone.”
“I wasn't alone,” she said with tight lips.
“Then who were you with?” This distraction wasn’t working too well.
“Does it matter?”
“Not really. Just curious is all. By the way my name’s Twitch.” He held his hand out to her, and gave her a genuine smile. His teeth had a yellow tint to them, but his smile was still endearing.
She lowered the pipe perceptibly. “Maggie.” She shook his hand.
“Well, Maggie, you have one of three options. The first is waiting here for the cold to come and freeze you death overnight. Or you can wait until either a vulture, coyote, or if you're really unlucky, a colony of rats will eat you. That's how they got my Uncle Earl. Poor guy never saw it coming. Or, last option, and it’s my personal favorite, come with me back to my little colony and live for a few more weeks.”
“Wow, that's super tempting. I wonder how I will ever pick,” she said sarcastically. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and a few twigs fell out of her mane. “What’s it like in your colony?” She leaned against the tallest mound of trash to rest.
“It’s different. We live on the scraps of the big city. Sometimes they throw away some really good stuff. Like chicken! Have you had chicken? It’s really different from rat meat and way more filling!”
“That's not really telling me much, but yeah, I've had chicken before.” Chickens were a rarity beyond the walls of the city. They either died from lack of food, or they were prey for other animals. Rabbits and domesticated dogs and cats were also a rarity. When people were starving they often ate the only animal around... Fido. The rabbits became scarce years ago, because people began rounding them up and killing them in droves. The dust storms meant that the rodents were starving too and eating up whatever crops and growth was left.
His gaze dropped. “Oh right, you wanna know more about the slums. Well….” He paused, kicked at some trash, and he let out a sigh. “Well, like I said. We get some good stuff, but mostly it’s just shit. Everything is shit. I can tell you’re not scared of being a little hungry though. We’re all skeletons here.”
“Hunger. That’s what it always comes down to. People do crazy things when they’re hungry,” she said, thinking of her adoptive father’s words: the longer you stay alive in that place the more food they’ll send us.
He looked down and began walking past the mounds of trash. Against her instincts, Maggie followed him. “Twitch?”
“You’re right. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do crazy things as well. When you’re fighting for your life it becomes hard to hold onto your humanity.” He said it almost bitterly as if he was recalling a particular memory that caused him pain.
“I used to think humanity was the ability to love and help people. But I’m not so sure any more. I don’t think it has a meaning. Humans do such unspeakable things to each other all the time,” Maggie said.
Twitch stopped walking and turned around to face her. His skin had an unearthly blue glow due to his light and it made his red eyes look inhuman. “Don’t fool yourself, Maggie. You have to keep believing that there’s something better. But you can’t forget this place and these people even if you find something better, because then you’ll just become like those city people. We’re the humanity on this planet. People like us. Don’t forget it.” His right eye began twitching rapidly as he turned and continued walking.
Maggie didn’t reply so they walked in silence for a few minutes, but Twitch couldn’t shut up for long. “Do you really want to know about the slums? Because, if you do, then here is the truth: every day is a struggle. Food is scarce. Wait, scarce is putting it too lightly. Food is almost nonexistent. People get sick often and die in their sleep without warning. For entertainment we toss dead rats into cesspools and take bets on who’s going to die next. There’s no guarantee that you’ll make it to next week in the slums.”
“You're not really selling this idea of the slums too well,” Maggie said.
Twitch kept walking in the direction of the moon. He kicked at a can along the dirt for a few moments before he spoke again. “Why should I sell you the idea that what you’re running from is better than what you’re running to?”
She scoffed at him and walked ahead. “What do you know?”
“I know that just by looking at you, that you eat at least more often than I do. Your cheeks aren’t caved in yet, and you’ve been able to build muscle mass. That’s why you could take me down so easily. Your skin may be dirty, but you don’t smell like the shit water that the slums have. You smell like someone that has had at least the fortune to have clean water. Why would you run away from that?”
