Chapter 1: Have You Met K?
The three women had been travelling together for some time. Longer than they had thought, truth be told. Chloe and Zoe were sisters, separated by less than a year. They'd bumped into K not long into their trip. She'd gotten them out of a tough spot and for some reason, she let the sisters stick with her as she moved through the forests and countryside. The girls had grown to depend on her. She'd shown them more about survival and hiding in the first week they'd been together than Chloe and Zoe had managed to learn since before they'd left their familial home until they'd met her.
K, however, didn't know how long she'd been moving anymore, and the girls thought that they were doing her some kind of favor just for being with her. But the truth was that for K, having two teenage girls with no street sense dragging behind her had made her moving undetected nearly impossible. She felt an odd sense of responsibility for them though that kept her from ditching them, even when it got too hot. She had pulled their chestnuts out of the fire more times than they could count.
Ultimately, the woman was a survivor in every sense of the word, and was easily the most tenacious person either had ever met. She dragged them along with her, keeping them safe from the men chasing them. Both the group that was after the girls - which, K had to admit were easy enough to evade - and the group chasing K, which so far, they hadn't come across. Up to that point, it had been a matter of evasion and hiding. It would remain that way too for the foreseeable future at least until it got a little colder, and though K could find her way in the cold wilderness, she knew the girls wouldn't be able to hack it. She hadn't come up with a solid plan on what to do with them yet, but she would.
It was one of the rare mornings that one of the girls was on watch when Chloe decided she just couldn't take the rough lifestyle that they were living. She snuck off while K slept to get herself a coffee from a Starbucks that they'd spotted as they tried to skirt away from the little town they were travelling past. When the teenager got up to pay she realized she didn't have the cash on her, but the smells drifting out of the cafe had called to her, and her mouth watered thinking of the pumpkin latte with her name on it.
It would break one of K's cardinal rules, but ultimately, temptation won out.
She handed the cashier the credit card her parents had sent her off with for emergencies. On the hike back to camp, she did everything that K had taught her about moving undetected, and was doing a fine job of it too. She was proud of herself and how much she'd learned, and the fact that she'd brought a rare treat to her sister and their protector. The full fall colors around her just raised her spirits more as she slipped through the beautiful trees on the way to their hiding spot.
When she returned to their little camp almost an hour later, baked goods in hand for all, the smell woke K from her rest. Alarmed, her eyes popped open and she sat bolt upright before she glared between the two girls. "Where did you get the money for that?" she asked them, hoping that they weren't so stupid to go against her rules. Not now. Not when they'd gotten so far. Her heart fell when she realized that she didn't need them to answer. The guilty look on Chloe's face was more than enough. K groaned at the realization, her shoulders dropping as her whole body expressed her displeasure. They had been doing so well.
K's jaw locked and she snatched the wallet off the young woman and rifled through it until she found the card and snapped it into pieces, swearing at herself for trusting the girl to keep to her word before she moved quickly and slipped on her backpack. "Move. We have to get as far away from here as possible now," K growled, throwing their packs at both of them.
Hastily, Zoe did as she was told, though she grumbled to herself about crazy brunettes in the wild. It was clear that the girls didn't understand why K was so irritated. Chloe even thought the woman was insane. She crossed her arms, ready to start complaining about K breaking the card when overhead a helicopter's wash rustled the leaves above and caused the little woman to instinctively crouch. It continued on, black and menacing and not a half mile away it started its silent descent in an open field, under cover of trees, and out of plain sight of the town nearby. K pointed toward it as it landed.
"You see that. That's what you just did. That is what I've been avoiding." Her voice was uncharacteristically shaky as she spoke. The sisters were rightfully humbled and honestly terrified. Of all the times they'd dodged the men looking for the sisters, never had they seen that kind of a show of force.
Chloe started to blubber an apology, but K just shoved her backpack at her again and told her to keep quiet, suck it up, and move fast. They had trouble keeping up with her as she wove through the trees, deeper into the woods and away from the little town.
The girls had gotten better at this, but K made it look easy. Every now and then, she'd stop and stretch out as tall as her little 5'2" frame would allow. She would close her eyes and breathe slowly and deeply. Sometimes after such a display, they would change directions as she told the girls to get lower into the dried and shriveling ferns.
They'd gone several miles through the woods when they came on a clearing that was obviously a dairy farm. She made them skirt the field until they were somewhat close to the large barn then she gave a silent hand signal and they sprinted to across the field to slip into the barn unseen.
She led the girls into the hay loft and started to re-arrange hay bales. "It doesn't matter what you did, it matters what you do now. They are coming. We're not far enough away to make a clean break, and it's all farms for the next fifty miles, maybe more. Not nearly enough cover to run during daylight from these people, and it'll be hours before dark. Get in the hay." She ordered them as she showed them a small cave she'd made. The girls shared a glance and followed her directions immediately.
"Whatever you do – whatever happens Do not come out. Remember what I taught you." She took off her backpack and pushed it in with them. "Hide until they're gone. You have food and water for at least three days. Stay here until it's safe, then go. Got it?" They looked at her wide eyed as she turned her head toward the direction of the field they'd just passed through, clearly peeking through the cracks in the old barn as she looked outside.
