He is so stubborn!

"You just need to talk to her already!" I yell at Aiden, wanting to rip my hair out. We've already had this conversation. A few times.

"I have!" he screams back at me, running his hands through his hair, gripping it tight before letting it fall. "I'm doing the best I can," he adds quietly. Stopping on the sidewalk, he turns and starts to pace back and forth.

"I know you are...but she needs more. Alex just needs you to talk to her, give her some closure so you guys can move past it together." I try in vain to meet his eyes as he takes long strides in front of me.

He stops mid-step and leans against the wall of the building, briefly giving me the eye contact I was searching for. "I'm trying. Fuck, am I trying," he says sadly, resting his head in his hands, his voice cracking.

My chest constricts. I feel awful. There's no winning. It kills Aiden to talk about his parents, and it kills Alex not to. "Just...try harder, okay?" I reach for him, wanting to comfort him in some way.

He grabs my hand and entwines it with his. Pulling our hands to his chest, he gives me a squeeze before resuming our search for Alex hand in hand.

Aiden never stays mad, or sad, for long. I'm not sure if he gets over it that fast or if he just pushes it down somewhere with all the other crap, but he looks down at me and the corner of his mouth turns up in a small smile, "I will. We'll find her, and I'll make it right. I promise."

Their arguments have been coming more and more frequently, her refusing to go any longer without answers, and him still not ready to give them. Their argument this morning turned heated pretty quickly.

"Just tell me!" Alex yelled at him. "You're in fucking denial if you think that never talking about it is going to make it go away! And how is that fair to me? You think that because what happened to them doesn't haunt me in my sleep, that because I'm not the one screaming into my pillow at night, that it doesn't fucking kill me? Well, guess what? It haunts me every waking minute, Aiden! I'm done waiting. I need you to talk to me!" She screamed so loud, her voice turned hoarse.

"Fair for you?" he said quietly, disbelievingly. His tone was sad, but that sadness quickly turned to anger. "I kept you from seeing what I saw, from watching our parents get shot, Alex! I watched our parents die! And I saved you from witnessing that; what more could you possibly fucking want from me?!"

"I just want to know what you saw. Why you're so certain they didn't make it. I mean...what if they were brought somewhere and treated and they're alive now? You're so sure, but I don't know what you saw. It doesn't sit right with me, I need you to tell me," she answered.

He balled his hands into fists, his face turning red, "That, I will never fucking tell you. I know what I saw. Why isn't that enough? Don't you trust me at all?"

"Of course I trust you, but I deserve to know, Aiden! You're being so unfair!"

"And you're being selfish! I don't. Want. To fucking talk about it!"

"Well, fuck you, Aiden!" and she'd stormed off, muttering something about needing to cool down.

I stood there dumbstruck, knowing there was nothing I could do to ease the tension in the room.

Aiden spun on his heels and landed a fist straight into the wall. "Fuck!" His heavy breathing was the only sound that filled the room.

It was only five minutes later that Aiden started packing up, ready to go find her. It hasn't been long, maybe twenty minutes now, so she couldn't have gotten too far.

We round another corner and come to a stop. I look left and right and then to Aiden for guidance. Which way to go? Broken store fronts line the way in each direction. He pulls me to the left and I follow, matching his pace as we continue our search.

"Alex?" he yells into the quiet, open space.

I crane my neck, searching all around us. Nothing. No answer to Aiden's call either.

I hope we find her soon; this town gives me the creeps. It's completely run down and barren. It must have been ransacked before the people were forced out and into what I now know to be three gated cities. Every single storefront we pass is broken, and when I look inside, they're in complete disarray. Shelves are lying sideways, upside down, and on top of others. Clothing racks are strewn about. Doors separated from hinges, tables missing legs, mirrors broken. Glass, debris, and dust cover everything.

I can picture the chaos, people filling the space, yelling and grabbing for anything they can, pushing each other aside while fighting for things to take with them.

Brawls, hysteria, screaming.

I get the chills as I look away.

"We need to find her and get the hell away from here. This place is giving me the jeebies," I tell Aiden as I move closer into his side.

He releases my hand to wrap his arm around me and pulls me in even closer. "We will. And only another month or so and we'll be at the border. If what Mom and Dad said is true, we'll have free passage and be done with all this bullshit."

