Hayden digs through one of the giant trash bins situated in an alleyway, resting just outside the back of a restaurant that has just closed for the night. It's the perfect time to fish through the garbage for things to eat. The extra food that they have to throw out at the end of the night is always the freshest, and the warmest. Not once in his life had Hayden ever dreamed he would be one of those sorry suckers who pokes through other people's garbage just to survive, but when you're an AWOL Unwind trying to make it another night, it's quite necessary.
It's Hayden's third night on the streets. He brought as much money as he could fit into his bag from home, but it's too risky to walk into a store these days when you're wanted by the government. There are security cameras in at least every store in the state, as far as Hayden can tell. He's seen more squad cars scavenging the streets more than he thought he'd noticed before, as if just his situation of being on the run has somehow caused the amount of police to increase dramatically. Or maybe he's just being paranoid. But cops know a runaway Unwind when they see one, so Hayden has taken drastic measures in making sure to hide himself most of the time during the day, and look for sustenance during the night. He never sleeps in the same place more than once. That would be incredibly stupid, and Hayden is a lot of things, but he is nowhere near stupid.
After a few more moments of digging feverishly through the trash bin, he finds plenty of cooked hamburger patties wrapped in tinfoil and a half-eaten piece of cheesecake. Nice, he thinks to himself, it's not every day I get dessert.
He takes his food to a dark corner in the alley and sits down against the wall. A crisp wind passes through the alley, ruffles his hair, and makes his face go numb. He shivers, draws his sweater tighter around him. Then he digs into his meal for that night. Grease from the burger patties drips down his chin, and he decides that this is the best food he has eaten in days, as far as garbage goes.
Hayden is starting on his cheesecake when he notices something glimmering on the ground next to him. He was so involved in his food that he hadn't noticed it until now. He looks closer. It seems like a fragment from broken glass, but when he leans over and sees his reflection in it, he decides that it's a piece from a mirror. He picks it up, careful not to cut himself on the edges, and glares at the face staring back at him. If he didn't know that it was his own face in the mirror, he wouldn't have recognized it; his skin is grimy, and so is his hair, which is matted against his head. His eyes stare vacantly, dully, with large circles under them to match. There is an ugly-looking bruise on his cheekbone that came from who-knows-where. Bile rises in his throat at the sight of him, and he tosses the piece of mirror away. If only his mother could see him now, she'd vilify him as much as she could. Hayden becomes queasy when he thinks of his mother, and he tries not to think of her again.
When he's finished, he makes sure to clean the area as much as possible so people wouldn't suspect that someone suspicious was lurking here. Then he slings his bag over his shoulder and starts searching for a place to sleep for the night.
Hayden ends up finding an abandoned shed in a large field obscured by some trees, and decides it's the best place to spend the night. Although it looks like it might collapse at any moment, he makes himself as comfortable as possible. The shed is full of old, rusting tools, cobwebs line the ceiling and walls, and the air is thick with dust. Hayden takes off his sweater and lays it flat on the ground, hoping it might be enough to keep him at least a little comfortable during the night. Before going to sleep, he checks the windows to make sure that nothing is out there that could disturb him, or get him caught. He suspects no one still uses this shed or would go into it for whatever reason, but it doesn't stop him from worrying that there is still a possibility that someone might. He tries not to think about it too much, and bolts the door just in case. Better safe than sorry, right?
There's an old tarp hidden in one corner of the shed, and he uses that to cover himself. The night is chilly, and even though the tarp isn't the most comfortable blanket in the world, it does the trick.
It takes Hayden awhile to fall asleep. When he does, he starts having a dream. He sees his parents standing in the kitchen through a crack in the door. His parents are fighting. Their faces are contorted in hatred, and their voices are raised. They spit at each other like angry cats, and Hayden swears he can see them start to turn into cats as they go at each other in the dim light of the kitchen.
"I can't believe you're making us do this to him!"
"Me? Why is it always my fault? We're both in this together!"
"Why won't you just let me take him? Why? Then this doesn't have to happen!"
"I'll let you have custody of him when they announce that abortion is now legal in the state."