Maggie gritted her teeth in anger. “You don’t know me. Just because my life wasn’t as hard as yours doesn’t mean you can judge everything I’ve ever experienced based on my appearance in this present moment. I’m not emaciated because I spend every waking minute foraging for food for my family. It takes strength to run, climb, and fight for our lives every day. So I make sure I have that strength. Sometimes the unspeakables or coyotes attack, but mostly it was our neighbours. Most of the people who lived on the outskirts were so far gone I’m not sure they were people. You know, those things with the sharpened teeth, blood crusted around their lips, and those eyes so dark they’re almost fully black.” Maggie shuddered before tearing her mind away from those memories. “We’ve learned to survive by not trusting anyone but each other.”
Twitch flinched at her tone of voice. “Okay, look. I’m sorry. Sometimes I can be bitter. I shouldn’t have judged you. Why are you running away now?”
Maggie felt embarrassed to say it. “I was sold by my father,” she mumbled, pausing for a spell. Twitch was about to say something, but then she let out a derisive laugh. “How’s that for humanity? I'm not even a person anymore. I am property. I'm no longer Maggie if they find me. I’ll just be a dispensable product. And I don't want that. I want to be Maggie. Is that too much to ask?” She wiped at her eyes and arched her head up to the sky to hide her tears from Twitch. Tonight the moon didn't cast a sickly green glow over the land. Instead it emanated a pleasant white light. “So what if I don’t make it to next week if I live in the slums. If I die I will die free as Maggie. I’m okay with that.”
Twitch didn't say anything. He jerked to his left a few more times than normal. “I’ve heard about kids getting sold. Don’t tell anyone in the slums that. They’ll hand you over for a reward. You’re basically a fugitive.”
Maggie cringed. “That means you’re risking your life if you help me. Are you sure you want to do that?”
Twitch shrugged, but Maggie thought it looked like more of a spasm. “What can I say? Waking up every day is a risk.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “So what have you heard about the human trafficking? Is it child labour? Organ donation? Prostitution?”
“It’s much worse. They mutilate people until they’re not human anymore,” he said slowly as if unsure how to word it. “They’re not really themselves afterwards, but they rarely survive. Even if you do survive... what they do, you can’t go back.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Twitch shook his head. “Forget I even said anything. You’re not going there, Maggie, so it doesn’t matter.”
Maggie let out a yawn, but her jaw snapped down and she started uncontrollably shivering and her teeth began chattering. Twitch removed his overlarge trench coat. “Here,” he held it out in front of her. “If we're going back to camp I don't need you passing out from hypothermia on the way there. I have on some long-sleeved shirts that’ll keep me warm enough.”
“Thanks, but I—”
“Maggie, take the damn coat. In the slums you learn to accept the generosity of others. That’s the only way we survive, through each other.”
She accepted the coat from Twitch. It was too big, but it was warm from Twitch’s body heat. She put the broken pipe inside the pocket and buttoned it up. Maggie half-expected the coat to smell of urine or death. But, oddly enough, it smelled like pine.
Twitch stuck his hands in his pockets and led the way to the slums. Maggie followed him through weaving mounds of trash. She stayed on guard and observant of her surroundings. Twitch seemed fairly harmless, but Maggie didn't totally trust the slum dweller. He was tall and lanky, but the way he hunched his back made him appear shorter. Five different sweaters hung from his emaciated frame, and his tattered corduroy pants were too short to cover his ankles. He looked around seventeen or eighteen years old.
“How far are the slums?” she asked.
He turned to face her while walking backwards. His steps were purposeful, and he didn't seem to need to look down in order to see where he was going. “Kinda far. Normally it would take a day or two get back, but I took my bike, so it might only take a few hours,” he said with a cheerful grin.
“A bike? The thing you pedal? Or the thing that goes vroom vroom?” She made the revving motion with her hands and Twitch laughed again. His laugh was infectious and she found herself laughing with him until she remembered where she was and why. Her laugh died quickly like a drowned kitten.
