A/N YAY! chapter four is up and edited! I hope posting all these chapters so quickly will make up for the long wait. Again another thanks to Captainquirk1701 and Rayrae118 for all their amazing help in editing this story! i couldn'thave gotten this done with out you! thanks so much!

on another note hope you enjoy and please always remember that Reviews are any authors life breath...and they make me write faster so if you really want to see more quickly then send in a review!

Chapter 4

My name is Tom Leighton, and according to J.T. I am 10 years, 9 months, and 3 days old.

If you thought that the worst of our troubles were over, you're dead wrong.

"Tommy, J.T. says you need to wake up now. We have to move!" Kelsey's voice exclaimed, cutting into my dreamless sleep. With a reluctant groan, I opened my good eye.

For a second, I was confused as to why there was purple sky over my head, but soon enough I remembered what had happened yesterday. The harsh reality of our situation felt like a smack in the face.

I considered the benefits of just closing my eyes and going back to sleep, if only to be as far from this cursed situation as possible. But as Kelsey leaned into my now-limited sight, I knew I couldn't do that. No matter how much I wanted to escape, I could never leave her alone.

So, I nodded at her and slowly sat up, my arms shaking under my weight. As soon as I was sitting comfortably, I found another can of tuna shoved under my nose.

"Eat up. You're going to need your strength," J.T. called out, with a surprisingly cheerful tone.

I glanced up at him and was met with a bright grin. Despite the trouble we were in, I couldn't help but return it. With a small nod of thanks to J.T., I took the can he offered and turned towards Kelsey.

"Are you all right, Kelly?" I asked. My voice was still raspy, but I tried to ignore it.

"I'm fine, Tommy," Kelsey whispered, with a small smile that didn't quite manage to reach her eyes.

"Are you sure? Do you need to eat?" I rasped. It still hurt to speak.

"No," Kelsey shook her head. "J.T.'s already stuffed me with two cans of tuna." Her nose wrinkled in distaste even as she sent J.T. an adoring gaze. He was packing a few cans of various nonperishable foods into a small backpack. At the sound of his name, he turned around and grinned widely.

"Of course, we've got to put a little meat on those bones so there's more of you for me to tickle," he replied pleasantly.

Kelsey yelped and started to scramble away just as J.T. lunged for her. I watched in surprise as he suddenly pulled Kelsey close with one arm, using the other to run his fingers quickly over her rib cage.

Kelsey let out a strange kind of strangled yelp and collapsed against the ground in a fit of laughter. The familiar sound soothed my fried nerves and relieved some of the seemingly endless pain that weighed on my heart. For a second, I even managed to forget the crisis we were going through. I could almost pretend I was just out camping with my sister and Dad, on one of the expeditions we used to take before the famine.

The key word there was almost. Back then it would have taken longer for Kelsey to start gasping for breath. It would have taken longer for her body to start shaking so much that it looked more painful than enjoyable. And, of course, Dad didn't have blinding blond hair and striking blue eyes.

But it was almost like it had been, and when J.T. finally pulled back I was able to see Kelsey's bright eyes sparkling in a way that I'd almost forgotten, and a million-watt smile on her face, I thought, "Maybe, for now, almost is OK with me."

That thought lasted for all of ten seconds. As J.T. bent down and planted a fatherly kiss on Kelsey's dirt-streaked forehead I was reminded again, in sharp detail, what was going on. Kelsey and J.T. were both covered in dirt and soot. Kelsey's long black hair was tangled in a wild mess, and her face and body were painfully thin. She was wearing the same baggy clothing she had been five days ago, only now her shoes and the bottom of her jeans were covered in blood. J.T wasn't in any better shape, and I knew if I had a mirror I would see that I looked just the same. With an aching pain in my chest, I turned away from where the two were still giggling.

"You alright, Tom?" J.T.'s laughter suddenly broke off and concern filled every note of his voice. I forced a small grin onto my face as I found two pairs of concerned eyes gazing at me.

