by K. Weikel
Daniel’s breathing hitches as Rose’s body flies over the edge and her grip-soles hold their place on the sloped roof. She begins to lower herself down, looking like a cat walking backwards. Daniel attempts to do the same as the door refills with the Unnamed.
“Over there!” the one in the front calls. He lifts his gun and begins to shoot.
Daniel ducks as glass shards surrounds him and he begins to fall down the roof. His hands fling out just before falling completely off, gripping the gutter on the edge of the roof above the door.
“Daniel!” Rose shouts, looking back at him. Her head twists back around from where the glass had burst and hurries over to where Daniel dangles. “Hey—hey, take my hand.”
She outstretches it and Daniel reaches up. Just before he takes ahold, there’s a splat of blood in his face and Rose flips over the edge, screaming. Daniel watches as she falls and looks back to see someone taking aim on him. He needs to jump. He’s only two stories up... If he lands correctly, he should be able to survive the fall.
He lets go, holding in a scream as his heart jumps to his throat.
He hears bullets whizzing by him, and suddenly wishes he hadn’t let go.
The ground collides with his legs and he rolls, pain shooting through his body. He grunts and takes a deep breath. Relocates his knee.
Bullets come as a rainfall and he ducks beneath the roof, dragging Rose with him. They stop shooting and he knows it’s only a matter of time before they come through the front door.
He kneels over Rose, her body tense with pain. They’d blown a chunk of her shoulder off and it’s flowing like a river of blood. Daniel rips a piece of his jacket off and wraps it just above it, cutting off the circulation.
“Rose—Runner Rose, stay with me. I need to know where another safehouse is so I can get us there.”
“We’ll never make it—” she draws in a sharp breath as he tightens the material. “Just go.”
“You’ve forgotten I’m the fastest Runner, Rose,” he smirks. “I can run fast, even with you in my arms.”
She cries out. Daniel’s heart picks up speed as he knows they’re growing nearer.
“Ungh—the Runners building. Always the Runners—” She cringes again from pain as Daniel picks her up in his arms.
“Hold on,” he commands.
Daniel begins to move his legs when the door bursts open with handfuls of the Unnamed. He takes a sharp left turn, his eyes on the lookout for the blue building. The Unnamed is behind, but they’ll catch up eventually. They know the terrain better than Daniel does; this isn’t his home.
He takes a right and then a left, making sure his clumsiness doesn’t get in the way. One wrong step and it could be fatal.
Another left turn brings him to the Runner’s Building. He sighs happily and glances down at Rose, whose face gives away her pain.
“We’re here, Runner Rose, we made it.”
He runs to the door and, after briefly setting down her legs, opens the door. Daniel picks her back up and pushes through, careful not to hurt her in the narrow doorway. He sets her down on the floor and slams the door shut behind him, air heaving to and from his lungs as he stares out it. The bullet storm quiets outside and eventually stops. The adrenaline pumping in his system runs thin and he falls to his knees, his body aching from the fall he’d endured.
Everything goes black.
12: New Friends
Everything is blurry as the Elite Runner opens his eyes. Below him is something soft—a bed, perhaps—and above him is a ring of Runners. Their curious eyes stare down at him, some more confused than others. My body is stiff from earlier events—whenever that had been. How long had he been unconscious?
“Elite Runner Daniel,” a boy says, stepping forward. For a moment, Daniel feels as if all the blood has left his body, turning cold as if he’s seen a ghost. The boy looks strikingly like Runner Jim, his friend that had burned because of Blaise. But it’s not him, he realizes, as he looks him over quickly. Thick blonde hair, short stocky body, square jaw with a sarcastic smile; those things all lined up with the deceased boy, but the one thing that didn’t was the way he held himself and the shape of the rest of his face. He holds himself tall, shoulders back and chin up. Immediately, Daniel knew what he was.
“I am Lous the Elite Runner. Or, I guess, an Elite Runner, now that you’re here.” He holds an open hand out to help me up. I accept. “What brings you here? You caused quite a stir earlier.”