“A motorcycle. We may not find much food in the slums, but we sure as hell can soup up the trash that the city dwellers toss away, and the solar panels on it mean that it doesn’t need oil,” he said.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” Maggie inquired. She remembered walking to the city walls with Green one day. There were all sorts of shiny broken contraptions that gleamed in the light. They never touched it. Their mother warned them not to. Nothing good could ever come from the big city.
“Yes, exactly. We try to do with the most with what we find.” He handed his light to her and then he stuck his hand into a pile of trash and pulled out an empty can and a curved piece of glass from old eyeglasses. “What do you see?” he asked.
She looked at the two pieces of junk and looked back at Twitch. “It’s an empty can and a dirty piece of glass.”
“You’re not that creative, are you?” he asked. He dug his arm into the pocket of the coat he had loaned her, and rummaged around until he found whatever he was looking for. Maggie tried shoving him away as he retracted his arm and out came a cloth and a liquid dropper.
“What are you doing?” she asked, digging her hands into the coat pockets. She felt a lump on the right side of the coat and pulled out a book entitled How to Tinker for Idiots. She flipped the book open. A lot of the pages were dog-eared, and there were diagrams written on the space between the words.
“I'm showing you that there's definitely more than what you can see.” He turned around with the empty can and glass, and she heard a grinding noise. There was also a wrench, nuts, bolts, and pine air fresheners in the pocket next to the book. Twitch was hunched over his little project for no less than two minutes before he turned back and handed her a crude, makeshift thing.
“Um, what's that?” she asked, taking the object. The can was twisted into a cone with a piece of glass on both ends. While crude, it looked well-made. Handling it gently, Maggie closed her left eye and looked through the bigger end of the cone. The mounds of trash seemed farther away.
Twitch let out a chuckle. “You're holding it wrong.” He snatched the thingamabob, and reversed it. “Hold it this way.” He pressed the side with smaller end to his right eye and looked up at the moon. “That’s how you hold it.”
She held it the way that she showed him and looked up at the moon. She say stars that she had never noticed before and saw textures on the moon which she never knew existed. “Whoa, Twitch. That's awesome!”
“Yeah I know!” As they walked they shared the thingambob, and gave names to the patterns the stars made. Guy peeing. Running dog.
“I hear that in the city they have sky projections, because you can’t see the real stars at night,” Twitch said. “Their whole sky is fake and some of the people don’t even know it.”
Maggie frowned. “I’d rather know the truth. No matter how sickening it is,” she said. She pointed Twitch’s invention in the direction of her house. No. Stop. Don’t look back. Keep looking forward.
Maggie kept her mind busy by asking Twitch questions about his life in the slums and his family. “Not much to say really. I never knew who my father was, but that doesn’t matter. In the slums everyone is your family. But my mom? What can I say about her? She’s really smart. I tinker with machines and she fixes people. She’s probably one of the only doctors who live outside the city.”
“Really? Like an actual doctor?” she asked. Maggie knew that first aid was a commodity, and that no one really knew how to apply anything but basic medical assistance. The best you could do for someone who was seriously ill or injured was just find a large stone to smash their skull with.
“Yeah. She’s pretty busy, and everyone is always in need of a doctor. They usually pay us with garbage they find. A guy can’t have too much garbage.” Maggie looked up at the endless mounds of garbage surrounding them, and was about to disagree with Twitch, but then she shut her mouth. The mounds of garbage were her only refuge right now. Twitch stopped abruptly near a mound. There was a large tarp draped over a section of it. Twitch had a wild grin on his face.
“I’m gonna take a guess and say we found your bike,” Maggie said as he pulled the tarp off.
“Bingo,” Twitch ripped off the tarp. Maggie had never seen anything like it before. She had seen totalled cars and motorcycles in the dump, but most of the time they were dented and rusted beyond repair. The seat was leopard skin and the metal reflected off the light of Twitch’s tube which he passed to Maggie. It looked like the body of the bike was once red, but it contained pieces from other machines as well as a large square solar panel fastened to the back under the seat.
“Where did you find this?” she asked.