"I'm fine," I reassured him. Kelsey seemed to accept this, and before long had decided to continue where J.T. had left off in packing food.

J.T., however, was not fooled.

"You want to tell me how you really are?" He growled, his tone leaving no room for arguments or lies.

I didn't answer him right away. I needed a little time to absorb our surroundings and everything that was going on.

We were sitting at the edge of what appeared to be one of the many now-dead cornfields. The back of our small camp pressed against the thick tree trunks that lead into a dead forest.

We were hidden well, even I knew that. But I still didn't like this area. Everything in it was dead—a constant remind of the hell going on around us. And to me, that seemed like a bad omen.

I thought about this for a while just to avoid J.T.'s question. Maybe if I didn't say anything he'd get frustrated and just walk off. But eventually it became apparent that that just wasn't going to happen.

So, sighing, I turned my thoughts away from my surroundings and all they represented to me, and answered J.T.'s question.

"How do you think I am?" I growled bitterly.

J.T. was silent a moment, then sighed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking.

My thoughts flew back to last night, and I felt horribly guilty for taking my anger out on him. The kid already blamed himself for what had happened, and I wasn't helping. I felt like reminding him of his promise not to blame himself, but decided against it. Instead, I changed the subject.

"Why do we have to leave?" I asked, feeling more than a little relieved at the prospect.

"Remember how, last night, I left you and Kelsey alone for a while? I was doing a small patrol around the surrounding area of the clearing. I spotted smoke from a campfire a little ways away, in the direction of the city. It's a safe bet that it's Kodos's men, looking for people that escaped from the square. Probably trying to make sure no one contacts Starfleet and tells them
just what Kodos did." J.T. explained.

I nodded, then pushed myself slowly to my feet. Surprised, J.T. scrambled to stand as well.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked, determined to help.

"Nothing," J.T. stated firmly, his eyes once again becoming fatherly. "Nothing but sit down and eat. I told you already, you're going to need your strength. The fever you got after you were shot was not a nice one, and it's left you weak. Regain some of your strength, and then we'll see what we have for you to do."

I was about to protest when I was struck by a wave of dizziness and nearly fell to the ground. I was barely able to see J.T. lunge forward, but his thin arms caught me mid fall. I thought for sure that we were going to have a repeat of last night, but, to my surprise, J.T. managed to keep his balance this time and lowered me back to the ground.

"Eat. It should help with the dizziness," he ordered as soon as I was feeling a little better.

With the evidence thrown in my face like that, I knew I had no choice but to obey. So I reached for the previously forgotten can of tuna, popped the tab, opened it, stuck the spoon in, dug out a nice-sized bite, and shoved it pointedly into my mouth to show J.T. he had won.

With a satisfied nod, he walked over towards Kelsey, who seemed to be taking inventory of how much food we had.

When I finally had finished eating and taken a sip or two out of the canteen someone had (probably purposely) left near me, I had to agree that I did feel stronger. Almost as if sensing my thoughts, J.T. turned around and gave me a grin.

When my eyes locked with his, I could see something there. Something that seemed like a…dare. He was daring me to do something, but I didn't know what.

A smirk split J.T.'s face.

"Hey, Tom, think you can come over here and give me a hand with something?" he called.

That's when it clicked.

He was daring me to walk.

With a smile and a prayer that I wasn't imagining my newfound strength, I rose ever so slowly to my feet. When I reached my full height, I waited for the minor dizziness to wear off. And then, I took a few experimental steps.

When I didn't fall, I felt a grin begin to tug at the corners of my mouth. I glanced up at J.T. to see him openly grinning, pride shining deep in his blue eyes.

Kelsey stood beside him, beaming as happily as if I had just handed her the moon. I felt my own grin grow, and I was about to walk closer when movement behind them caught my eye.