"God, I hope so." These last few weeks have been rough. I'm hungry and exhausted, and as if on cue, my stomach starts to growl, begging me for something, anything, to put inside it.

I just want to get there already.

In the past few weeks, I've learned a lot from Aiden and Alex and what their parents knew. Their neighbor worked at the Breeder Compound and on the occasion that he'd use moonshine to numb the guilt of what he did for a living, he'd confess his burdens to his neighbors and his only friends, Aiden and Alex's parents.

Alex told me the man used to scare the shit out of her as a kid. She said he looked so empty and disturbed, especially on the nights he drank, that she'd run and hide in her room. Aiden was the one who'd sneak around the corner, listening to the man's stories. Stories of Breeders desperately begging to see their families, to not be impregnated, to be put out of their misery. Stories of girls being sedated and locked inside small, windowed rooms with no privacy whatsoever, looking lost or gone altogether, like what they'd been through had completely broken them and their lights had gone out.

Over time, he gave them detailed descriptions of the Breeder Compound. Like the fact that it's a huge, security protected Compound that's gated-in just like our cities. Watch towers and patrollers surround the entire area. There's only one way in or out, and that's with special security granted access, otherwise you're out of luck. Beneath the Compound is an underground maze of tunnels that lead in and out of the facilities and to and from the small, sheltered city of Breeders and their children.

Aiden said the man was haunted by the things he'd seen, but he feared for his life if he were to ever quit. He said there was no way they'd ever let him go free knowing what he knew, not only about the Compound but about the government too. His only reprieve was when he started to notice things, learn things that promised of something more, something better to come.

Things like...the United States being the only country that runs this way, and that really, most of the outside world is the "free nation"...

That people have infiltrated our government to put a stop to what we're doing...

That there are people from the free nation working in our government, in the Breeder facility, and at the border, so we can escape–so that all runners can escape, if they're not caught first. And this is the information Aiden's parents took faith in when they decided to run.

It's hard to take in...when you learn that everything you've ever known was wrong. That you've been lied to. That you've lived a suppressed life because of a sick and twisted government running on greed and control.

I look up at Aiden again and feel grateful. I would have been so lost and in the dark without him and Alex. I never would've made it this far.

We turn yet another corner, and that's when I see her. Alex is tangled up in the limbs of a man. She's struggling, pushing against him, while he pulls at her, trying to drag her into his truck.

"Alex!" I shout in fear.

"Shit!" Aiden gasps, and it's at that exact moment that the man looks up at us.

"Don't you fucking come any closer. This doesn't concern you," the dirty man spits at us. He's covered in filth, and his evil sneer shows off a mouthful of yellowed, decaying teeth.

I cringe and look to Aiden in a panic, but he's frozen in shock...and fear.

"Aiden! Do something!" I scream at him.

He reaches for his gun, but it's too late. The man has already pulled out a knife and is holding it against Alex's throat. Tears pour down her face, and I know we only have seconds left to do something before she's pulled into that truck and gone forever.

The disgusting man laughs, "Seems you lovebirds know this pretty little thing. Doesn't matter anyhow. You come any closer and I'll slit the bitch's throat. Ya hear me?" He's at the door now, pulling on the handle.

Shit! Shit!

Aiden lowers his gun with shaky hands, "Please," he pleads, "let her go, and I'll give you anything. Don't take my sister, please. Take me, just let her go."

The man snorts and replies with a growled, "Don't got the right parts, kid."

What the fuck?

His gaze is locked on Aiden and his gun. I don't let my brain process what I'm doing and react before my thoughts or fear can stop me. I hear my gun click as I level it on the man and pull the trigger. The pop echoes against the buildings surrounding us, the sound stretching far out into the distance.

He slumps down and reaches for his leg. "You fucking bitch!" he screams as Alex scrambles away from him. Blood soaks his jeans, gushing out of the bullet wound.

I turn my head to Aiden who looks at me in horror. He shakes his head as if to clear his thoughts and makes a beeline for Alex. They rush into an embrace, both in tears, and I watch them in a state of shock.

After a while they turn to me, saying something, motioning towards the truck. I can see their mouths moving, I just can't make out what they're saying. Numbly, I follow them into the truck. As Aiden speeds down the street, I watch the crumpled man grow smaller, slowly bleeding out on the sidewalk.

What the hell did I just do?