Invalid

Six

There were times when I thought being alone was hard. Later, I learned a greater burden was being in the presence of someone and worrying about each thing you did, and if it would affect them...

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I felt like screaming, seeing Jane covered in her own blood and Wade nowhere to be found.

Michael went to her, checking for a pulse -which luckily she slightly had- and cleaning her up. Her hair was matted with loose twigs and dirt, her dark skin plastered with a mix of that and blood as well.

Calling for Wade was hard. If I yelled too loud, I could alert Officials to our location. If I did nothing, Wade was still gone.

I was stuck, neither option sounding like a good one.

Michael was asking something behind me, but I ignored it, it sounding more like a dull mumble in my worried state.

Stay calm, my mind demanded. Did you freak out like this during war?

I hadn't been scared, Officials sucking every ounce of a wimp out of us back then. I shook my head, trying to get rid of that thinking though.

It's been a long time since I was a warrior, I shouldn't be forced to go back to that thinking.

A hand touched my shoulder, making me jump and turn around. "Jen," Michael began. "How long has she been like this?" He tilted his head toward Jane, waiting for my response.

"Um, I-I don't know, but I, uh..." I started. "Since early this morning I think." I fumbled with the end of my braid, dried blood stuck clinging to the tips, and took a gulp. "But I can't find Wade, Michael."

He seemed to notice my extreme fear and my unhelpful options, squeezing my shoulder reassuringly. "I hate to be a jerk, but there are bigger problems right now than finding a four year old kid."

I wanted to smack him for saying that. But I already saw the hurt in his eyes. He was making a decision he didn't want to make and it was killing him inside. "Okay. Fine, whatever. How's Jane?"

"She's dying, Jen. She too far gone." Considering reading expressions was partly my job at one point, it was definitely easy to tell that Michael's face showed clear hurt, a painful memory taking place in his mind.

Perhaps he's lost someone to this, my mind pointed out. It would explain why he knows so much about this supposed rumor.

But I couldn't just sit her, letting a small boy die because I couldn't find him and let the one person he considered his mom to die because I couldn't save her. "There has to be something we can do, Michael. Please, just see if there's any-"

"There's not." He cut in. "You know that, I know that. Being Invalid is tough, we don't get the treatment everyone else does."

Between the sniffles I was using to cover up the crying I was trying to stop, I gulped and said, "We could steal it. Invalids steal things all the time, it's not like it would be a new thing. Plus, we know how to do it well enough, trained by the nation's best and all."

"You realize that's a suicide mission, right?" Michael went on. "This is one of the biggest deseases to hit it years, and they will stop at nothing to stop it."

"Then they should hand out the medicine that will instead of letting people -which includes us, we are human whether they think so or not- die because they can't afford it."

Michael was going to say more, his mouth parted and ready for more words to come. But then, I saw him; Wade. He was running down the street in his muddy clothes, crying and falling over as he tripped over a peice of junk lying around.

Not far behind him was the Officials.

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