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
"We'll sign the order tomorrow!"
"Good!"
"Fine!"
The dream starts going wild. His parents begin morphing into something terrifying; a beast with two heads, teeth dripping saliva and eyes glowing a maniacal red. It chases Hayden out of the house, down the street, and right into the nearest harvest camp, where his body is divided and given to Hayden's friends and family members as a memoriam. But instead of treating the parts with respect, they use them in uncivil ways. His uncle gets his torso which he uses as a coffee table. His best friend back home gets one of his legs, using it as a baseball bat to take home the win at one of his games. And his grandparents receive his entire head to keep in their garden to ward off the crows. And his parents are laughing, and laughing…
Hayden wakes with a start, breathing hard and shivering underneath the tarp. Most of what he remembers of the dream vanished as soon as he opened his eyes, but he remembers the gist of it. It takes him awhile to fall back asleep again.
: : : :
Hayden ditches the shed in the morning when the darkness hasn't entirely left the sky yet. He would have left earlier, but he wasn't sure what might be lurking in the darkness, and now he wishes that he wasn't so precarious. It was probably better to leave when cops could barely make out his silhouette, to hell with wild dogs, coyotes, and every other thing that can possibly attack him before he knows it. He would rather be taken by one of those obstacles than to the nearest harvest camp.
With paranoia creeping in, Hayden almost makes a break for it across the grassy expanse of field after clearing the safe canopy of trees, but decides against it. It would look suspicious to see a malnourished, filthy-looking youth running for their life to anyone happening to watch. Hayden tries to make himself look as nonchalant as possible; he walks as casually and evenly as he can, even though his heart feels like it's going to burst from his ribcage. He feels eyes on him, but he tells himself it's just the paranoia talking. When he makes it across the street and into another expanse of dense trees, he breathes as heavily as if he had actually bolted across the field.
He sits against a tree and buries his face in his hands. He doesn't mean for the tears to come, they just do, as if his eyes have a mind of their own. He cries as if walking across that field was the most harrowing experience of his young life. Sitting against that tree in the predicament that he's in, he feels like the smallest person in the entire world. He hates feeling this way. He wonders if every Unwind feels like this when they've gone AWOL. He assumes they must, and it gives him a little bit of comfort that he isn't alone in these dark times. He thinks of kids that go AWOL every day; some of them must make it out alive, don't they? Some of them must survive to their eighteenth birthday, wouldn't they? Hayden imagines himself being one of those kids. It gives him the tiniest spark of hope, and even though it's barely there, it causes him to stand up on shaky legs and continue on his way.
All this time he's had no idea where he's going. But that doesn't matter as long as he finds someplace safe. If that even happens before the Juvey-cops get to him first.
He wonders if his parents ever called the cops to track him down. Or would they even bother? They decided to unwind him because when he's out of the picture, it wouldn't cause them anymore grief deciding where the hell he should go. Now he is out of the picture. To them, his escape is probably the equivalent of him being unwound. Hayden decides that they must have not even bothered. He doesn't know if he should feel grateful or not.
A few hours later (or is it even hours? Hayden isn't sure. It feels like he's trekked for miles) he finds an empty street in the middle of nowhere. A dusty car, seemingly abandoned, sits on the side of the road. Hayden looks up at the afternoon sky, now just feeling the chills of fall and his throbbing, aching calves, and decides to take shelter in the abandoned car for a while until he feels like walking again.
Hayden pulls on the door handle and is relieved to find out that it hasn't been locked. He climbs into the passenger seat, shoves his pack on the floor between his feet, and slides his body down so his head is barely visible through the window. By the looks of the area, not a lot of people come down here, and even if someone were to, they probably wouldn't even bother checking out the car. Hayden tells himself that he's just going to rest his eyes for a while, but finds himself slipping into a state of sleep before he can help himself.
He finds himself dreaming of his parents again. It's the exact same dream as before, but before his parents can turn into a bloodthirsty monster, his sleep is abruptly interrupted.