“We were—” Daniel looks around the room, suddenly aware of being alone. “Where’s Rose?”
“Your girlfriend?” He smirks. Daniel was about to deny, when he spoke again. “She’s awake and running on a tread upstairs. Said it’d help her think.”
Daniel nods, sighing with relief. “She’s helping me run from the Unnamed. They’ve attempted to bomb me—”
“Ah. That’s right. You betrayed us all,” he smirks goofily.
Daniel grimaces.
“Hey, no worries, Dan.” He swings his large arm around and drops it on Daniel’s shoulders. “It’s all good. I understand the pressures you were in, bro. It’s why I’m a neutral party now. Otherwise... you know.”
They begin to walk out of the room, the building exactly like Daniel’s old one at home.
“Why are you here?” Daniel asks abruptly, and then adds, “no offense.”
That sends all the Runners into a cackle, and Lous smiles, looking back at them. They seemed so close-knit; Daniel was never like that with the people in his former building. What’s so different about these people?
“As you know, we’re the smallest city. Which makes us closer together. Plus we’re all either neutral parties or a part of the Unnamed, so we get along pretty well, aside from the occasional outcast, J!” He hoots, punching a guy in the arm.
“J?” Daniel the Elite Runner asks, unsure of why he called him that.
“Yeah. It’s kind of like their Pre-Name. That’s what I like to call it, anyway. There are only, like, thirty of them in here, so we just kind of went down the alphabet. All twenty-eight letters. And then we moved to numbers, isn’t that right, 4?”
A guy gives Lous something like a noogie from behind them. They all follow him as if they were a pack of wolves, closely bonded together and something no one could break. The beauty of it kind of draws Daniel out of everything going on and his heart has a moment of ease before diving right back in.
“So. This is what I planned—”
“It’s a good one!” A boy interjects from the back.
“It’s the best one he’s ever had,” a girl coos in Daniel’s ear, running the tip of her pointer finger along the bottom of his chin.
“Guys, shut up and let me tell it.” They quiet down as Daniel and Lous begin to trek up the steps into the room where Rose will be. “Okay. So it goes like this. The Unnamed is after you and they want you dead or something, right? Well, my plan is not to let that happen.”
The Runners all cheer, and Daniel waits for the end of the speech that’s seeming to take forever to arrive. Daniel looks around as they enter into the main room with all of their workout equipment.
“That’s it?” Daniel the Elite Runner asks, his hopes wearing thin.
“Of course that’s not it, Daniel,” he hears further out in the room. He turns his head to see Rose walking up to him, her hair in a ponytail and her body glistening with sweat. For some reason, all of a sudden, she seems somewhat attractive to him. “He’s just pulling your leg. It’s what he does.”
“You two know each other?” Daniel asks, forgetting she’s been here before.
“Duh.” Her remark makes Daniel wince a bit. “He’s Runner Jim’s twin brother. Or he would have been if they didn’t separate them at birth.”
“What?” Daniel exclaims, taking a step back to really look at the boy. “Whoa.”
“Yeah,” Rose nods sarcastically as she lifts her eyebrows. “Not really.”
She throws a glare over to Lous and then turns
back around to walk to the treadmill, one of the two they had. They really were less advanced here than they were in the World. That, or they’re not as plentiful in supplies. Could be either or both, but Daniel didn’t feel like pondering over it any longer.
“Okay. Sooooo,” Lous draws out the word as he watches Rose walk away, his eyes lingering on her for too long. Daniel feels a flash of anger like heat whip through him. “We’re going to change the way you look and help you “blend in” here. Which means you’ll need a different jacket. That red wing on your sleeve isn’t something we have here, so... Kinda suggests you’re an outsider. Well, it does more than suggests, but—anyway.” He shifts his weight uncomfortably. “You can have my old one. There are a few Artists that are a part of the Unnamed that don’t want to cut your head off. We can take care of those dreads and the stubble growing out on your face. Don’t you know that shaving your head will help you run faster?”
