A/N: Yayayayay another chapter! I was busy, hence the delay in posting. Oh well, at least this chapter is enormous! ;-)



-5-


For a while, his life is almost pleasant. He replays the memories in his head, and comes up with things he wants to do to her, if he has another chance. This is what he thinks of while he
works, and as he's falling asleep. He watches the building across intently, hoping for a glimpse.

The chance comes, an agonizing month later. One morning, the females are being led out at the same moment as the males, presumably for whatever work they do. His eyes immediately scan
the crowd intently, and finally he spots the pale-skinned girl. She is thinner—her bones are more prominent, and her breasts have dwindled away, but he still feels his heart beat faster. She
stands out, to him. For a moment, her head turns—as if she can feel his stare—and her eyes catch his. Shhh. She smiles slightly and then looks away again.

No longer does he dream about fighting the guards, shutting down the camp, being a hero and a martyr. He dreams about taking her away.

-x-

Gunshots. The guards have stormed in, their faces set stonily. The commanding officer enters, an older man with silver hair and a stern face. Which is red with fury. His hand is a claw—a claw on
X's shoulder. She is gagged, and her hands are bound behind her back, causing her belly to stick out. Or so he thinks, at first. Then it hits him like the cold spray from the hose in the washing room.

No.

"LINE UP!" the commander bellows.

A few minutes later they are lined up, outside, along the wall of the quarters. He is standing barefoot in almost knee high grass and weeds, as is X. He tries desperately not to look at her.

"WHO HAS BEEN WITH THIS SOW?!" the commander shouts, spitting and revealing gold fillings.

X looks at the ground, her eyebrows drawn together. He copies what the others are doing—staring at the commander—so he will not stand out.

The commander's fingers dig into the girl's shoulder, and he pulls his gun out of the holster. "NO ONE WILL CARE IF I ABORT THE ABOMINATION, THEN?" as he holds the firearm to her
stomach and cocks the pistol.

He trembles involuntarily.

X looks up and her eyes find a shabby-looking man down the line. He recognizes him as one of the men who hurt him in his earlier days. The man had glanced up at her, not having seen
a female in over a year.

BANG! The commander's pistol smokes, but it is not X who is hurt. The man stumbles back against the wall, leaving an arc of red in the air before him. X draws her eyebrows together even
further, closes her eyes. Makes a sobbing noise. Convincing.

"There, you see?" the commander says to her, reholstering his pistol. "Have to watch you things constantly. You're like rabbits…left alone, you will breed and fill the earth with your genetic
garbage." He redirects his glare on the lined-up boys.

"ANYONE FOUND IN CONTACT WITH A FEMALE WILL BE PUNISHED!"

He realizes the man isn't dead. He's lying, in the tall grass, holding a large red spot on his stomach, looking confused. The guards are walking towards him with a gag. They are going to torture him.

"LET THIS BE A LESSON!" the commander bellows.

For the next few hours, the air is split by the occasional scream, from the man, in the distance. He finds it hard to work, knowing that it should be him in the grasp of the guards, having his flesh
burnt off and blades worked through his body parts. And knowing something else.

He's doomed them both. X will never survive such an event, malnourished, and in here, and whatever it is she's carrying certainly won't have a fighting chance either. He feels like his chest
is in a vice, as he thinks. Or maybe she'll be killed—or it will be—by the guards. In punishment.

They don't. Her punishment is to suffer it through, malnourished, uncomfortable. He catches a glimpse of her when they are on their way back from the work house, and the male and female
trains intersect. She looks strange—her stomach is distorted and grotesque, and the rest of her is so thin, he can see her bone structures for certain now. Her skin is like wax paper.

He decides something, and holds his hands up, curling two fingers. Meaning the fence. Hoping she understands. He is swept away by his coworkers before he can elaborate on this dangerous game of charades.

That night, he watches by the window. He has saved his potato and carrot, having hidden the bowl in a forgotten drawer on the work table. He has carried them back to the quarters in his palm; and
as he passed the fence, around midnight, he dropped the food items without looking. They are now in the tall grass, hidden. He is hungry but he ignores it and watches.

