Free Born to Fight by Tara Brown Page A

before, like the farms. I cross the road, trying not to look wide-eyed and psychotic. We walk past the building as casually as we can.
    My skin prickles with fear and excitement.
    I can feel him, he's close.
    We walk around the back of the building, like we are doing our job. When we get to the backside, I see something that makes me sickly uncomfortable.
    "Oh God," she says.
    I swallow and glance at her. I shake my head, "It's okay."
    She turns pale, looking at the bins—huge bins, like at the breeder farm.
    I shudder and we walk up behind them. I can smell rot and trash as I climb the stairs. I don’t look around. I just try to act like this is the way we're supposed to go.
    I open the door with the keycard in my hand and hold it open for her. Inside is a hallway, not a room like the farms. It isn’t like the breeder farms at all. It's more like an office building. I don’t know where to go or what to do.
    I close the door and take a deep breath and glance back at her. She has the same lost look, I imagine is on my face.
    We walk through the hallway until we come to a room with an open door. There is a sink in the room. I leap at it and turn it on as Anna comes inside and closes the door. Cold water comes splashing out.
    "Oh my God! The water runs and there's soap," she whispers.
    I gasp and shove my hands  under it. I scrub until I am raw and my knives are clean. Then I plunge my clean face in the water. I let it pour into my mouth, swallowing as fast as I can. I want to drink more, but I don’t. I know how water sickness feels and I'm more than likely leaving here with guns firing at me. I back off and let her get at it. She scrubs herself completely and then gulps the way I did. I pull her back, "You have to stop. Too much after so little, makes us sick."
    She burps and closes her eyes "I miss the farms sometimes."
    I let a small laugh escape, "I know. I miss the food. Remember Sarah got Cook to put that sauce on everything?"
    Anna smiles brightly. Her blue eyes sparkle in the dim light of the room. We're so close, I can feel it.
    The feeling like I'm going to die hasn’t left me, since I was strapped to the metal table. I still feel like it's going to be any second, but when I look at her, I know I have to get her to safety. I have an obligation to protect her. She came for me. She called me family.
    I wash my face, hands and knives. I want to take the clothes off, but until I get some replacements, I can't. At least my hands and knives are clean. Anna does the same. The soap smells exactly like the stuff in all the washrooms at the farm.
    I turn and open the door to the hallway. It's long and looks like the breeder farms. I see stairs and hurry to the exit. Anna is behind me the whole way, moving like I do.
    We don’t look in the doors, we just walk. I open the door that has a sign and says it's to the stairs and run down them. I want to curl into a ball and hide but he needs us. He wouldn’t hide like that, if it were us missing. He took the dart for me.
    I open the thick, heavy door at the bottom of the stairs. It's filled with plants and mist. I'm confused.
    "What the hell?" she whispers.
    I shake my head, "I don’t know."
    The heavy air feels like it has just rained in the forest. I walk through, looking for other people. Plants grow, like in the greenhouse Granny had, on counters and the floor. Water sprays from pipes above. I slip through, terrified.
    "Where is everyone else?" she whispers.
    Again, I shake my head, "I don’t know. It feels like a trap."
    Our hands tighten simultaneously on the guns we're holding.
    I walk to the door on the far side, gripping my gun and looking all around me. It's too easy, something isn't right.
    I open the door with the card and crack it open a tiny bit. I listen, I almost close my eyes and try to listen like I used to do. I don't hear anything, but my ears don't work as well here. I don’t like it here. I just want to go home.
    God damned, Marshall. I clench my jaw