"Aren't you coming with us?" Zoe asked, suddenly alarmed at the thought of going on without their guide. It was unimaginable. But K didn't reply. She simply started stacking the bales up to hide the girls a little better before she froze and give them her signal to be quiet. In the makeshift cave the girls' realized that it was very likely that their protector was about to try for a diversion ... to save them.
K padded silently across the loft, nearer to the outer wall. As she peeked between the cracks, she spotted a few black ops soldiers skirting the far edge of the hay field, several hundred yards west of where they'd come out of the woods. She held her breath as she watched them move, hoping they'd turn the wrong way. Of course they didn't. On seeing they their trajectory, she just locked her jaw knowing that they were moving towards the barn fast. She silently slipped out of the hay loft and found a shovel - the only available near weapon in sight.
The handful of cows in the barn ignored her as they chewed their cuds, and went about their business. She found what she hoped would be a good ambush to the most likely entrance to the barn as the soldiers advanced. The girls were peeking out of the crack that K had left them and could barely see her at the door, shovel in hand, ready to throw down as soon as one of those men took a step into the barn. She didn't have long to wait.
With a loud clang, the shovel left an impression on the first man through the door. As he hit the floor, the two men behind him rushed her. One wrenched the shovel from her hands as the other tackled her to the ground. She swung barefisted at him as if it was a bar room brawl, all elbows and knees as she tried to get him off of her. She fought hard but the man she'd hit with the shovel recovered quickly and rose to his feet as another grabbed her arms. He twisted her arms, which made her cry out as they pinned her on the ground.
She struggled, kicking and screaming as they flipped her over so one could sit on her stomach, punching her over and over while the second held her hands down until she'd passed out. There was swearing and a few unnecessary blows as they began to work fast. Once she was unconscious, they pulled her hands behind her back and handcuffed her before they snapped a collar into place around her neck.
In a matter of minutes, more men filed in to start their search of the barn while the first group began thoroughly searching K, unconscious and bleeding. The girls trembled in fear as they watched the rough treatment K got. One of them took his time patting her down and grumbled about 'filthy muties', though he didn't seem to have a problem pawing at her.
As they watched, more men filed in ... they were bound to find them. Fear gripped Chloe ... she just stared at her terrified sister, wide eyed, shaking ... and Zoe mouthed to her we should fight too.
They waited as long as they could, their adrenaline rushing before the girls burst out of their haystack. Zoe blasted her shockwaves ahead of her, and Chloe commanded the barns residents ... unfortunately, mostly rats, mice and cows to attack the men. Their fight didn't last long. The girls were shot with darts, and handcuffed before any of men were down, or even injured.
K had started to come around as they were dragging the three of them out of the barn. She looked towards the unconscious sisters, and her heart fell. These girls didn't deserve this. She never should have tried to keep them with her. What lay ahead for them was all her fault and the guilt was more than she was ready to shoulder. Far too late she realized that rather than let them tag along, she should have tried to call one of those places that took in lost & homeless mutants. All at once, tears began to fall of their own accord as she thought about what was next for the pretty little teenagers, foggy, fractured memories of places she'd seen flitted across her mind's eye, causing her further upset.
"Look at that, boys," One of the soldiers commented with an amused tone. "She does have some emotion to her. What's wrong, princess? You upset we caught up to you finally?" Shaking, she couldn't answer but to growl. He chuckled and hauled her onto her knees by her hair so she could watch as they took the teenagers into custody.
The soldiers had the two girls tossed over their shoulders like sacks of potatoes, and two more men moved in to drag K by her elbows with her hands cuffed behind her back. She was stumbling along, dazed and bleeding from the beating they'd given her. Several unmarked panel vans and a couple humvees pulled up near the barn as the men dragged her across the field.
When she saw the Humvees, panic hit her freshly and she started to struggle harder, digging her feet into the soft dirt, she pulled back as hard as she could. But the two men were much bigger and stronger than her and after a brief struggle, and her wild attempt to bite one, they threw her to the ground. One jammed his knee at the back of her head, forcing her face into the freshly tilled partly wet dirt until she quit fighting so hard.
She was gasping for air when he finally let her up with a chuckle. "That'll teach you to fight me," the soldier whispered harshly. Again, they got into place to move her. Instead of fighting her to walk they simply picked her up and carried her with one soldier holding her feet and another at each of her elbows. As they opened the doors to the vans, the winds picked up tremendously.
She looked up towards the darkening sky – wondering what the hell a harrier was doing in the middle of a cow pasture. Only, the sleek black jet didn't really look like anything she'd ever seen. It's shape was all wrong.
Without any further warning, the men around her started to shout and opened fire on the aircraft. The unconscious girls were forgotten momentarily, as the men carrying K dropped her face down in the dirt once more. When she rolled over and tried to stand, one of the men that had been holding her caught the movement from the corner of his eye and bashed her in the shoulder using the back of his rifle with all of his strength. She had no real recourse as the man hit her. She turned onto her side and kicked out, catching the soldier in the knee and dropping him. She tried to get to her feet, but he grabbed her leg and pulled it out from under her. Gunfire rang out around them as the wind whipped up more. She managed to get onto her knees and turned just in time to catch the butt of the rifle as it came down on her temple and for K, the world simply went black.