There. A shadow in the dark. It rounds the corner, entering the dim moonlight. It is X, in her paper gown. He sees her creep towards the fence on all fours, almost hidden by the long grass.

She stands up and hooks her fingers in the links, looking at his window with question in her eyes.

More charades. He mimes patting the air, then makes a 'two' sign with his fingers and then tries to visually describe the food. She watches him, her face expressionless. He mimes eating a potato. "

He feels stupid.

He prays she will understand.

She does. X hunches over and begins to search, the grass ruffling around her. Suddenly she straightens, the potato in her fist; a moment later she holds up the carrot. It is lightly covered in grass,
but it doesn't matter. She looks at him again, then creeps back into the darkness with her bounty.

He feels better, even though his stomach is eating itself.

-x-

"GET BACK TO WORK!" the guard screams, hurling a piece of metal at him. He has dropped the saw to examine his thumb, which is bleeding. He has finally cut himself. Not deep, thankfully—the blade
just sunk into his flesh when he stopped, resisting the urge to jerk away and instead carefully maneuvering it out.

He is worried, though. The blade is rusty and unkempt, and the wound is stinging. His eyes smart from pain.

"DID YOU NOT HEAR ME?!" the guard waves his gun in the air. "Motherfucker, get back to work, you lazy—"

He picks up the sheet of metal again and rotates it, picks up the saw again. He watches his blood trickle down his skin and pool on the silver-colored metal in crimson red droplets.

His next sheet is shiny, like chrome. He sees himself—tired blue eyes, black stubble on his head (along with dull red scratches from the blade, which nicks him every week when the prisoners are re-shorn). He
still has no facial hair. He was a late bloomer—he'd only begun adolescence around fourteen, and was still in the process of physically growing. The rest of him had begun to mature—some of it was almost
finished—but he'd yet to start shaving.

Drip. Drip. He picks up the hacksaw, positions it at the line marked by Santo, in black paint, and begins to saw, back and forth. The worst part of this job is the sound of metal on metal. It hurts his teeth.

He was thinking about X when he'd hurt himself, no surprise. Every time he closed his eyes, he thought of her. He realizes that the feeling of horror and impending doom at her condition is all caused by
their situation. He hasn't felt afraid of it in itself. He is surprised by this—he's still too young, too inexperienced. He hasn't had a job, finished school, even lived on his own. He doesn't know how to do
household chores.

Maybe it is this, this place, that makes him unafraid. He will never be afraid of anything else again. Very possibly because he will die here.

When he'd hurt himself, he'd been daydreaming. Daydreaming that they had escaped. He'd stolen the guard's gun and forced them to remove his microchip, then he'd taught them the meaning of fear. That
part of the dream had been over quickly—he'd focused on the part where he escaped with X. He'd been thinking about being in a place, a place that was theirs. With a bed…and a washroom…and—he isn't
sure about this—a crib. It was foggy, because he is uncertain, but it was there all the same.

Then he'd cut himself, and he'd returned to reality with a thrill of pain.

He finds it easy to save his lunch that day, because he isn't hungry. The potato is almost too heavy for him to carry, and he drops it gratefully in the grass beside the fence, hurries after the others.

He needs to lie down.

His hand is throbbing.

In bed, he shivers, cold under his thin sheet. He wants X, the girl who knows all about wounds and how to make them better. He wants her pressed up along his spine, keeping him warm and safe and…he
looks up at the window, realizing she will be there soon. Searching for the food. He wonders how she avoids capture.

He waits, holding his injured hand in the air and trying to ignore the throbbing, burning feeling. He feels sick.

He passes out against the window before he can see her.

A hand, on his forehead. He opens his eyes as much as he can, which isn't much at all, and there is X, her lips pursed together, in an 'O' shape. Shhh. She is examining his hand critically.

He's not in the bunk room. He's in the preparation room, lying on the gurney.

There is a guard present, sneering at him, but his weapon is in his holster.