“Yeah,” the Runner shrugs. “I’ve just never needed to.”
The Runners burst out in shouts and laughter, Lous smiling. “I think you’re going to do just fine here, Daniel, juuuust fine.”
13: Running
Daniel runs his hand over the nakedness of his head; he suddenly feels so light, but he misses his hair. How could anyone stand being bald?
Lous’s old jacket is well worn, its black color turning grey and the blue emblem on the back cracking. Daniel pushes the sleeves up his arms as he steps outside, Rose on his heels. They wanted to go for a run around the inside of the wall. Lous advised against this, but it helped calm Daniel down, and, of course, Rose wasn’t going to let him go alone.
They begin to jog, and not five minutes in, they spot some of the Unnamed. The two wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for them stuffing guns into hidden pockets of their clothing. Rose grips Daniel’s arm and begins to pull him in the opposite direction, picking up her pace. Daniel follows, trying hard not to peek behind him to see if they spotted them or not. He pulls the old hood up over his head.
Another few minutes pass before they run into more. This time it’s not the guns that give them away, but the way they look at Daniel and Rose as they jog by. Once they’re out of earshot, Rose looks over her shoulder.
“Shoot,” she spits, turning back around.
Daniel looks over his shoulder automatically, immediately regretting it. Two of them were following the pair and gaining on them.
“Should we sprint?” Daniel asks once he’s turned back around, his breath hitching. “They won’t be able to beat us.”
“No,” she breathes quietly over the pounding of their feet. “It’ll make us look guilty. Just head back to the Runner’s Building. Lous will cover for us.”
Daniel doesn’t respond; he simply changes his course and turns slightly to his right. As soon as they’re out of eye-shot of the boys, Rose and Daniel pick up their speed even more, letting adrenaline move their feet. The door is right before them and they disappear into the building just as the boys curve the corner. Rose disappears into the pantry; if either of them are from the World, they’ll recognize her. Daniel, on the other hand, now that he definitely looks so different, moves to the center of the gathering Runners, acting as if they’re all going to work out in order to cover the two’s presence.
I should have never gone to run, Daniel thinks to himself, shaking his head.
An eternity later, the door slams open, making everyone jump and stop right where they are.
“Where is Lous the Elite Runner?” The blonde boy demands.
“Right here.” Lous walks from the stairs, wiping his hands on an apron around his waist. He’d been cooking dinner. Daniel’s mind is still boggled over the boy. He’s so peculiar and not like any Elite Daniel has ever encountered. “What do you want? You two aren’t Runners.”
“No,” the tanned one steps forward, his arms flexed as if it’d intimidate a room of mostly boys his age. “But the knowledge we have could get you killed.”
Lous laughs at this. “Really? And what might that be?”
“You’re sheltering to Unnamed traitors.”
Eyes flutter over to Lous’s unphased face as Daniel’s breath catches in his throat, panic setting in. Could it possibly get him killed?
Lous acts as if he’s thinking really hard and then shrugs, a goofy smile playing on his face. “Nope. Don’t recall any traitors here. I think you have the wrong Elite.”
“We saw them come in here. We followed them.”
Lous tsk’s them thrice, shaking his head in disappointment. “You’ve stooped to the level of stalking, boys?”
The blonde boy plunges through the doorway, grunting angrily. “We know they’re here!”
Lous lifts his hands in surrender. “I honestly can say that they aren’t. Search me. Look through the building, I don’t care. Just don’t touch the food I’m cooking; it has to finish boiling. I’m sure you guys learned your lesson on taking food that isn’t yours.”
Blondie connects his fist with Lous’s jaw, making him stumble to his left and making Daniel’s heart leap in his chest.
“Chum, let him be. He’s feeling guilty is all. Come on, let’s turn this place upside-down. And when I find you’re lying, Lous,” the second boy sneers, pointing a tight finger at the Elite Runner of this city threateningly, “I have permission to kill you the moment I find them.”