A shadow was moving slowly towards J.T. and Kelsey. Its shape and length told me that it was an adult, and it was approaching slowly, probably so they wouldn't hear anything. I could almost feel myself pale and I was sure my eyes were three times their normal size.

Fear gripped every part of my body. We hadn't moved camp fast enough…we had been found!

"J.T.! KELSEY! BEHIND YOU!" The words were out of my throat before my thoughts had even caught up to me.

J.T. flipped around to face the shadow-person, pushing Kelsey behind him. His stance was defensive, his chin raised and his fist held at his side, ready to swing should guards come towards us.

I tensed, ready to pull Kelsey out of the way should a fight break out, since J.T. looked bent on starting one. After a second, the figure appeared in full view.

Kelsey screamed, loud and piercing. If I hadn't been so shocked I probably would have done the same.

Out of the woods came a limping young woman at the most only 30 years old. Her long, reddish-brown hair was in a tangled mess, with leaves and twigs poking out. Her clothing was almost literally torn to shreds. Her dark brown eyes were wild and bloodshot, most likely from fever. In her arms was a small boy, probably no more than five years old.

But what had caused Kelsey to scream was the most horrifying of all. Half the lady's leg had been shot off! Muscle and tissue was hanging in shreds off of clearly visible bone. For a second, we just stared at each other. Then….

"Please, Please help," The woman gasped holding out the young boy, "Please help the others, please take him, please!"

J.T. moved closer and took hold of the boy, who immediately started crying and reaching out for his mother.

The young woman gave a small, sad smile before toppling over.

"TOM, KELSEY, HELP ME OUT HERE!" shouted J.T. as he shifted the kid quickly into my arms.

I watched, holding the screaming boy, as J.T. crouched down next to the woman and turned her over. Her eyes were still open, but they were glassy and seemed almost sightless.

"Kelsey, there's a stream just behind those trees over there. Get some water. Tom, start a fire. We need to heat the water if we plan on sanitizing the wound. Hand me that jacket, I've got to rip it up and start making bandages," J.T. ordered frantically.

To me, it seemed like a lost cause, but Kelsey was running to do as she was told, so I figured I ought to do the same. As I moved away, though, I was stopped by a voice.

"Don't bother," The woman lying on the ground whispered. "It's too late for me."

J.T.'s eyes were a stormy gray. Seeing as he hadn't ordered me to go finish my task, I figured he had concluded the same thing as the woman.

"You said something about helping the others?" J.T. whispered. "What did you mean? Are there other children? Other sick people?"

"Yes," the woman rasped. "Yes, others. They're locked in the courthouse. Over half the population of Tarsus is waiting to die in there. Men, Women, Children. They'll be killed, two hundred every day, until only the 'most valued citizens' are left. 4,000 people, brutally murdered. You must help them. Please. You must. Most of the children have been spared, to be used as guards I hear. To become murderers so that they can have the one thing everyone on this wretched planet wants: food! Kodos plans to hang food over their heads, and to get it they'll kill their own families. Please, you must save the children from that fate. Please!"

"We'll save them, ma'am, I promise. We'll save them," J.T. soothed.

"Thank you," the woman choked out.

It seemed like she was breathing a bit slower, and her eye lids were slowly dropping shut. That couldn't be a good thing.

"Mommy," the little boy whimpered.

The woman's eyes shot back open and she turned her head to look at her son. For a second I was sure her vision cleared of all glassiness and sickness. But the moment lasted only that long before her eyes clouded back over.

"Kevin, it's okay, honey. These nice people will take care of you now, sweetheart," she whispered. It seemed that was all she could manage.

Turning her eyes back to J.T. she murmured, "His name is Kevin Thomas Riley. He's five years old. Please take care of him. Even if you can't help the others, please, just take care of him."

For a long while a J.T. and the woman just stared at each other as if in silent communication, and then a look that I was becoming increasing familiar with entered J.T.'s eye.

The look of a promise.