“I sort of found it lying around,” he said with a shrug. Twitch sat down on the motorcycle, he reached into the trench coat and pulled out a key chain with a pair of fuzzy dice attached to it. He put the key into the ignition and turned it clockwise. The engine roared to life. She raised her eyebrows at him.
“Found it? How the hell do you find something like this?”
“Well I found a piece here and there, and then I put it together,” he said nonchalantly. He pulled a helmet from the side and handed it over to Maggie. She placed the helmet on her head and buckled it under her chin. Twitch sat on the bike and revved the handles and the bike roared and vibrated with life ready to run.
“You coming or are you just gonna stand there?” He asked as he put on a pair of goggles.
Before she could second guess her decision Maggie sat herself behind Twitch. She locked her arms around his skinny waist and squeezed so tight she felt his ribcage under her hands. “Hey, don't get mad, but I don’t have my license,” he said with a squeak of laughter.
“What the hell is a license?” she asked. Her words were muffled as Twitch revved the bike and it glided across the open field of trash. The terrain was bumpy and shaky. It was a different kind of terrifying. Maggie used to be sure that if she were to die it’d be from lack of food, cannibal attacks, or wild animal attacks; not at the hands of a half-insane genius, but Twitch really made her second guess herself.
Maggie shut her eyes and envisioned herself somewhere safe. Nowhere is safe. Home wasn’t safe. Don’t get used to safety. She repeated that mantra over and over again until the gentle roar of the motorcycle had stopped and she could feel Twitch shifting.
Maggie released her hold on him and unlatched the helmet from her face. “Are we there?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking the keys out of the ignition of the bike. He propped the bike up and repositioned the solar panel.
Maggie looked around searching for what she hoped to be sanctuary, but all she saw was the city in the distance. Its bright light and high walls mocked her. Everyone inside was safe and secure. I bet no one behind those walls is sold by their family.
Twitch reached into his pocket and pulled out the glowing tube again. He led her to a giant mound of trash. Everything around it was cleared away. “Is that your home?” she asked, pointing to the mound. Twitch followed her finger and let out a laugh.
“You’re hilarious, but no.” Sweeping the dirt around the mound, Twitch revealed that there was a grate. “But, this leads to home.”
He pulled up the grate, and hot air immediately rose out from the hole. Maggie instantly covered her nose. “Oh my god! What the hell is that?”
“Kinda smells like Tuesday. I think Stefan might be cooking tonight.” His left side jerked. “If he is I promise his cooking doesn’t taste nearly as awful as it smells. If you hate it, don’t look like you do. Cooks are really egotistical.” Twitch dropped into the sewer hole, and darkness consumed him.
The blue gel illuminated a foot in front of them. The only thing Maggie saw was Twitch’s face, tinted a ghostly blue. “You coming?” His voice echoed through the hole.
Maggie located a metal ladder that Twitch was currently descending, and she made her way down it. When her foot made contact with solid ground, Twitch led the way with the blue light. Unaffected by the smell, Twitch seemed right at home. However, Maggie was unaccustomed to the rank odour and needed to hold her sleeve to her nose and take in shallow breaths. The smell was so much worse than the wasteland she was used to.
Maggie saw a light coming at the end of the tunnel. The further they walked the sooner she realized it wasn’t the end. Lined up against the walls were the same blue gel-filled tubes. “You sure are useful to have around. You know that?” she said, impressed. The light was beautiful.
The tunnel ended, and what Maggie saw next she didn’t know was possible. There were tiny shacks lined up against the walls of what she was quite sure was a huge sewer. The shacks were made of rotting wood with flat tin roofs and curtains for doors. Separating the two rows of houses was a stagnant stream of thick, dark green sewer water. They continued down the right side of the large sewer hole. Twitch tripped on a dead rat and fell to the floor shaking and jerking and twitching profusely. For a split second Maggie thought he was about to do something indecent to the rat corpse.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asked.
Twitch was unable to reply. He jaw was taut and his head jerked out a slight nod.