"So you're the dog that got the bitch knocked up," he says, his arms folded. His voice is derisive. "Well, well. I oughta up my price, eh, 23? I see this little shit getting it for free…"

X is silent. She looks around the room, then moves to a table with a tray of bottles.

"Hold it right there!" the guard says. "What the fuck d'you think you're doing?"

"His hand is infected," X says, expressionless. "It needs to be disinfected."

"So cut it off," the man says. "Cauterize it."

"He will not be an effective worker with one hand," X says.

The guard considers this. "Whatever. Hurry. Don't picture the boss being happy if he catches me letting his inmates out of quarters."

X picks up a bottle and brings it to his side. "This is isopropyl alcohol. It will sting. Are you prepared?"

He blinks and nods. Anything would be better than this. He holds out his hand, grits his teeth as the liquid is poured, as it seems to burn a hole down his nerves. Strange thoughts form
in his mind—brick road, sun in a box, green sky—dots swim in front of his vision, and he is barely conscious as X begins to wrap strips of none-stick gauzed around his appendage.

"Aight, let's get him out of here," the guard says. "Don't forget your deal."

X nods, reaches for his shoulder. "You need to stand up now, Y. Y." She smacks his face. He blinks but does not awake. She leans over and whispers in his ear.

"Julian."

His eyes open again and he looks at her, his eyebrows drawn together. "It hurts," he mumbles, confused. She takes him by the shoulder again and forces him into a sitting position, her
stomach brushing his bare knee. He memorizes the feeling, stores it away for later. For now it's all he can do not to vomit fluid from his empty stomach. He hasn't eaten more than three
bites of potato in the last four days, and is weak, but stubborn.

"He will need better food," X says sternly. "He will not heal unless he receives enough nutrients to repair the wound."

The guard sniffs. "Looks like he's fucked, then."

They walk to the fence, and the guard takes his weight on his shoulder. "You won't forget your promise?"

"No," X says, watching him intently as he struggles to remain upright. "I will double my offer if you will ensure he is fed."

The guard narrows his eyes. "Triple it, and I'll slip the cook ten bucks. That's the best you're gonna get from me, sow."

"Done." X turns her back. "Make sure he eats."

"You're a lucky fuck," the guard grunts as he half-drags him back to his quarters, the foot on the side of the injured hand not working as well. "She's preggos, and she's insisting that you eat.
Wish my wife was like that. Well…not a mutie but…"

-x-

It is two weeks after this event, and his hand has actually healed, helped by the disinfecting action of the alcohol, that the firing squad begins.

"EVERYBODY OUT!" the guard screams. Gunshots into the air, bursting holes in the roof that will leak when it rains.

He sits straight up, his heart pounding. He's just had the dream, again, where X is pressed against his back, a bullet in her forehead. Bleeding on his neck. And now this.

Needless to say, he is unsettled.

"I freakin' hate the alarm clocks here," Santo whispers as he passes by him.

He agrees, but doesn't say so. Instead he bolts out of bed and joins the herd of boys and men filing through the exit.

"LINE UP! LINE UP!!!"

Against the barn wall again.

The prisoners exchange fearful looks. Their backs find the walls, and the commander arrives. He paces up and down the line, his pistol drawn, his face full of black hate.

"Do you know how my daughter died?" he growls.

Everyone is silent.

"Raped. Raped, by five ravenous mutants with dog mutations. Then eaten. She was sixteen years old!" He spits as he talks.

Then he stops, glares at the line. "This was two nights ago."

Oh, Christ, he thinks. He's afraid to breathe.

"I don't care what the government wants," the commander continued. "They can take as long as they want to piss around. We have to end this now, and it ends with you. GUARDS!" He
barks to his men. "Take those I mark out to the woods and shoot them in the head. And leave them for the wolves."

Oh, Christ…

The commander walks up and down the line, then points his pistol at someone down the line. He moves a few more steps, points, and repeats. Then his gun points to Santo, whose eyes
bulge under the craggy eyebrows.