He hears distant shouts and then the louder, unmistakable sound of the car door opening. Hayden witnesses these noises before he's even opened his eyes yet, and when he feels a large weight drop into the seat next to him, he sits bolt upright and lets out a startled yelp. Someone slaps a hand over his mouth – it's a big hand that nearly covers his entire face. He immediately thinks that a Juvey-cop must have caught him, and his heart sinks and he becomes angry at himself for his stupidity – but when he turns to look, he realizes that it's a kid; an AWOL for sure. The kid must not be much older than Hayden. He's muscular, as if he's spent most of his life using steroids, and when the kid takes his hand away from Hayden's mouth, Hayden sees a tattoo of a tiger shark on his wrist.
"What – "
"I don't have time for questions, kid!" the guy says in a rather deep voice. "Juvey-cops are after us." He begins to fiddle with some wires.
Hayden begins to panic. His heart races in his chest. "Juvey-cops? You're joking!"
"Do I look like I'm joking?" the kid growls, still toying with the wires. He jumps when he hears another shout come from outside, this one a little louder than the ones before. "See? Just keep your mouth shut until I – aha!"
The kid pushes something into the ignition and the car starts up. He yanks the gear shift out of park and into drive, pulls onto the street, and steps on the gas. Hayden glances in the side mirror and catches a glimpse of people clad in blue and black bursting out of the trees, but they disappear once the car rounds a corner. Hayden rests his head back against the seat, feeling winded even though he wasn't the one running. His heartbeat is painful in his ears.
"That was a fucking close one," the muscular kid says, panting heavily.
Hayden stares at him incredulously. "Am I allowed to ask questions now?"
"Go nuts."
"Why were Juvey-cops chasing you?"
The kid gives Hayden a sidelong glance, and a small grin that resembles more of a grimace appears on his hard face. "That's the first thing you want to know? No introduction? No 'who are you' or 'why the hell did you just hotwire a car and bring me along for the joyride'?"
"You're right. How rude of me. Where are my manners?" Hayden says with an exaggerated eye-roll. "I was getting there. Just answer the question."
The kid snorts, but he complies with Hayden's request. "I was off finding food when I was cornered by a whole bunch of Juvey-cops. Luckily, I managed to escape under their arms, but they chased me for quite a while. I wasn't sure if I'd make it, but then I saw this car, and I thought, 'Victory!' Then I saw you in the passenger side, and I thought, 'Well, with no time to push this kid out of the car, I guess I'll save his ass as well."
Hayden wants to look irritated, but in spite of himself, he starts to grin just a little bit. "Hey, thanks. I think."
"You know, I would have left you. But lately I've been thinking, we AWOLs need to band together. We need to find each other, and help each other out. Plus," he says, with another glance at Hayden. "you look quite harmless, so I could definitely take you out if you were a threat."
Hayden doesn't know what to say to that. He figures he must look pretty frail from being on the run, but he doesn't really like the guy's attitude. He doesn't know whether to trust him or not, but it's not like he has a choice in the matter. The kid took him along for the ride, didn't he? And he agrees with what he said, that fellow Unwinds should fight for survival together. He might be able to stay alive a little longer if he's with someone else. Hayden decides he'll allow himself to accept this kid's hint at an alliance, but he promises himself he won't get too comfortable around him, just in case.
"You hotwired that car pretty skillfully," Hayden recalls.
The kid shrugs like it's nothing. "I've had experience."
He doesn't elaborate, and Hayden decides not to ask him what he means by that.
A few moments of silence pass. Hayden stares out the window for a bit, losing himself in his thoughts. Then the kid interrupts him.
"I've only just realized that you haven't given me your name yet."
Hayden hesitates at first, but then he says, "My name's Hayden."
"Hayden," the kid says in a soft voice, as if seeing how the name tastes on his tongue. "Nice to meet you, Hayden. I'm Roland."
Hayden nods. "I would shake your hand to be polite, but since we're on a busy highway, I don't think that would be a smart idea. Unless we wish to die today, but that would be incredibly ironic since we're running away from death, don't you think?"
Roland shakes his head, but there's a hint of a smile on his face.