“He’s okay. This always happens to him,” a new voice said. “It passes.”
A young woman came out from one of the shacks. She had a pronounced limp and when she walked into the blue light Maggie saw that one of her eyes was totally missing. Only a dark, cavernous socket was left. “I’m Zorka,” she said. Maggie was just about to shake the woman’s hand when Zorka dropped to her hands and knees and began to sniff Maggie like a dog. "You smell like garbage," she affirmed.
Maggie bristled. “You smell like shit.”
“True. I don’t mind it though.” Zorka stood up, grabbed a handful of Maggie's hair, and inhaled deeply.
Maggie was uncomfortable, and Twitch was still twitching on the ground. He was so engrossed in his fit that he didn’t seem fully conscious. If that happened when we were on the motorcycle we would probably be dead, Maggie thought. She batted away Zorka's advances. “Can't we help him?” she asked, looking at Twitch sadly.
"Nah, don't bother,” someone called from the other side of the green stream. It was a distinctly male voice, but she couldn’t see him clearly. “Trying to show off for your girlfriend, Twitch?” he called, throwing another dead rat at Twitch. When it hit him in the face, Maggie heard the sound of children's laughter and other voices as people came out of their shacks.
“Momma, Twitch is doing it again.”
“It happens at least five times a day.”
“We’d put him out of his misery of he wasn’t so damn smart.”
Maggie wanted the people to shut the fuck up. She knelt down beside Twitch just as his fit began to subside. He made a strangled hacking sound and then his body went slack before he sat up suddenly. Maggie stood and helped him up on his shaky feet. “Sorry you had to see that. But I guess you know why they call me Twitch now.” He tried to laugh it off.
Maggie frowned and stood up as well. “Thanks for the demonstration,” she grumbled.
Zorka was still sniffing the air around Maggie. Her nostrils were unusually huge.
Twitch waved at everyone as he began walking again. "I'm fine!" He called. "No need to worry." The people moved to let him and Maggie pass.
Twitch led Maggie to one of the first metal shacks in the line. A large red sheet with a white plus sign on it hung in the doorway. “Welcome to casa de Trevett.” There were more blue tubes inside, a mattress, a thick blanket, and a few books on the bed. Twitch immediately got to work at clearing the pile of books from his bed. He held several in his hand but they just kept falling out due to his sudden jerking. “So, sorry for the mess. Um, we don’t have an extra bed so I was just gonna sleep on the floor. You can have my bed until we can find you your own.”
Maggie sat down on the mattress. It felt soft and worn. “Twitch, thank you so much.” She got up from the mattress and took him in for a hug.
“You’re welcome, Maggie.” He broke the hug and quickly went to his corner of the room and started to set up his makeshift bed.
Maggie returned his coat to him before sinking onto the mattress. She wrapped herself in the thick sheets and felt her mind quickly drift off to sleep.
***
Maggie awoke to screaming. It was so loud and miserable that Maggie was sure it was the sound of someone being murdered. She sat up in bed and looked over at Twitch who was also awake. The screaming sounded close, starting from the mouth of the tunnel and echoing through the sewer hole.
Twitch pressed his fingers to his lips and Maggie nodded. They both got off of their respective beds and crawled towards the door to see if they could target the culprit of the misery.
"Kids often die in their sleep. Maybe a parent is just really sad about it," Twitch whispered.
Maggie nodded, and surprisingly found herself wishing a child was dead. She didn't want to let herself think that those men in black suits had found her already. Deep down she must've known they'd find her, and yet she led them down here and put all these people in danger. Somehow she didn’t think those men were the type to give her the ultimatum "surrender and nobody gets hurt." That gave too much power to Maggie. Those men were the crash and burn types, programmed only for their job. They killed because they didn’t care.
Twitch stood up just as the curtain doorway billowed out. Maggie immediately rose into a fighting stance. A woman appeared in the doorway. She had messy brown hair and reddish eyes like Twitch. As soon as Maggie saw her she noticed the woman was shaking. "There's city folk raiding our lair! They’re looking for a fugitive. A girl. They have her picture. We have to leave now, Twitch. They'll kill everyone to find her."