He feels like he's full of pressurized air. He's an overfilled balloon, a container filled to its maximum, and he's going to burst.

X.

He stays silent, his back ramrod straight. He can't leave her alone, with her burden. He has to be alive, to get her out of here.

He has to betray his friend.

Then the gun points to him. He stares back at the commander, with wide eyes, and realizes he knows this man. He's seen him, at his billion-dollar villa, sipping brandy with his father and
laughing in the sun. He knows—or knew—his daughter. He dated her, for a while, and the commander had liked him.

His name is Ted Neilson.

Ted doesn't know his name now. He is just a prisoner in paper clothes, an assortment of 206 bones loosely wrapped in muscle and skin.

An animal to be executed.

The guards grab his arm, at the bicep, and pull him away. He wants to explain that this is all a mistake, see? He can't be killed, he has to stay. He has a job to do, a
responsibility. A purpose to be alive. To take care of X.

Maybe X doesn't need him, he tries to reassure himself. Maybe X is self-sufficient, and won't even notice he is dead. Dead. Oh, god, in a few minutes he will be, and there's nothing he can do.

They are made to walk for about three miles, their hands bound to a long rope to prevent any would-be escapers. Like himself. It is rope because a real chain would be too heavy for these
malnourished prisoners to carry. He looks desperately for rocks on the road—he thinks, they could suddenly try to surround the guards with the rope and squeeze them to death—but he
can't get the order out. He'll be shot, and no one will listen because they're too afraid.

And there's not enough of them, only about six malnourished people to three heavily-armed guards.

They enter the woods, stepping over branches, hearts pounding in their throats. This is it, the end. "LINE UP!" the lead guard screams, waving his pistol. "Any last words before we blow your brains out?"

The air is split by insults from some of the mutants. There are many 'Your mother' comments. He stays perfectly quiet, perfectly still, thinking only that he is sorry. Sorry for everything he's
ever done, for every person he's ever treated wrong, for ever existing. For leaving X with such a terrible burden. He finishes these thoughts, then straightens again and watches as the
guards line up, their rifles—yes, rifles—pointed at the men.

BLAM! His eyes open. His face is wet, and a sharp pain sears through him. He falls to his knees, along with his neighbors, and everything fades away.

He's at his villa, and he's getting that drink from the kitchen, like his mother was never waiting for him in the hallway, with soldiers. He pops the tab on the can and fills his mouth with the
coolness. But something's wrong, he can't taste it.

He puts the can down and looks in the fridge. There's nothing but potatoes, and carrots. He turns around and sees that the plates on the table are all metal bowls. He picks one up and looks at
his reflection. He's thin, his blue eyes are tired, and there is a hole in his forehead. It doesn't gush blood. It drips, slowly, into the chrome of the bowl, like cranberry juice.

He coughs, and realizes something is tickling his nose. A bug. He wrinkles it, willing it to go away, then reaches up to bat it off.

His shoulder!

"UGGGHN," he moans, opening his eyes for real and rolling over. There is a butterfly on his nose, a big white one, flapping its wings and staring at him with its buggy eyes.

He blinks. The butterfly takes off and he claps his hand to his shoulder, realizing he has been shot. But he is alive.

The firing squad.

He sits upright, despite his injury, and sees that he is attached to a line of dead men, all covered in red, except for Santo, which is simply a pile of unanimated rock. Tears well up in his eyes,
and he scrambles over to his friend.

The birds are singing, up in the trees. The guards are gone.

"I'm sorry," he says, in a speaking voice, his voice cracking and going from low to high. He hasn't spoken out loud for almost a year and it almost hurts. His mouth is dry. He steels himself, then
reaches over with his cuffed hands and rubs the knot over Santo's craggy shoulder. Again and again and again…

With a dull, clothey noise the rope breaks apart, and he is free. He feels it like a weight. If he wanted, he could run, run and never look back. Live in the wild. Or seek out civilization, pretend to
be human. It wouldn't be hard, in a different area, with the microchip in his head, and his name recorded under death records.

X.

