Free The Aftermath by Jen Alexander Page A

the two boys who’ve trapped me in. I had hoped this wouldn’t happen, but I do my best to appear calm as they circle around me, their ragged shoes sliding dust and trash and scraps of glass and green metal from one of the cars about the concrete. They greedily eye my bag.
    “What do you have in there?” the short, bone-thin one with the bright blue backpack asks. He looks ten years old but I’m guessing he’s twelve or thirteen, judging by his squeaky voice. My body tenses as I remember awakening three years ago. It had been dark, very dark. The walls around me had been coated with blood splatters. And then I’d noticed the shackles—rows of them extending from the baseboards and dangling from the ceiling.
    I was thirteen then.
    “Energy bars, water,” I say. “Enough knives to make you wish you were dead. I’ve got a gun, too. Come too close and I’ll show you how it works.”
    This is a partial lie. I’ve already decided that I refuse to kill anyone else. Still, if I’m threatened, I’m not above injuring someone.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Meeting up with my clan.”
    The taller one stares out toward the west at the miles of trees flanking either side of the underpass. “We just came from that way,” he says, fingering the strap of my bag. I dart away from him. “Didn’t see anyone.”
    “You didn’t look hard enough.”
    “We need food,” the short one says. “We ran out and our health levels...”
    I don’t feel any sympathy toward the gamer saying these words, but my stomach tangles into a million knots as I take in the boy who is slowly being destroyed by him. My arms tremble violently as I fumble through my backpack.
    “Here,” I say, shoving two protein bars and a bottle of water at each boy. I’ll probably regret my decision later when I’m hungry and thirsty, but there’s no way I can deny how gaunt and wrecked these boys—these characters—are.
    “Take care of your characters.” I zip my bag. “They look like they’ll die at any moment.”
    When I take off again, this time through the woods, I hear the taller boy say, “Sympathizers make me want to hurl.”
    I take a short break every few hours. By the second evening, when I have walked at least forty-five miles, I force myself to stop in the woods to rest. I take shelter on the forest floor on a bed of weeds I pray aren’t poisonous. I remove my shoes, but my feet are so blistered they’re hot to the touch, and I instantly regret taking them off. “Five more miles,” I say. “Ten at the most. I have to do this.”
    When daylight appears again, I start walking. I don’t even know why I bothered resting so long. I didn’t get any real sleep—the kind of rest I’m just getting used to now that I have some freedom from Olivia. Every time a leaf crunched or the breeze ruffled a tree limb, I startled, coming to my aching feet with my gun drawn.
    I am ready to rest without a weapon and not stare over my shoulder.
    Four hours later, I am still walking, the sun rubbing viciously on the back of my neck and a heavy pain coiling in my stomach. I know I’ve traveled at least ten miles. Every muscle in my body feels as if it’s been beaten to a pulp. My skin is on fire. And I’m still inside The Aftermath. Tears squeeze through my squinted eyes and spill down my dry cheeks like rain trickling through dirt. This is the first time in my memory that I’ve cried, and it hurts, both physically and emotionally. I slump against a tree, not caring that the rough wood chafes the skin on my sunburned back.
    And then I see it.
    Through the maze of trees, something glints in the sunlight. For the longest time, I gape at it. Breathe and stare. Swallow and breathe. The knots in my belly loosen and swift fluttering replaces them. “Please...” I whisper. I don’t realize that I’m on my feet and running until I break through the trees and find myself on the road again.
    Several hundred yards in the distance, a silver fence stretches