Hayden finds himself looking at the tattoo on Roland's arm. "I like your shark," he says.
Roland looks down at it. "What, this shitty thing? I got it after I broke the same arm. I had drawn a shark on the cast and decided to make it permanent."
"That's kind of weird," Hayden says bluntly.
Roland narrows his eyes at him. "Not as weird as the fact that you have braces on teeth that don't seem to need them."
Hayden chuckles and absent-mindedly moves his hand towards his mouth. "Funny story. I wasn't really supposed to need them – not for as long as I have had them at least – but my parents got all riled up when my dentist told them there may be some complications with a supposed crossbite. I've had a bad history of going to the dentist because of my sucky teeth, and my parents didn't want to deal with trips back-and-forth anymore, so they took me to the orthodontist, paid the swelling price for the braces, and slyly slipped a little more money into the guy's pocket to keep them on for a little longer than was necessary. I've had has these babies for a year and a half now, and it bites. No pun intended."
Roland nods in a shocked-and-amused sort of way. "Huh," he murmurs. "Some parents." You have no idea. "You some sort of rich kid?"
"Not anymore." Hayden blows out a breath, then shrugs like it's nothing. "Whatever. Being rich kind of sucked anyway."
Roland stares at Hayden like he just announced that he's pregnant. "What the hell do you mean?"
Hayden shrugs. "People treat you like you're some god-like figure to be admired. They think you own smart phones with twenty-karat diamond buttons, a couple Mustangs that are exactly the same – because, why not, apparently – and personal chefs and a few nannies that are absolutely unnecessary but are completely necessary at the same time because you have the money. Obviously."
"Do people really think all that stuff?"
"Well, probably not, but you know what I mean." Hayden sighs and leans his head back against the headrest. He feels extremely drained all of a sudden. He closes his eyes. "Anyway, all I'm saying is that being wealthy isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's fantastic, sure, because you can afford nice things and hot meals every night and are able to pay all your expenses easily, but people treat you differently. I got used to it, though. Anyway, let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you, Roland."
"What do you want to know?"
"Why did your parents decide to unwind you?"
Roland is completely silent for a few long moments; he's a hundred times more focused on the road now. Hayden notices Roland's knuckles turning a sickly white as he grips the steering wheel tighter. He wonders if he shouldn't have asked, because Roland looks like he might decide to dump Hayden on the side of the road after all. But he's very curious in figuring out why someone like Roland would get unwound. He's sure he can guess, but he feels like the reason why his parents signed that order is something entirely different than to what Hayden is thinking it might be right now.
Finally, after what seems like forever, Roland finally speaks, "If I tell you, will you promise me you'll tell me why you're getting unwound?"
Hayden nods, putting as much sincerity as he can in that single nod. Then he puts a hand to his heart and holds his other hand up beside him. "I swear on the sum of my parts."
Roland swallows. "After my dad dropped off the face of the earth, my mom married another guy. I didn't like him. Not one bit. And he didn't like me, which I was totally fine with. I didn't think of him as a threat until I knew he was abusing my mom. He beat her up bad." Roland's voice comes out as a sort of croak, and he clears his throat. Hayden wants to say something, but Roland presses on before he has a chance, "So I went at him. I beat him up like he beat my mom. I thought I was doing my mother a favor, but she just took my stepfather's side and the bastard got off with a warning."
"And so you were sent to be unwound," Hayden finishes in a low voice. He shakes his head. "That's so unfair. I'm sorry, Roland."
"I don't need your pity," Roland says, but there's no hardness to his voice. "I just wish I could get him – all of them – back somehow." He grips the steering wheel even tighter than before, causing a few veins in his hands to pop out.
"If we make it out of this, Roland, I will personally escort you to your parents' house and watch as you show them whose boss."
A corner of Roland's mouth turns up in a smirk. "Sounds like a plan, Hayden." Then he gets serious. "So why were you being unwound?"