He scrambles to his feet, holding his bleeding shoulder, and stumbles back towards the camp, his teeth gritted. He will not leave her.

-x-

Footsteps, marching, on the road ahead. He barely has time to duck behind a tree when the soldiers come into view, a line of women bound at the wrists, their heads bowed. He sees her
instantly—the first one—the only one with a thickened waist, making her look deceptively nourished.

He presses back against the bark, ignoring the pain in his shoulder except for pressing on the wound with his hand. He can worry over it later. Right now, he is driven by pure will.

He follows the troop, traveling slightly behind them, in the trees. He stumbles a few times, disorientated by the blood loss. No. Keep going. Keep going. A large fly chases him, drawn to the
smell of his blood, and he is scared. A wolf might find him. They are in a mountainous, forested area; a temperate rainforest. There could easily be wolves here.

The three guards continue to walk, past where he was shot, ever onwards, to a set of trees, deep in the woods. "STOP!" the senior guard yells.

The women stand in a line, their faces pale. Some chins tremble. X is calm, her green eyes wide open and watchful, studying the men.

She knows what is going to happen.

He sees it a minute later.

"Just because the Commander told us to execute you…doesn't mean we have to do it right away," the lead guard says, with a slight smile. "Every second you suck our cocks, bitches, is another
second you get to live. So get to work."

He picks up a rock, a hefty rock, with his good arm, and draws it back, to throw it at the man's head. X does that thing with her lips—the shhh.

The guard takes it for something else and grins. "That's it, you've got the idea. On your knees, sows, and open wide."

He mimes attacking. She looks away, shaking her head slightly as she goes down on her knees with the other females. They have learned long since arriving at this internment camp to be subservient.

The head guard approaches X and touches her chin. "Aww, how sad. You're gonna die. This'll cheer you up." Zipp. His pants drop to the ground, and—he digs his fingernails into the tree angrily,
seeing her comply, like a dog. Licking, and taking him in, closing her eyes…

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! FUCKING HELL!" The guard throws his head back and pulls away, leaving an arc of blood in the air. X looks up at him with her livid green eyes and spits blood into the grass.

"What the hell?!" Guards are zipping up, some stumbling over their dropped pants to reach their leader, who is lying on the ground, holding his crotch.

He feels nauseous. But it was a brilliant tactical move.

"SHOOT HERRR," the leader orders, kicking his legs in pain.

He sees it in slow motion. The guard closest to the leader turns around, pulls his pistol out of his holster, and aims it at X. Between the eyes.

BLAM.

I never even knew her name.

She falls back, her head hitting the tree, and she is gone. He is gone, too. He leaps into motion just as the other guns go off in muffled paffs, like firecrackers.

The women fall to the ground, one by one, about five in total.

He reaches the injured guard just as the last woman falls to her knees, and he hauls the pistol out of his belt, raises it. The one thing he doesn't regret—hunting with his father on vacations.

BLAM. The guard that shot X falls to his knees, a curl of smoke wafting up from his helmet where the bullet has caused friction to the metal. The other guard pales and turns as he is
aiming. The man swings his rifle towards him.

"I'll fuckin' shoot you, you—" he says.

They pull the triggers at the same time. The man misses, but his shot doesn't, and the guard stumbles backwards and trips on a body, his throat sporting a large hole. He makes horrible gurgling noises.

"And you, you piece of shit," he says, looking at the guard on the ground, who holds up his hand. "Puh-please…I have a wife…kids…they won't understand…"

His eyes narrow. He doesn't answer. He turns the pistol sideways and pulls the trigger with a click. The bullet leaves the chamber, shoots down the barrel and into the man's eye so
hard his body rolls over in the other direction.

He stares dully at X, the gun lying in the grass at his feet. There is one bullet left.

The question is, who to shoot it with? Go back and shoot the commander? Or just shoot himself?

Who to kill?

There is no place for martyrs in this world.

He bends over, kisses her lightly, then picks her up, the gun in his hand again, and half-drags her deeper into the woods. She will not be wolf bait. He will bury her first.