Free Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

thumping of our feet egging her on, the girl screamed, “Don’t any of you get it? Our world is melting, frying, starving, and suffocating, and you just keep right on chewing. Meat is murder! Meat is murder!”
    The Takers tried to wrestle the girl down from the table. Freddy yanked her arm hard and she lost her balance. The Marine jumped out of his chair, cursing, and threw himself toward her flailing body. But he couldn’t get around the table fast enough, and she slammed into the stone floor.
    A stunned silence fell over the room as we all watched Meat-Is-Murder Girl lying, completely still, on the floor. Then a groan as she struggled to sit up. She looked around her and slowly, amazingly, got to her feet. She replaced the look of shock with a smile and turned to face Dr. Mordoch up at the podium. Gingerly she raised one foot and then the other, stomping out her defiance.
    I hesitated for a second, but after all I’d been through that day, her pounding feet made my heart thud with rebellion. I stomped as the Takers grabbed us. The others joined in as we were shoved and herded into a line. The Marine and Meat-Is-Murder Girl in front. Then me and Zach and Hoodie Guy behind him. They marched us out of the room, our shouts competing with the Takers’ commands.
    “Meat is murder! Meat is murder!”
    I’d been lied to, threatened with pepper spray, and locked in the dark. What more could they do to me?

8
     
    NEVER, NEVER, NEVER ask that question.
    As soon as the Takers maneuvered our line out of the cafeteria, Meat-Is-Murder Girl let out a wailing scream. I didn’t know what’d happened. Only that the girl was on her knees. Then I saw the Taser.
    “Get up.” Freddy stood leering over her.
    So the Takers weren’t carrying guns, just Tasers and pepper spray.
How humane.
The girl didn’t move, and he shocked her again. She shrieked and curled up in a ball.
    “Stop!” I shouted.
    Another, lower voice crisscrossed my own. “Stop! You’re hurting her!”
    Kel. It was Kel’s voice coming from right behind me.
    I spun around, looking for him, just as a jolt of electricity hit me square in the shoulder. The Taser filled my world with pain and I dropped slo-mo. My body was still turning as my knees gave way. I saw Kel, one piece at a time, as I fell. Dark hair tumbling across his face. Hands hidden in gloves. Thin shoulders beneath a black hoodie. And his eyes.
    Deep brown eyes, spiderwebbed with green. I cringed as they met mine, ready to see the usual flicker of revulsion and fear. But his eyes held on to me, like his voice had in Solitary.
    I wish I had a river so long. I would teach my feet to fly.
    His hand reached out for me, trying to catch me. But he’d been tased too. Our fingertips brushed against each other as we fell, and a sharp ache filled my hand where he’d touched me. My knuckles suddenly stiff and swollen. My skin stinging. Then the pain was eclipsed as my whole body smashed into the floor. Nothing but deadweight.
    My muscles, my brain, my mouth . . . Nothing would work. Kel hit the floor an arm’s length away. Deep lines of pain cut across his frozen face. The flecks of green in his eyes flared with the same strange agony I’d felt when he’d touched me.
    Then his eyes cleared. Immobilized on the floor, we stared at each other and the questions flew out of my mind. It was more intoxicating than I’d ever imagined to have someone look at me like that. To let me see into them without flinching.
    All the things Kel had told me in Solitary—his father, the kidnapping, standing on the roof—were embodied in front of me. How had I not recognized him earlier, sitting at the table? The same sardonic edge in his voice was mapped into his angular face. Rage barely hidden in his eyes. His mouth turned up a little at one corner, fully aware of the irony of our situation.
    It was like we were right back in Solitary. We were lying on the floor, inches apart. But still separated.
    Sensations started