{Run.}
When I wake up, Pryce is gone and the privacy curtain is fully closed around my bed.
I don't know if the nurses kicked her out or if she left on her own to change into clean non-vomitous clothes, but regardless, it's only a matter of time until she returns and ruins my life.
My heartrate picks up as I remember the news that knocked me out in the first place. I don't have time to freak out again, though, so I tamp down the terror as far as I can.
I need to think.
Uncle John's in jail, for now, but who knows how long he'll stay locked up? The police clearly can't be trusted. And even without John around, Aunt Kathy and Derrick are plenty twisted all on their own. In fact, John may have done the worst, most demented things to me, but in some ways, he kept the other two in check.
He had rules.
He made sure nothing happened to my face. Kathy gave me a black eye once, caught me sneaking food when she forgot to lock the pantry. John flew into a rage when he saw the damage, nearly put her in the hospital.
John also made sure nothing broke that I couldn't hide after a few days. He didn't want me taken away. Didn't want me dead, either.
That would take away his fun.
Kathy and Derrick, however. They hate me. And they'll blame me for Uncle John being arrested. For ruining their perfect family.
They'll kill me.
There's no question in my mind.
I can't go back.
I thought I was finally safe. I was wrong. I can't trust the justice system.
But I have another System now.
And it's telling me what I already know.
{Run.}
I slip out of bed and silently change into my spare workout clothes. I leave the hospital clothes behind and repack the few books I'd taken out while bored this week. Then I check around for anything else that might be useful.
A fresh plate of cookies is sitting on my table, along with two unopened bottles of water.
Now, I know some people puke, they don't ever wanna see the food they blew chunks with again. I am not those people.
The cookies go into the bag, wrapped plate and all, as do the waters and the granola bars I've been secretly hoarding all week out of habit.
Confident I have everything—easy thing to be sure of, when "everything" isn't much of anything—I peek through the curtains, heart hammering in my chest. No doctors, no nurses, no beige CPS ladies, no Shawna's mom.
The coast is clear. I can breathe again.
Any one of them could be back any minute, however, so I'm not safe yet. I have to leave, now. Hitching my bags on my shoulders, I start walking, leaving my curtains drawn. Shawna raises a questioning eyebrow.
I put a finger to my lips. "Shh, our secret, okay?"
She nods solemnly.
This girl will take my secret to her grave.
I slide her my last tapioca and smile.
She smiles back, then takes a beaded hair tie out from the end of one of her braids and gently puts it in my hand.
It's a mint green bunny.
"My favorite color," I say.
"It'll keep you safe," she says.
Thanks, I try to say, but the word gets stuck behind a bubble in my throat.
"You're welcome." Her sweet brown eyes say she heard me anyway.
Gripping the bead tight, I nod one last time to tiny Shawna Davies, and then I do what I've wanted to every single day since my mom died.
I run.
And I don't look back.
----------
- Cedar Hills Park -
It's been hours since the match between the Sounders FC and Timbers U-16/17 teams ended, and fifteen-year-old Rafe Guerra knows he should be happy the Sounders won.
He's not.
He also knows he should be in his hotel room, resting. Maybe doing homework.
He's not doing that, either.
Instead, Rafe is pissy and irritable and sneaking onto the field he'd spotted in the park across the street from his hotel window.
"Sure we won today," he mutters to himself bitterly, "but can we really be happy about a win like this? Eking by, relying on our solid defense to hold our 1-0 lead instead of seriously pushing to widen the gap? This bs is why we still haven't taken that Nationals trophy home, no matter how many times we make the playoffs."
He kicks a clump of dirt, particularly sullen about losing to Vancouver FC last season.
It hurts more, for some reason, when it's Canada.
That country has exactly one World Cup appearance in its history: 1986, where they ranked dead last, 24th out of 24 in the group stages.
Granted, the US didn't even qualify in '86, or for the 8 consecutive World Cups prior to that, so it's a bit of a pot-kettle gripe, and Rafe knews it.
Still stings, though.
And so, he's doing what he always does when he's in a foul mood. He's going to find some unclaimed grass and train until he's too exhausted to feel any type of mood, let alone a shitty one.
Except this time, it looks like someone else had the same idea.
A sweat-soaked boy is running dribbling drills with rocks set up as makeshift cones.
Halting his own dribble, Rafe casually toe-lifts his ball into his hand and ducks behind a tree before he's spotted. If it's a teammate who didn't get to play today, they might snitch on him to Coach. The man takes rest seriously.
Curious who might be working hard enough during solo training to sweat clean through a t-shirt, Rafe peeks around the tree trunk.
At first, he's merely surprised by what he sees.
Five minutes later, he graduates to intrigued.
Thirty minutes later, Rafe pulls out his cell phone, too entranced to think through his actions, and hits 'record.'
And in this moment, the ethereal face of a System smiles, as two new destinies awake.