Chapter 4

So we are on our way again. There was a problem with transportation, though. Neither of us has a license, never mind a car, and we couldn’t walk on the highways. Also, there is the fact that we don’t have a clue were we are headed.

Suddenly a song was stuck in my head. That happens a lot. And then it lodges itself into my brain and won’t come out until another one replaces it. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Another one bites the dust. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Another one bites the dust. And another one gone, and another one gone. Another one bites the dust. Hey, I’m gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust. How do you think I’m gonna get along without you when your gone. You took me for everything I had then kicked me out on my own.

“Could you not sing that song when we’re trying to escape…?” Cole paused. We don’t know who we are escaping. Worry almost completely swallowed the embarrassment I felt rise to my cheeks as a blush. I didn’t even realize I was singing out loud.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

We fell into silence as we walked along. It is one of those moments where a million gay babies are born. Soon they will rule the earth.

“Soooooo……the weather…” I say in effort to loosen the tension.

Cole just looks at me like I was crazy. Which, actually, would be a relief. Maybe all of this was just a figment of my imagination.

More silence. It was killing me.  Goodness does he ever talk without being asked a question first? I search my mind for something, anything, to say. Smiling, I belted out “Eye of the Tiger.” Get it? Eye of the Tiger. He’s a tiger. Never mind.

He half-smiles. And get this: he starts singing along. This is the guy who only spoke like three sentences to me since I met him. He wasn’t bad either. And trust me I’d know. Music is kinda my thing.

 

 

We find a rock overhang in the woods to spend the night. I wince at the thought of sleeping on the ground. I am used to sleeping on memory foam even at the boarding school. We get settled on opposite sides of the shelter and I think about Cole. I don’t know anything about him, yet I decided to trust him. Who was he really? Where did he come from? Why was he here? I get the whole wanting-to-find-others-like-you part. I’ve wanted to my whole life. But, what about everything else. Doesn’t he have a family?

“So, you know my life story,” I say referring to the record hacking, ”What about you?” I asked him.

He turns toward me and just looks at me for a few seconds. I am about to give up and say never mind when he starts, “I grew up with people I thought were my parents.” He says, ”Last year they told me that I wasn’t really their son. They said that they had adopted me from a lab where they did experiments on me that allowed me to change forms. The lab had been doing this for years along with other experiments. After that I left to try others like me.”

His story sinks in bit by bit. A realization hits me like a ton of bricks. Were my parents even my biologically my parents? Was I an experiment too? Did my real parents let me be an experiment? I lay there in shock not saying a word. No. No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

“Oh,” was all I could say, ”Then�"I could be one of those kids. My parents�" they might not be mine.” I am stating the obvious but I’d like to see how you’d react to the news.

Suddenly, I’m breathing heavy and there is a knot in my throat. I would rather die then let an almost complete stranger see me cry. I struggle to calm my breathing. With difficulty, I manage.

Things were happening too quickly for me. First I escaped from my boarding school. Then, I was captured and met another… whatever we were, who happened to be looking for me. We escape and I find out this horrible truth. All in less then twenty-four hours. My life before this was pretty mellow. My family was rolling in the dough. I got an excellent education. I was a typical teenage girl except for the morphing part. But suddenly that was all gone and it was replaced with the cold hard truth. The truth that my life was lies.

I lay there thinking until I hear Cole’s breathing change. He is asleep and I should be too. I close my eyes but sleep won’t come. I am totally wiped, physically and emotionally. But still no sleep for me. Memories of my past just kept running through my head.

My dad teaching me to ride a bike. My mom holding me when I had a bad dream. My friends sleeping over and I had to be careful not to leopard-out (as my dad called it). My mom and I arguing about what to watch on TV. My dad laughing like a maniac over a corny joke he told. All of it�" fake.

I don’t remember falling asleep. But, I remember the tears cascading down my face as my body jerked with sobs.

 

I am half asleep and cranky beyond belief that whole morning. I was never a morning person and that was with a good nine hours of sleep in my system. Right now I am running on empty. Speaking of empty: so is my stomach. Add that in with the no sleep, sprinkle in some horrible and shocking news, and stir. That, by the way, is a recipe for a crabby patty.  I don’t mean SpongeBob.

So we walk in silence. I’m seething and Cole was being his mute self. Well, I’m guessing he doesn’t usually talk much. I don’t know the guy. I’m surprised I could stand up right.  And it wasn’t even that time of month yet. Wait ‘till he sees me during that. Hopefully we’ll be out of danger by that point, though.

We walk most of the day, stopping only to eat, the occasional bathroom break, and quick rests. We take the bus once but we tried to save as much money as possible by walking. That money could go toward more important things like food.

We try to stay off road as much as possible, but it was pretty much unavoidable. Occasionally, people would pull over and ask us if we need a ride. We said no and we were on our way.

A car pulled up next to us and I think, well maybe Cole thought so too, but I have no idea what goes on in his mind, that it was just going to be one of those instances, but I am wrong. I realize too late that the people in the care don’t look friendly enough to care about the well being of two apparently homeless teens. By then, they were already running at us.

“Go!” Cole shouts pushing me behind him “Run!”

I do as I was told and race as fast as I can away from the two men that had climbed out of the car. I hear the sound of footsteps right behind me and turn enough to see Cole keeping pace just a little behind me. That is my undoing. I trip over something and fall to the ground. I gasp with pain as the asphalt skinned my knee.

Cole stops and turns, but its too late. The larger of the two men pulls out a gun. The sound of the gun firing rings through the air and there is white-hot pain exploding in my shoulder. I cry out and look at the blood flowing from where the bullet grazed me.

The man pointed the gun at him and Cole hesitates. He has to make a choice. His eyes beg for forgiveness. Then he runs.

“I’ll come find you!” he yells over his shoulder as he makes his escape. Yeah, right.

Black spots appear before my eyes and I know that there was no way I can make it alone. My last conscious thought is about Cole. I thought that he might be the one that would be able to protect me, right to the end. I didn’t know him that long, but I never thought he would abandon me that quickly. I was wrong.

 

 

Reviews

[Elsie Douver]

Hey Brooklyn, so far I really really like your book. It's the type where I wish it would just go on forever lol. Though I think it would pull more readers in if you just extended some parts, put is a little more detail. Like when the adorable, quiet, and seemingly supper hot Cole tells his story, maybe make it a little longer with some suspence. And I can tell your a really good writer so I know if you did little stuff like that throughout the entire thing, you'd have a masterpiece on your hands ;)
I totally look forward to reading the rest of Feral and can't wait to see what happens next!

[Art Lover/Love Writing]

I WISH BOOKS LIKE THIS WENT ON AND ON FOREVER