Hayden really doesn't want to talk about it, but he knows it's only fair, since it's obvious that Roland felt the same way. Besides, he swore on the sum of his parts. "My parents filed for a divorce a few years ago. They did not get along, kind of like you and your stepfather, except they didn't hit each other. As far as I knew. Anyway, they had a brutal custody battle over me, trying to decide where I should stay for the most part. It never got resolved; they were relentless. Neither of them wanted the other to have custody over me. They went to court about six times, hired so many lawyers, but that didn't help one bit. It just drained most of their money. In the end, they decided to unwind me so they didn't have to see the other have custody. It was the only thing they could agree on."
For a few excruciating moments, the car is completely silent. Hayden squirms in his seat as he waits for Roland to say something. He can feel a sort of ringing in his ears. The other boy's eyes are still fixed on the road, and there is no hint of a change in his facial features yet. It's like he's quietly taking everything in and letting it wash over his brain before he responds.
Then, he says, "Jesus fucking Christ, Hayden. That's the most fucked up thing I've ever heard." He pauses, then says in a quieter tone, "You didn't – you didn't even do anything."
Hayden laughs bitterly. "It's a fucking joke is what it is. All of it. Parents are supposed to love you, take care of you. They're supposed to be there for you. Not throw you away like you're some piece of trash." He laughs again, a little more harshly this time, and Roland briefly looks at him in alarm. "We're so gullible. We grow up thinking that our parents are going to be there for us until the end. It's imprinted in us, you know? But now look at us. Thrown into harvest camps by the people who are supposed to love us until the end. Ironic, isn't it?" Swallowing thickly, he feels the area behind his eyes burn, and he knows tears are soon to follow. He forces them to subside, but his voice crackles like fireworks. "My parents weren't thinking about me at all. They were only thinking about themselves." He kicks the inside of the car in disgust and personal anguish, then tells himself to breathe.
Roland doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to. Hayden glances at him, and he can read everything in his face and body language: his hands grip the steering wheel so hard his arms start to shake slightly, making the shark tattoo seem like it's bobbing in an ocean pregnant with emotional trauma and distress, his face hard as stone, his lips pulled in angrily. He seems so fixated on what Hayden said that he almost runs into a ditch.
Hayden lets a long breath escape his lips and decides to veer the subject in a different direction, both to avoid more tension and the possibility of getting into an accident, "So, you never told me where we're headed," he says. "Or do you even have a destination in mind?"
"I know where we're going," Roland says with a nod. "It's not much farther."
"Okay," Hayden says, with a growing smirk, "You don't have to tell me, or anything."
Roland narrows his eyes. "You know what gets on my nerves? When people have to be sarcastic all the time."
"You wish you left me on the side of the road now, huh?"
To Hayden, it seems like Roland is trying to suppress a smirk. His mouth twitches, but he doesn't give in completely. "I met this girl in a hideout out around here, and she told me she knew about somebody who gives safe house to AWOLs. We went our separate ways to glean more information, and we were going to meet back at the hideout, but a bunch of Juvies drove me away for a while. I'm hoping she's still there, and that she's got more information on the supposed safe house."
"And if she isn't there?"
"Then we'll just have to find the safe house ourselves."
"Is she to be trusted?"
"Pretty sure."
"What's her name?"
"Do you know what bothers me almost as much as people who use sarcasm a lot? People who ask questions a lot."
"Hey, I'm just a curious guy. Nothing wrong with that."
"Just shut up and let me concentrate on driving."
"You got it, boss."
"…"
"Shutting up."
: : : :
Hayden and Roland finally make it to a dilapidated railway section house on the outskirts of town. Roland leaves the stolen car in the cover of some trees far from the hideout as a safety precaution.
"How long ago did you two get separated?" Hayden asks nonchalantly as they make it to the door.
Roland hesitates in answering. "About three days ago," he says, not looking at Hayden.
Hayden stops and looks at Roland in disbelief. "So there's a possibility she isn't even in there," he states, the raw feeling of pointlessness gnawing on his gut.
The other boy quickly masks his uneasiness with hard determination, throwing a glare in Hayden's direction. "Hey, is it a crime to make sure?" he growls, then throws his arm in the direction of the door. "Come on!"
