A/N: I don't know if anyone else has actually read this book, but I consider Unwind to be one of the best recent works of YA fiction I've read, so I felt compelled to write about it.

Disclaimer: This belongs to Shusterman, the author if I'm not mistaken. Either way, it doesn't belong to me. I'm making no money, unless anyone wants to hook me up on

Sitting in some grungy gutter- there's not exactly a lot to do. Grungy gutters are not known for being filled with the latest trends in entertainment. They are, however, known for housing the down on their luck- drunks, convicts, AWOLs, all of whom would be staring at Lev if he didn't fit in so damn well.

Lev is alone, that's the most apparent difference from the way he was before. Rarely has he been alone before, even after the fiasco. Cy-Fi left ages ago, though, but thankfully not until after he'd passed on some vital survival skills. Lev's no longer wearing his tithing whites, either. Now he's got an old dirty coat, ripped in one place so the synthetic lining hangs out, but it keeps him warm all the same. Neither of those can compare to the difference in his eyes. The blue ones peering out from the dirty hood of his coat stand out from his equally filthy face are no longer open and innocent, the color of the sky on a nice day. Now, they're closer to ice, thoughtful, suspicious, a little more jaded.

His thoughts, well, they're pretty much the same…

Confusion

Lev asks himself, "How does this happen to a person?" Kids from nice, religious, well off families who always tithed ten percent didn't end up on the streets, squatting on cardboard, trying not to freeze to death. He knows how the plan got thrown off the rails (somewhere near Akron), but he can't pinpoint exactly how he was thrown off the rails too. What made him cross that line, because God knows he crossed the line? What made him want to not be a part of what he should be standing for?

Regret

Lev figures that he had just made a solid decision, committed one way or another things could have gone the right way. Or at least a decent way. He could have turned himself in at the school. Could have not chickened out and gone running. Could have ditched his kidnappers and that stupid baby and not looked back. Could have been unwound and used to help good people.

Or he could have done the exact opposite. Could have joined Connor and Risa, run off with them, been on the lam. Probably end up dead, arrested, unwound, but maybe free.

Either way seems better than where he is.

Doubt

Lev considers the fact that maybe the world shouldn't be like this- doesn't nessicarily want to consider it, but it's kind of hard not to reflect when it seems like the world is crashing down all at once. Maybe unwinding shouldn't exist, shouldn't have ever even been thought up. Maybe a kid's life shouldn't be a parent's to sign away. Maybe God doesn't want it to be that way. Maybe God has a plan and people who are dying should die, not be given new parts and bought back from the grave. Maybe God think it's his place to decide the worth of on life over another. Maybe God considers this prideful. Hell, maybe God doesn't even care, can't even be bothered to step in. Maybe God doesn't even exist.

Chaos

Lev doesn't think humans have a right to anything but pure, unadulterated, unstoppable chaos any more. People try to plan, to make moral decisions. People try to decide what's ok and what's not. People try to say that the life of some dying old man is worth sending some 13 year old kid to the chopshop for. People try to make rules but in the end, clapping, explosive chemicals, anarchy- in a word- chaos has power over that.

Weeks later Lev is no longer huddled in the grungy gutter. Now he's huddled in a tiny airplane with three others. Things take place, chaos yes, but also death, destruction, manipulation. And Lev is with it every step of the way.