The two boys begin to walk around the room, the Runners complaining about their sluggishness. Daniel tries to join in but his nerves are too much for him. He shoves his hands into the worn pockets to keep them from shaking.
The tan one travels downstairs and Daniel begins to worry. It turns to panic as he calls to the blonde one, Zander, from the base of the stairs. Half of the room falls silent while the others continue to protest against the search.
“Lookie what I found.”
In the boy’s hand, limply lies Daniel’s old jacket, the red wing bright against the black.
“They were here, if they aren’t now.” His eyes drift across the crowd of Runners as even more silence themselves. The tan boy and Zander drift closer to the Runners, breathing slowly as they look for the stowaway. Daniel focuses on his breath as his head swims.
“Come out, come out, little Elite Runner. You can change your appearance but you can’t change your face.”
Daniel’s confidence stands tall as he recalls his reflection after shaving his face and head. The loss of hair can definitely change your face; maybe not the structure, but the look of it. They can’t recognize him if Daniel doesn’t even recognize himself.
“Okay—so what? It’s just a jacket. Maybe he was here when I was gone and maybe he left it or something. That tells you nothing.”
“It tells us enough, Lous,” Zander spits, turning around to him as he shrugs again.
“Whatever. As Elite Runner, I command you to leave. I can smell my dinner burning. Unless you want to stay and work out with the rest of them, making sure they don’t magically transform into the traitor. Oh! And—because I’m an Elite—you have to do as I say, even under the rule of your Leader, because I’m one of you; isn’t that right, Randall?”
The tan guy, Randall, grimaces as Zander glares at him.
“Fine. You win. This time. But I’m taking this and our Leader will give us instructions on what to do next. Watch your back, Elite Runner Lous, because you might not have one for much longer.”
With that, the boys leave and Daniel’s knees nearly give out.
They’re running out of time.
14: the Decision
The door slams shut as Randall and Zander exit the building. Daniel falls to his left, a taller boy catching him.
“Whoa, you okay, Danny?” Lous walks over to him as he stands upright. Daniel nods.
His head is swarming with adrenaline and he can’t breathe well, but he’s able to hold himself up. For now.
“Yeah, I just... I think...” Daniel shakes his head. “I think it’s time for me to go home.”
Dani
el makes his way to the door, Rose popping out from where the declining steps begin. She sighs as she looks around, finally finding whom she was looking for just as he turns the knob. Her face twists into confusion.
“What are you doing?” she inquires.
“Leaving.”
“What?” Rose walks towards him as he swings it open a bit more, her nerves tingling as she senses the danger Daniel’s soon to collapse into.
Daniel watches the Unnamed boys with names turn the corner. Daniel wonders when they made it past the top ten in their Categories and which ones they’re from. Only people that reach the top ten of the first competition receives a name. He leans toward the opening, readying himself to leave.
“But we just got here. You’ll be unprotected.”
“I’m unprotected now,” Daniel says darkly as he steps into the daylight. Rose tears out the door after him as he shrugs off Lous’ old jacket and crumples it in his hands, his eyes lingering on the blue emblem. He’s right where he wanted to be, at the top, where the Elites are. But it seems like, even after he finished his race, he’s still running for his life.
“They’ll kill you, Daniel, do you not understand that?” Rose’s eyes flare with fire and worry, her kind, though brash, words tendering Daniel’s heart, a small feeling of longing floating up inside of him. If the circumstances were different, would Rose be...?
Daniel shakes his head. “They’ll make an example out of me, not kill me,” he tells her, not able to meet her eyes as they drift back to the emblem. “I’ll live.”
“Not for long,” she says, her voice wavering. His eyes snap up to hers at this.
Rose’s eyes are damp, glistening with a tiny line of tears against the bottom lid, emotions lacing her eyes. She tries to hide it in her face, but he knows: she’s worried about him.
“Then you’d better hurry with whatever it is you’re going to do to save me,” Daniel says, shifting the jacket in his palms.
