Chapter 20.3

The next morning, Nick loaded my duffle along with a few others into the back of a ground truck. He kept moving the sling on his arm around, scowling the whole time. “We should go after Kai, before they can get at him,” he told Vicki.

“Tawny, where would they take him?” Vicki asked.

“Pits, maybe a camp,” I said. “It’d be impossible to get him out with just three of us and we can’t risk involving your sister again.”

Nick shook his head and muttered under his breath. “How’d he get taken anyway? No offense Tawny, but he wasn’t watching out for anyone.”

Vicki shrugged.

“Was I the only one that thought he knew it was coming?” I asked.

Nick stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “What are you suggesting?”

“Just that he knew the dead heads were going to be there,” I said. “You saw how he got when I questioned the circumstances.”

“Kai isn’t a traitor!” Nick snapped.

“Regardless, the camp has been informed and are moving. We can’t stick around too long either. The sooner we get out of here, the harder it will be for them to arrest us,” Vicki said.

Nick muttered under his breath and finished loading the back before climbing into the passenger seat. I slid into the back as Vicki jumped in the front seat. I leaned my head against the window and sighed. The city flew past me as I looked at it for one last time, promising myself that the next time I saw it, an Alliance flag would fly over the capital.

We joined the main highway and I drifted to sleep. When I awoke, we were on an old dirt road lined by corn. The sun was high in the sky. I sat up and looked out the front window to see an old stone house at the end of the road. “Where are we?”

“Our first stop,” Nick said. “She’ll house us for a little while, we’ll change vehicles, keep moving.”

“How do you know?”

“She lost her husband and both sons to the war. She joined the resistance not long after,” Vicki explained. “She’s expecting us.”

I nodded as we pulled up next to an old truck. Vicki shut the engine off and we all climbed out. An elderly woman walked out onto her porch with a shotgun in her hands. “What’dya want!” she shouted.

“Hello, gran! It’s Vicki,” Vicki shouted. “These are my friends. Tawny and Nick. I called you earlier, said we would be stopping by.”

The woman pursed her lips and leaned the weapon over her shoulder. “Get inside,” she said.

“I don’t think she likes me,” I whispered to Nick.

He laughed. “Don’t worry, she’s like this to everyone,” he said. “She’ll warm up to you.”

I doubted him but followed all the same, entering the house to see it looked pretty normal. I don’t know what I expected, well more shotguns but otherwise...I didn’t know what to expect.

“So, what happened to you two?” gran asked looking at me and Nick.

“I got shot, she got grazed,” Nick said pointing to the two of us in turn. It struck me in that moment I was still wearing my blood stained shirt.

“Well, lets get you two looked at, can’t have you bleeding all over my house,” she said. “Ladies first big guy.”

I looked to Nick as the woman grabbed my arm and started pulling me along. God she was short, came up to my stomach. She led me into a quaint little kitchen and motioned to a chair. “Sit and take your shirt off,” she instructed.

I managed to keep from gawking at her order and complied. I could hear her rummaging around behind me and then a pile of supplies appeared on the table next to me. A brown bottle, a few rags, a bowl of water, a shockingly large sewing needle, thread, tape, and bandages.

“Turn and sit with your back to me, I cannot work on your wound if I cannot see it,” she said.

I hastily turned around and warm liquid hit my back. “This wound hasn’t been treated,” she said.

“No, I had other things that required my attention,” I said.

“Treating wounds should always come first,” Gran said. “If this had become infected, you would have been laid up for weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Pain flashed in the back of my head as she smacked me. “Don’t be sorry, learn. Being sorry never fixed anything.”

“I...right,” I said, tensing for another strike.

“You have bionic spine, what happened?” she asked.

“Complete mechanical failure on a HAJ suit,” I said.

“Impossible, my husband designed those suits,” she said.

“That’s what people keep telling me and I’m starting to believe them,” I muttered.

“You’ll want to grab the chair,” Gran said.

“Why?”

“This is going to burn,” she said.

I tried to look back at her only to have her push my head back and a burning sensation spread across the cut. I clenched down on the rungs of the chair back, gritting my teeth.

“A young girl like you should be chasing boys, not a cripple because of war,” she muttered. “You are defecting? Correct?”

“That’s the plan, I think,” I said.

“Good, get across front lines and never look back,” Gran said. “Leave this in your past, live your life. Find a husband, have kids if you still can, don’t take this place with you in your head.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was gay.

“That man out in front room. He is very handsome, he’ll give you good looking children,” she said.

I thanked whatever deity might exist that I didn’t have anything in my mouth because I would have choked. I felt the blood rush to my face and tried to not let her see how red I was. She must have stitched me up as I tried to recover from her comment about Nick and me having kids together, because she shooed me out of the kitchen with a stern. “There are shirts upstairs, you can have one. Send handsome man in.”

I walked out to the front room where Nick and Vicki were going over papers and tried to swallow my embarrassment. “I...uh...Nick, she wants to look at your...uh...arm,” I said motioning back to the kitchen.

Nick stood and walked past me. Once he was in the kitchen I looked at Vicki. “God help that man,” I said.

“Why?”

“She told me that Nick and I should get married and have good looking children,” I said.

Vicki’s peels of laughter filled the room as I looked around for a set of stairs. “I need to go get a new shirt, she said there were some upstairs.”

“Yup, come on, lets go find one to impress your future husband,” she giggled. She got to her feet and led me through the house.

A/N

I get off work super late on fridays so, that's why this is getting put up later than usual. But down to business. Two things!!

1. We have officially reached 50k words and I couldn't be more proud! It's basically all of you doing this and I cannot thank you enough! Espeically my frequent voters, so many of you.

tezza-b, willow105, willywrongway, goldfishsandwich, rhapsodyreg, valkyriefox, themalaysianwriter, newlymadetwilightfan, asarrouk, robertmw, mr_owesomeness, foromar, and justdan. If there's anyone I missed, I apologize, please know I love you and love that you take time out of your day to read my writing!! COOKIES FOR EVERYONE!

2. It is P4R4D0X1C_M0U53's birthday today! Happy birthday, dear (or whatever the male equivelant is if youre a guy)! Hope it's a good one!