Hayden obeys, walking up to the door just as Roland throws it open on its rusty hinges. It makes a loud, nasty squeak at its opened, and Hayden hears what sounds like thousands of tiny feet scuttling away from them.
"Augh!" Hayden squawks in disgust, catching sight of a naked tail disappearing under a slat of wood.
"Shut up!" Roland says in an aggressive whisper, stepping onto the patch of yellow light that has taken shape on the dark, dusty floor.
Hayden looks along the floor, the light reflected there getting duller and duller until it meets with pitch darkness. He feels like he's staring down into a bottomless pit, and it makes him wonder why it's so dark in here when it's so light outside, and then he realizes that the windows have been boarded up. He feels uneasiness creep along his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"How about we get some light in here, yeah?" he suggests, not bothering to hide the apprehension in his voice. He slides his hand along the wall, walking as far as he dares into the darkness that looks more like a black substance, until he finds what feels like a light switch. He flips it, and lights come on, but they're not as bright as would be expected. It's better than nothing.
Roland nudges Hayden painfully in the arm and points at the ground a couple feet away. What looks like footsteps are imprinted on the dusty flooring, leading to a flight of stairs that goes underground. There are many tracks in here, most of them nearly covered by more dust, but those particular ones look freshest, as if someone made them just moments ago.
"She's here," Roland says, quietly.
Hayden breaks the intense silence that permeates the air after his words. "Are you sure it couldn't be anyone else? What if it's – "
"Come on!" Roland grabs Hayden's arm and pulls him towards the flight of stairs.
"I swear, if you get us caught, I'll personally unwind you before the harvest camp can!"
"Shut the fuck up!"
When they reach the bottom of the stairs they find that the lights have already been turned on. Before either one of them can make another move, they see her. She's sitting in the corner, knees drawn up to her chest, staring at them with what looks like cool apprehension. Then she sees who it is, and her face relaxes, but her eyes are full of shock.
"Roland?"
Roland nods slowly, then says, "I was hoping you'd be here."
The girl looks like someone who would be in cahoots with Roland. She's a tough-looking Asian girl, wearing a spiked choker around her neck, perhaps to show people she is not to be messed with. She also has strikingly pink hair, and coolly calculating eyes. She regards Roland for a few more moments, then turns her gaze to Hayden.
"Who's your friend?" she inquires.
Roland introduces Hayden to the girl, whose name is Mai. Hayden makes a move to shake her hand – just to be polite – but Mai doesn't seem like she'll return the gesture, so he pretends like he was going to scratch the area behind his ear the entire time.
Mai turns to Roland. "I'm guessing you came back to find me because you want to know if I've found anything out about the supposed safe house." She pauses, and to Hayden, it seems like for dramatic effect. "Well, you're in luck, because I have."
Roland's eyes get wider for a split second. Hayden is also intrigued. "Well?"
Mai leans closer to them, lowering her voice, as if there is anybody else around to hear their conversation. "Apparently there's an old lady that owns an antique shop down on Fleming Street. She gives sanctuary to AWOLs. There was a suspicious-looking van that left that area a few days ago. It could have been anything, but I know it was carrying a bunch of AWOLs. I think they send us somewhere else after that, but I have no idea where."
"Fleming Street," Hayden says, thinking about it. "Isn't that a few miles from here?" Hayden knows this is not some load of hooey. This is the truth, he can feel it. He can tell the girl is also confident in this, just by the look on her face. He allows himself to feel hope once again.
Roland looks like he's deep in thought. It doesn't seem like he's going to buy it until he says, "When we were separated, I stayed close to Fleming Street for a little bit. There was something about it that seemed… surreal. I saw one van arrive and leave there. At first I didn't know what to make of it, but now that I've heard your story, I know it's true."
There's a few moments of anticipated silence, all of them looking to each other in excited prospect, until Hayden says, "Well, what have we got to lose? If the old lady is willing to help us, I think we should stop looking at each other like a bunch of lost dogs and get a move on! Besides, whatever may happen to us afterwards, I know we'll be much safer than we are now. It can't get any worse, can it?"