The following day, Miles was watching out of the treehouse window, elbows resting on the splintered wood and face in his hands. On the ground below, Aaron was practicing swinging the baseball bat - everything about the movements reminded Miles of how the blond was a dancer. It seemed, in fact, that most things Aaron did, gave away the fact that he danced; he was graceful and nimble and smooth.

Luca was also down below the treehouse with Kano and Bronte, throwing sticks for the dog. They'd fed it that morning with the last of the fruit they'd had - none of them had known what was healthy for dogs to eat, except that it certainly wasn't candy and chocolate. Hopefully, today when they returned to the city, they'd be able to find something more substantial to give the dog.

Miles was shocked that Buddy had endured the night and stayed in the yard. He had slept outside despite Luca's constant protests to try to fix a better sleeping situation for him, and was now playing quite calmly - almost lazily - with the other teens.

"It's good to see that the dog's friendly," Lia commented, appearing beside Miles.

Miles grunted his agreement, lifting his elbows off the windowsill and shifting his weight onto his forearms instead. "It can't stay, though."

Lia looked unhappy as she reluctantly nodded. "Well, not with us, at least. Luca would be heartbroken, but once we head back into the city... Buddy will have to stay here."

"I still don't know about that plan, Lia," Miles confessed. "I understand that it's logical to separate from Bri's group so that we can cover more ground, but the city is so dangerous. By the time we get there, it'll be in much worse condition than it was when we left. Bri could hardly keep us all concealed as she was leading us here, and that was two days ago."

"I know, but what choice do we have?"

Miles shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I know you're right, and we have to go, but we've got to be so careful."

"We will be."

Miles turned around, gingerly touching his fingers to where his wound hit behind a dirty shirt and new bandages from earlier that morning. It was still sore, but the pain was starting to ebb as the days passed.

On the note of pain, Miles turned his eyes on Percy, who was still in the corner of the room, knee's lifted and hands wrung in his lap. The boy had hardly eaten at all since he'd fallen ill, and it showed. He was pale and looked even sicker than he had when the illness had first hit him.

Miles broke away from Lia - though she followed anyway - to meander to Percy's side, opting to sit down not too far away. Lia sat a little closer.

"Percy." Miles tried to be gentle, but it sounded strained. His speciality didn't fall under taming his tone.

"What?" Percy was agitated, which was hardly surprising. His voice was sharp and expectant.

Miles had to bite his tongue in order to contain a response formulated based on Percy's attitude. "I just wanted to know how you were doing."

Percy's fingers dug into his prosthetic arm. "You can answer that yourself."

Lia looked at the sick boy sympathetically, though she also appeared to be uneasy. Miles had something on his mind, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to ask Percy questions like that while Percy was in his current state.

Percy had his eyes watchfully searing holes in the top of Miles' head as the latter eyed the ground contemplatively. As if he could read Miles' mind, he said, "You can ask me whatever you want. I don't care."

Right. "How'd you get that arm?"

Percy's sudden sour expression showed that he greatly regretted giving Miles the ability to ask whatever he wanted. "When I was ten, I nearly burnt the house down when I was left home alone." He shrank into his clothes, cheeks dusted pink. "I hurt myself by mistake. And killed the cat."

Lia cried, "You killed the cat?" and clapped a hand to her mouth, distressed.

Percy's reply was hoarse but defensive. "It was an ugly old thing anyway! It was bound to die in the next few months."

Miles didn't want to laugh at something so absurd, but he couldn't help it. Lia scowled at Percy. "You shouldn't say things like that."

Percy laughed weakly. Miles wasn't sure if he'd seen Percy laugh before, but it was a surprisingly bright sight even though the boy was still ghostly and sweating profusely.

Miles interrupted, "So how long did it take you to get that arm?"

Percy looked annoyed that the conversation wasn't over, but he answered with unwillingness anyway. "Almost a year and a half. It had to be designed and fit exclusively to me. The temporary prosthetic I had was all I needed - it was nearly as expensive as this one. But my parents wanted me to have this one so that it wasn't so obvious that my arm was gone."

"Lucky you're rich enough for it," Miles snorted, earning a glare from Lia.

"Yeah." Percy attempted a smirk, but it faded to a grimace. "Lucky."

Really, it wasn't so lucky. If Percy hadn't been fitted with his current prosthetic, this problem never would have presented itself in the first place.

