Burned Away by Kristen Simmons

 
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    Caris kept close to the dirty brick building, out of the yellow rings of streetlight coming from above. The story, brewing in her head for the last few days, began to take shape. Night, and the crumbling streets of Metaltown are still with anticipation. She committed the line to memory so she could jot it down later in her notebook, now tucked safely in the satchel hanging over her shoulder.
    Her worn boots creaked over the frosted sidewalk, and her mittened fingers gripped the strap of her bag even tighter as she picked up the pace. A week ago she’d overheard some of the boys from McNulty’s crew talking outside of the Cat’s Tale. Metalheads in one of the factories over the beltway are tired of being pushed around , they’d said. They’re making some sort of stand. Rumors of fighting had come to Bakerstown. Not the usual violence the factory district was known for, but some kind of pushback against their boss. She’d known right then that this was what she’d been waiting for. The story that snobby editor at the Journal needed to take her seriously. He thought she wasn’t reporter material, just because she was sixteen? That she couldn’t land a real story? They’d just see about that. Hampton Industries owned half the Tri-City—the logos were printed everywhere from her schoolbooks to the outside of the hospital where she’d gotten stitches last spring. If Josef Hampton’s workers were standing against him, something big was going on.
    The memories of that first day in Metaltown were enough to make her heart pound. The young workers of Division II, blocking the entrance of the factory. Shouting back at the Brotherhood thugs who attempted to pull them away. Press , they’d chanted. They were refusing to work until the boss came to talk to them.
    That was the first time she’d seen him. The boy with the cockeyed smile.
    He’d stuck out in the crowd—grinning when everyone else was shouting. Smiling when the tension had broken into fights. A group of workers had walked together to one of the restaurants to meet their boss, and while they all looked worried, he’d stood tall, a head above most of them anyway on account of his height, a crooked smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. It was like he wasn’t afraid of anything.
    She’d stuck around as long as she could, hoping for another chance to see the curious boy, but had had to leave before the end of that meeting in order to make it back before her Aunt Charlotte got home from the hospital and realized Caris hadn’t gone to school.
    She walked faster, thinking of the press, and of Hampton, and of the tall boy with that crazy smile. It was getting dark earlier, but it wasn’t too late. If any of the workers from the press were still around, she might be able to get an interview. An inside look would be impossible for the Journal to turn down.
    Even in the haze, the factories stuck out: giant fortresses, each the width of a city block, each bathed in harsh yellow streetlights. The number of each division carved into the tarnished stone over the entryway. Only once she’d reached Division II did the nerves that had been creeping over her skin sink beneath the surface. Everything about this place screamed danger, but danger was part of the job. To get the good stories, you needed to take risks. That’s what her mom had told her.
    Caris’s chest grew tight, and as she buried her chin into her scarf she glanced from side to side, looking for bums, or murderers, or worst of all, the men who ran these streets as McNulty ran hers at home: the Brotherhood.
    Where was everybody? Just two days ago half of Metaltown had gathered here to watch the press, but now the streets were empty.
    Creeping closer to the building, she snuck down a narrow alley filled with trash until she came to an indented double doorway, marked by the words Employees Only. Her heart sank. She’d