The woman's lips twitched up in just the slightest hint of a smile, like she too understood the look in his eye, and then with one last glance at her son, she closed her eyes and exhaled the words "Thank you."

Her eyes never flickered open again. Her mouth never muttered another word. Just like that, she was dead.

I felt cold all over, and when the little boy struggled out of my arms I barely noticed. All I saw was the dead body of the young woman. She'd been talking, moving, alive just a minute ago. Like so many others, her life had been cut short. How many more times would this happen?

"MOMMY!" The shrill, horrified cry of the little boy cut my musings short. "Mommy, come on, you have to wake up, Mommy. Those mean boys are coming soon, we have to go, now is not the time for a nap," the kid whined, shaking his mother's shoulder in a desperate attempt to rouse her.

I felt my heart break for the poor kid. So young and innocent that 'dead' was a word that only applied to goldfish flushed down the toilet. He knew his mother wasn't just napping, you could see it in his face, but he didn't know what else to call it.

Sudden movement caught my eye and I had to tear my gaze from the heart-wrenching scene.

"Tom, go get Kelsey. Tell her not to worry about the water. Just get enough for the four of us to drink. If what Kevin says is true, then we need to go now." J.T. ordered. He was standing straight and firm. If his eyes weren't so expressive, one would think he wasn't affected at all by the happenings around him.

But J.T.'s eyes were almost as hard to look at as the rest of the scene. With a nod, relieved to get away from all this sadness, I hurried off in the direction I'd seen Kelsey take.

A few minutes later, when Kelsey and I returned with a canteen full of water, it looked almost as though we had never been there.

The fire pit had been scattered, the place where we had slept smoothed over to look like a pile of dead crops. The only thing indicating that anyone had been here at all was in the middle of the clearing, where J.T. and Kevin stood next
to a large mound of dead leaves, grass, rocks, and dirt.

Kelsey sent me a questioning look, but I just shook my head and sat down. She continued to look confused until she finally seemed to notice that the woman wasn't around.

I could practically hear the realization hit her.

I saw a shiver crawl up her spine, and after a second she collapsed next to me, her eyes filling with tears. I wrapped my arms around her and turned her away from the hastily constructed grave. We sat there for what felt like forever, me just holding Kelsey as she cried silently over another death that none of us could fully understand.

Soon, though, we heard approaching footsteps. I turned around, making sure Kelsey couldn't see the grave.

J.T. was walking towards us Kevin in his arms his head buryed in J.T. neck and from the violent shaking of his shoulder crying. As they drew closer I could hear J.T. voice gently whispering to the young boy.

"We need to go now," J.T. urged as he drew up beside us, "From what Kev here told me his mother and he escaped from the courthouse early last night. The guards spotted them and his mother was shot while they where running away. Kevin said he heard one shout to follow them. She was injured so I doubt she was moving fast enough to put a great deal of length between them. My guess is they aren't to far from here."

I nodded, standing up and pulling Kelsey along with me.

"Where do we go?" I asked.

"I've been out here before, whenever I needed to get away from my aunt and uncle for a while. There's a secluded cavern not too far from here. It's big, but hard to find unless you're looking for it. I suggest we try there. It'll be big enough for us and whoever we rescue tonight," J.T. stated matter-of-factly.

"Sounds good…wait, what?" I replied. "J.T., what do you mean 'whoever we rescue tonight?'"

"I'm going to sneak into the courthouse and get as many people as I can out of there. I promised Kevin's mom I would, and I'm going to," was J.T.'s calm reply, his tone soft but leaving no room for argument.

"Okay, just ONE thing wrong with that…. ARE YOU FREAKING OUT OF YOUR MIND?" I shouted. An instant later, J.T.'s hand was covering my mouth.

"Quiet, they maybe close enough to hear you, and if they are you'll get us all caught," he hissed.

I stayed quiet so we could listen for footsteps. After a few minutes, when we had heard nothing, I ripped J.T.'s hand off my mouth.

