“[name_u]Rainy[/name_u], I’m scared,” my best friend, [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] whispered in my ear.
My heart racing in my chest, I opened my mouth and breathed back “Yeah, me too.”
“We really should have told someone,” she whined. I shook my head. “Why not?” she asked.
“Because then we wouldn’t be here. Someone had to do it, and I wasn’t going to wait any longer,” I explained, only slightly annoyed, as I had the same regrets.
The owner of the glossy black loafers drew closer each second. As we crouched behind the dumpster, both holding our breath, he turned toward our hiding spot. Then, amazingly, he turned again in the opposite direction and strode away towards the hospital. As soon as he was out of sight, we stepped out from behind the dumpster. [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] turned to face me, her brown hair a tangled mess. “That was close.” she said, again stating the obvious.
“You think?” I asked sarcastically, raising my eyebrows at her. “I hope I still have the note.” Reaching into the pocket of my hospital gown, I pulled out the little slip of paper.
“Nooo!” I gasped when I saw what happened to it. It must have gotten wet while we were hiding behind that dumpster. Half of the note was still readable: “Meet [name_u]Pat[/name_u] Huskell, [name_f]Mar[/name_f] 17, @ MLK-Str/7th [name_f]Ave[/name_f]. Dont’ tell -” The rest was soggy and unreadable. I felt the tears rising in my eyes. “Nooo… no no no, it can’t be!”
“It was '[name_m]Don[/name_m]‘t tell [name_m]Don[/name_m]’,” [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] tried to make it look like it wasn’t too bad. “Or '[name_m]Don[/name_m]‘t tell [name_m]Dan[/name_m].’ Something like that. And the last line was a phone number.” I inspected the wet slip of paper some more. From the look of the smeared ink, she might have been right. But there was no way to tell the digits.
“You don’t happen to remember the number, do you?”
[name_f]Georgia[/name_f] rolled her eyes. “Of course not. I hardly got to read it. You decided you were going to be the one to carry it. And now look at it,” she snapped. I bit my lip.
“But it’s pouring,” I said, holding out my hand as if to show her the raindrops bouncing off it. “The same thing would have happened to you. I mean, at least we can-”
I gasped as [name_f]Georgia[/name_f], wide-eyed, pulled herself down on top of me. I grimaced as my knee scraped against a piece of shrapnel, one of the many that had not been cleared since the bombing. “Why on earth did you do that?” I screeched, holding back tears of pain.
Then, looking at [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]'s face, I saw why.
The man with the loafers was back, and this time he wasn’t alone. I bit my lip trying to stay quiet, but he knew where we were. [name_m]Even[/name_m] from my twisted position, I could see them talking and pointing in our direction. “It’s too late,” I pressed out, [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]'s body weighing heavy on my lungs. “They found us.” I could see the fear in her eyes. [name_m]Feel[/name_m] her warm breath on my face. “Can you run?” I shook my head and gulped.
“Let’s surrender. They have nothing on us.” [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] didn’t look convinced, but stood up and nodded anyway.
“We will be all right,” I promised, more to myself than to her. We stepped out from behind the dumpster together, but not until I had the chance to slip the note into my shoe and the shrapnel piece into my pocket.
All at once, strong hands grasped our arms. I froze, shocked. I saw the blunt, pale-eyed face of [name_m]Robert[/name_m] C Samuelson, the owner of the so-called hospital. Two police officers stood, armed, on either side of him. The men holding us were guards at the hospital, undeterred accomplices of Samuelson. I let out a slight screech as one of them twisted my arm.
“Stupid girls,” sighed Samuelson, raising his eyebrows. He walked over and gently lifted [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]'s chin. She pulled away, glaring. My heart raced as he slapped my friend’s cheek. Through gritted teeth, he seethed “I hope you understand the punishment for runaways.”
“[name_u]Rainy[/name_u] is not a girl”, [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] hissed. I tried stepping on her foot to make her shut up, the situation we were in was bad enough without her making them angry by talking back, but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel flattered that she’d defend me even in situations like this. What did I do to deserve her?
“The tall one stole something,” he instructed his henchmen. “I want to know what it is. Search their pockets.” They nodded in silence, and immediately began going through everything we had on us, which wasn’t much. “I found it!” the one searching me yelled out as soon as he reached down my pocket. Awaiting a reward, he handed Mr. Samuelson the piece of shrapnel. I winked at [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] quickly. My plan had worked.
As Samuelson took the shrapnel, he tensed, surprised. I noticed that the sharp metal had cut his hand. “Why, you…” he gasped, stepping nearer the guard who’d given him the shrapnel. As his fist landed in the man’s gut, and grabbed [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]'s hand and ran. Shouts followed, and an officer shot a gun in the air. We kept running. Eventually we were out of sight, and we rounded a corner into a dark alley.
After a moment of silence, except for heavy breathing, I spoke. “Thanks for standing up for me.” I squeezed [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]'s hand.
She tilted her head, but then nodded. “Oh, yeah, sure. It bugs me as much as it bugs you.”
I smiled. I’d been an orphan for many years, and my hair had grown out. I try to cut it, but I don’t have the right materials. Besides, I never quite could get it to look masculine. I’m thirteen, but my voice hasn’t changed yet, so it’s still pretty high. My name doesn’t help anything, either. My real name is [name_m]Raiden[/name_m], but my mom used to call me Raidy and it kind of turned into [name_u]Rainy[/name_u] over the years. It’s okay, I guess. It’s just who I am. Still, I’m getting kind of tired of the mistakes people make when they address me.
When our breathing had normalized, my brain started working again. “Wait… why does it bug you as much as me?” [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] laughed. In a situation like this, she could still laugh. “Oh, [name_u]Rainy[/name_u], I didn’t always look like this, you know. And my name hasn’t always been [name_f]Georgia[/name_f]. I started transitioning when I was younger than you are now, but I still remember the pain of being misgendered. [name_m]Even[/name_m] when your situation is different, I can’t let them do that.”
I nodded slowly. “You must be much older than I thought.” She frowned. “Thank you very much. I’m eighteen next month, which is exactly why I needed to get us out of there. I figured out what they do in the hospital. I talked to one of the older girls, and apparently they are trying to breed superhumans.”
I gasped. “So they use us as breeding machines? But then as soon as they find out neither of us have a womb…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] nodded. “Yes. Then we would have been disposable.”