Percy lifted a hand and pressed it against his te ample, groaning. "My head feels so scrambled."

"No shit." Miles folded his arms and glanced at Lia, a silent question in his gaze.

She looked back at him and softly shook her head.

She hadn't told Percy what they'd have to do to get rid of the sickness, then.

"Percy," Miles started, forcing casualness into his voice. "You understand why you're sick, yeah?"

"Yeah." There was a moment of silence before Percy blurted, "What if I go insane? Turn out like one of the Altered?"

"Calm down," Miles said before Percy could even finish. "That's impossible. For the time being. The longer we leave it... I don't know."

"Then how do we get rid of it?" His pleading stare drilled into Miles'.

"Well, the best way would either be to remove the arm or the microchip in your head." Miles played with his fingers. "But, obviously, that wouldn't work without a doctor. So, the only way, really..." he watched Percy's face light up at the fact that there was a solution on offer, but it didn't make Miles feel any better about telling the boy what the answer actually was. "Well, we'd have to break your arm to kill the chip."

Percy cringed. "But it has pain receptors."

"Yeah, it would hurt. But not for more than a few seconds - once the chip is dead, it wouldn't process senses anymore."

Percy sank back into the corner of the room. "Um, is there no other solution?"

Miles' silence answered that question.

"Don't feel pressured to decide now," Lia said optimistically. "We have almost a week before we've said we'll be out of here. Or before we want to be. If we have to, we can put it off... for a bit, I suppose."

That did little to reassure Percy. "I don't want to break it!" He cradled his prosthetic arm.

Miles forced himself not to roll his eyes. He was opening his mouth to speak when there was a scratching noise near the trapdoor, and he turned to see Aaron dragging himself through with the heavy bat in tow. "You look happy."

Aaron glanced at Miles, eyes bright. "I want to break something," Aaron announced, lifting the bat.

"Okay, well, don't," Miles warned, though he was fond of Aaron's attitude.

Aaron stuck out his tongue at Miles, who wrinkled his nose in response.

From the other side of the room came a soft, "This is so weird..." Claire and Declan were sitting together, frowning at the e-Screen Miles' group had brought along. Lia had given it to Bri's group earlier so that they could inspect it and try to decipher the odd language in the news column. Claire looked up. "I've never seen a language like this before. It kind of looks like modern hieroglyphics."

Declan, who was leaning over her shoulder, added, "The date is stuck on March 18. And the time's stuck on 12:27am."

"Wait." Miles got to his feet and crossed the room to where Declan and Claire were seated. "That's the date and exact time the notification came through. With the instructions."

"I hate to interrupt," Bri said, looking up from her phone which she was trying to get working, "but I think we should send out some of us to go into the city and get some food, like we decided we'd do. We best go while it's still early. I was thinking maybe two people from each -"

"I'll go!" both Aaron and Miles cried before Bri had finished. They shot each other challenging looks.

"- group," Bri finished, smiling a little. "I guess you guys can go, then. I think Bronte wanted to go, and Kano does most things Bronte does, so bring those two with you."

Miles was initially relieved that he would be going, but reconsidered his decision almost instantly. Both he and Aaron were injured - he trusted that he himself would be okay, with the only wound in his shoulder. But Aaron's wound was in a place that made it likely more painful when walking.

As if sensing what Miles was thinking, Aaron reassuringly said, "We'll be fine! My cut isn't that deep. I think it's actually starting to close over already."

Miles didn't think he had much choice but to agree, so he shrugged. "As long as you know you'll be okay, it'll be fine."

Miles just knew that Aaron wanted to use his bat to break something.

Miles liked that.

"If you guys aren't back by sunset," said Bri, "we'll send out a couple of others to go looking for you. Phones still aren't working, so you need to be careful and stay safe."

Lia was on her feet, carrying the backpack that contained bottled water and flashlights - the one they'd brought from the high school when they'd departed a couple of days prior. She passed it to Miles. "Here. There's plenty of room left in this bag to carry things if you need to, but supermarkets will have bags anyway."

Miles took the bag and slung it over his shoulder - the one that wasn't wounded. "Right. Thanks." He took a step back, waiting for Aaron to finish his descent down the ladder. "We'll be back in a few hours."

Hopefully.

________________

+1794 Words.