"Oh I'm the one who's going get us all caught? Who's the psycho with a death wish who wants to break into a high-security building full of people just itching to kill us?" I hissed back, sarcasm dripping off of every word.

"Look, I made a promise to never again go against my gut instinct. And my instinct is telling me we have to go and rescue those people." J.T. said, seething.

"Is it your gut instinct telling you to do this, or some crazy belief that you're responsible for two hundred deaths and need to make it up by rescuing everyone else?" I fired back.

For a long time there was only silence: J.T. staring at me with wide eyes, Kelsey staring at both of us with even wider eyes and Kevin just staring emotionless at everything. Then J.T. let out a deep sigh.

"We need to move. We've wasted enough time."

I just nodded, too frustrated to do anything else, put my arm around Kelsey, and guided her along after J.T. It took us a little less than two hours to find the cave.

When we got there, J.T. laid the now-sleeping Kevin on the softest spot he could find and covered the boy with his jacket. Once that was done, he went to work on a fire, since it was getting dark and a chill was setting in. After a couple of seconds I moved to help him.

"Look," I whispered, trying not to speak loud enough to disturb the sleeping boy, "I'm sorry about earlier. It just that…well, one, I don't think Kelsey or I could survive without you. Two, even if we did rescue all those people we would just be prolonging their deaths. How would we be able to get food for so many without raising suspicion? Three, and most importantly…J.T., you're my
friend. I've already lost almost my whole family, part of my face, all my friends, and every last shred of my innocence. Don't you think that's enough, or do I have to risk losing you too?"

J.T.'s hands, which had been working fiercely at rubbing two rocks together, slipped in surprise, creating a shower of sparks that luckily caught the dry branches piled in the fire pit. He pushed me back as a flame burst into life, just barely missing the tip of my nose. I landed on my butt a good three feet from where I had been crouching by the pit.

"You have indeed lost a lot in this short period of time," J.T. whispered back as I gave him a sheepish but grateful look for saving my hide. (Honestly, I should have remembered that those kinds of stones had a chemical in them that caused the flames they created to expand on contact with wood.)

"But you won't lose me that easily. And if you did, you would probably be safer. I'm bad luck." J.T. muttered the last part bitterly.

"You are not," I snorted.

"My mom goes into early labor just before the starship she's on is attacked. Seconds after I'm born my dad dies. The day I turn five my mom meets Mr. Stepdad. I come here, and two months later this happens. Trust me, I'm unlucky," J.T. insisted.

I sighed, but dropped the subject.

"I'm sorry we can't help those people," I whispered.

Beside me, J.T. stiffened.

"Who says we can't?" he grunted.

I looked at him, shocked. He continued before I could respond.

"You were wrong, it's not guilt driving me. It's my gut, and if you'll excuse me I have two promises to keep tonight," he said, climbing to his feet and walking towards the entrance of the cave. I watched him leave, scared to death of what was going to happen.

"J.T.," I called. He turned to look at me, his eyes telling me that it would be useless to try talking him out of it.

"Are you one hundred and ten percent sure this cave is safe?" I sighed. J.T. looked confused but nodded.

With another deep, tired sigh, I resigned myself to fate. I turned towards Kelsey, who was watching over the little sleeping boy like a hawk.

"Kelly," I whispered, "I need you to stay here with Kevin. J.T. and I should be back in a couple of hours. Under no circumstances are you to leave the cave, you got it?" At her nod of understanding, I walked over to where J.T. was standing, his mouth agape.

"J.T., so help me, we had better come back. If we don't, well, I hope I get the chance to punch you before we die," I growled as I walked by.

That seemed to snap him out of his trance. A bright grin spread across J.T.'s face.

"We will," he said, his grinning face practically glowing. "I feel it in my gut."

I rolled my eyes but allowed myself my own small grin. But as we stepped out into the cold darkness and headed towards the town I sent up a small silent prayer begging…

Well, that J.T.'s gut was brain-dead.

End chapter 4