Maggie's heart stuttered faster. She couldn’t form any words.
Twitch seemed unable to process what his mom said. "Maggie, this is mom. Mom, this is Maggie."
Twitch’s mom turned on the spot. Her eyes widened when she saw Maggie. "They’re looking for you," she said. "You'll be the death of us all."
Maggie still couldn’t find any words. She looked to Twitch, but he couldn't make eye contact with her.
"We're leaving, Twitch," his mom said. He looked as if he was about to follow her but a loud bang was heard from outside. The curtain on their doorway caught fire and more screams were heard.
What could Maggie do? Running in a wet, dark sewer seemed like a death trap waiting to happen. She was trapped in this concrete hole.
"Twitch, just go. Let them take me," she said. “I can't let anyone die for me.”
She heard heavy footfalls stomping outside, and the shack shook as another bang blasted forth and echoed through the tunnels. Twitch’s mom was standing at the doorway and then in two seconds she wasn't standing any longer.
"Mom!" Twitch screamed. His mother fell to the ground. Blood stained the side of her blue apron. Her clothes were torn from whatever had hit her.
Maggie stood frozen against the wall of the pitiful shack. Twitch looked up at her and then down at his mom. Maggie saw his expression flicker from pain to rage. He looked down, placing his hand on his mom's wound just below her ribcage. She screamed as he wrenched out whatever had hit her. Maggie heard the wet sound of entrails and blood spilling onto the floor. Twitch held a disc with curved triangular blades. It seemed to glow green as Twitch held it. The skin on his hand began to smoke and burn from the weapon, but he held on all the tighter.
"Mom, I'm sorry," he said, gripping her face with one of his hands. "I'm so sorry." Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She couldn’t keep her gaze on Twitch.
Maggie felt slightly angry that he had the audacity to take the blame for this, but she didn’t have the chance to say so. She saw their boots first, appearing under the flaming curtain. Maggie began backing away from the doorway just as the man swept the curtain aside. There were three of them, and they still wore the crisp suits as before.
Maggie wasn't sure why she ever called them men. They looked less human than animals. Their eyes held a metallic glow and their faces were completely emotionless. Maggie shivered.
They stepped over Twitch's mother and glided toward her.
Their presence made the shack seem smaller. A hand closed around her wrist. She heard Twitch crying on the floor. She tried to get a better look at him, but the creatures in suits blocked her view. She couldn’t bear to see their soulless eyes. The only shred of humanity left in this room was the boy crying over the body of his dead mother.
As they dragged Maggie out of the room, she heard a gurgling gasp from Twitch's mom. She was trying to say something.
An awful tapping noise sounded on the side of the metal shack. Maggie was immediately reminded of the woman with the blood-stained nails tapping on her family photo. “Did you find her?” the horrible voice of the woman pierced Maggie's eardrums. She began kicking and screaming and fighting with all she had left.
The woman stepped into the shack. "Oh good," she said. She had a cruel, terrible smile on her face as she glared at Maggie. She looked down at Twitch's mother as if she was no more than a pile of vomit. "Should we put that out of its misery?" she asked sweetly.
One of the bald men raised their chrome guns at Twitch's mother and another bladed disc shot out and embedded into her face before Maggie could even scream out a warning. Brain matter and blood welled up around the wrecked remains of her sizzling face. Her dying words died with her.
Twitch fell back, shocked. Maggie saw his body shaking with sobs and twitches. He raised the bladed disc he was holding and threw it at the creature restraining Maggie. It burned and sliced a hole into its neck, but the wound began to heal as soon as it happened.
Maggie screamed and kicked and protested against their grip. "For fuck sakes if we just drugged her the first time this wouldn't have happened," the woman said.
Maggie felt something cold and sharp enter her neck. She continued to thrash and pull away, but it was becoming harder. Her limbs felt heavy and she couldn’t lift her head. The last thing she saw was the blood stained shoes of the creatures before it all went black.
