Lifer by Beck Nicholas Page B

the mass of bodies fleeing the building. Their wide-eyed, panicked faces tell the story. You’d have to be crazy to head back toward the officers. Maybe I am.
    My height gives me an advantage. I don’t lose sight of the boy despite the crowd between us. It’s probably a lost cause. I might not have a memory with details of my own life but I know people don’t fall like that and get up and walk away. But the image of the dead boy from this morning won’t let me give up.
    I thought I’d lost Megs in my concern for her brother, but she’s by his side before me. She’s on her knees in the dirt and tears leave a shining trail on her cheeks.
    Megs’ hands fumble in the shadows at his neck. Looking for a pulse I guess. She gulps. “He’s alive.”
    Another girl … another brother … I almost …The faint memory’s gone before it solidifies in my brain.
    There’s no time to check whether moving the kid’s a good idea. Either way I can’t leave him here at the mercy of those who hurt him. With Megs’ help, I slide one arm under his knees and the other under his shoulders and haul him into my arms.
    A convulsion of pain arches his body and he screams, deep in his throat. It’s not loud but it rips through me. Again, a half memory of another boy crying weakens my knees and I almost land us both face first on the floor.
    The memory happens in a heartbeat.
    I pull myself into the present. He’s lighter than he looks. I stand. He arches again. His dark green hood falls back. It’s the boy from the alleyway. “Hello again, buddy.”
    It shouldn’t surprise me to find him here. This rundown city doesn’t seem big. The fact he’s Megs’ brother explains why she seemed familiar when I first saw her in the bar.
    “Buddy?” Megs asks. “His name’s Janic.”
    There’s no time for introductions. “Later.”
    We move with the crowd now. Megs tries to clear a path in the mass of panicked people. Through the doors and out onto the street. We’re on the opposite side of the warehouse, where we arrived. I think. I’m lost. I have to hope Megs knows somewhere safe to go.
    “Hey. Hey you. Stop there,” a deep male voice shouts behind us.
    It’s an officer. I glance behind and he’s a dozen feet away, weapon in hand. Playing a hunch from the morning, I move my body between Megs and the officer. A faint tickle tells me he fired.
    But I’m not hurt. It doesn’t bring me down the way it did the boy. I was right. Whatever the weapon is, it doesn’t affect me. I file the information away for later when hopefully I’ll have time to think.
    Then we’re through a gap in the fence and away into the night. Heavy footfalls echo off the walls of the empty buildings around us but I don’t see another soul.
    We’re on the street and a block away before we settle back to a fast walk. Megs obviously knows her way around, taking short cuts through abandoned buildings with confidence.
    “Who were those people?” I ask without slowing. “Who would shoot a boy in the back?”
    She kicks at a loose stone on the path. “Officers of the Company.”
    “Who are the Company?” I manage in between trying to drag oxygen into my lungs.
    I picture her shaking her head from the movement in her shoulders. “You really aren’t from around here are ya, Blank?”
    We support Janic between us when the path’s more difficult. Thankfully he’s passed out from the pain, because here any cries could carry through the night to wherever the officers are searching and give away our location.
    When we reach an intersection I recognize the crumbling orange wall from earlier in the night. It rained while we were inside the warehouse and the potholes are filled with murky water. The smog’s washed clean, but the layer of dirt on the road turned to slippery mud. Every step is laced with the possibility of ending up on my face.
    From here it’s straight ahead to the market and the gaming bar. Megs moves left.
    I don’t follow. “Where are we