***
She had woken up just before she boarded the train. Everything in the sewers seemed like a vivid dream, but Maggie knew it was real. The train cruised through the gates of city. The gates opened and welcomed the train full of undesirables. The train zipped by the huge buildings that she’d only ever seen in pictures. Maggie always held a perverse curiosity about visiting a big city. Not like this. Never like this. The skyscrapers kissed the blue sky. Blue? The sky had always been a brownish green. Maggie blinked her eyes did a double take just the other children looked out their windows in awe.
“Why’s it blue?”
“When did it change?”
“Oh my god! Look!”
Maggie looked up to one of the creatures in suits. “Hey, why is the sky blue?” she asked, pointing to the sky.
In monotonous voice the man said, “The green skies make the citizens uncomfortable. During the day there is a projection over the city that makes the sky look blue.”
Maggie leaned back in her seat and looked up again at the sky. Well, I’ll be damned. The city folk don’t like the colour of the sky, so they change it. Twitch was right about the fake sky. The train slowed down just enough during its entrance into the city for Maggie to start taking in finer details. She saw citizens on the street. They looked so clean. So safe. So happy. Do they even realize what’s going on in their city? Maybe they know, and they don't care.
The train picked up its speed and the city became a blur of shiny metals and glass. The only green came from metal trees that were constructed on the many sidewalks. A high-pitched ring ran through the train as a woman cleared her throat over the loudspeakers. “Attention all future patients, we will be arriving to your new home in roughly twenty minutes. Sit tight and wait to be escorted out by a Monitor. If you have any questions feel free to ask,” the woman concluded her announcement.
Maggie waited those twenty-minutes thinking of what Twitch told her. Twitch... I’m so sorry. Maggie tucked her knees up and hugged them. I never meant for that to happen. I didn’t want your mom to die. I’m so sorry. Maggie knew that Twitch couldn’t hear her apologies.
She felt the train stop suddenly. The high-pitched ring came back and the same woman cleared her throat. “Hello, passengers. We’ve arrived at the Biological Research and Defense Centre. Please wait to be escorted out by a Monitor and enjoy your stay.” She said it far too cheerily as if they were on a temporary, voluntary tour for their own amusement.
The footsteps of the children stepping out of the cart echoed in Maggie’s mind. She hoped that if she kept her head down long enough, they’d just forget her and she could go back home. Wherever that was. But that didn’t happen. One of the Monitors tapped her on the head. She picked her head up and glared at him. “The train has arrived. It is time to go.”
“The woman over the PA said that we can ask anything if we had a question.”
“That is correct.”
“Will I ever leave or go home?” she asked bluntly.
“I can neither confirm nor deny this question. Your return to home would be under certain criteria which I am not allowed to discuss. However, that likelihood is slim to none. Now please get up from your chair as we are here.” He gestured at the door. Maggie tilted her head around, and realized that she was the last one left on the train.
When they arrived at the facility she tried to ignore the sick lump in her stomach and throat. Twitch’s earlier words echoed in her head. They mutilate people until they’re not human anymore.
As the frightened children piled through the doors, Maggie saw the doctors and scientists waiting for them. A group of older teenagers watched from one of the hallways. A young blond man was crying and staring at the children while a black girl with bright red lipstick comforted him. They looked miserable, but normal enough to pass for human.
They mutilate people. Maggie jerked her gaze back to the scientists. They all held barely concealed smiles as they appraised the kids. If anyone lost their humanity in this place, it was the scientists. And Maggie would make sure she fought back every step of the way.
A/N: Hey, sorry for the wait. School got in the way for a lot of this story, and to be quite honest this chapter proved to be rather difficult to write. But me and Emily are working on the next two already. I can't say when they'll get done though. But please enjoy and vote and comment to tell us how you feel and also feel free to check out @EmilyNisCrazy who is my awesome co-author and friend. She writes amazing LBGT romances with lots of kickass action in them.