priorities?” “With our family!” “What does our family matter when people are dying from hunger? You’d have them murdered for sport for wanting to fill their bellies?” The argument was interrupted by a sudden movement. The officer had recovered his wits, drawn a knife from his boot and lunged at the group. Hayden saw the movement and dodged away. The officer’s stab went wide, but Wynn was caught, unable to move from her position. The knife dug into her shoulder. She cried in pain as the soldier drew the knife out for a second strike. “Bastard!” Hayden shouted as the officer charged her once more. Hayden swung the officer’s saber downward and sliced cleanly through his wrist, disarming the threat, but in a rage, she spun as she had before and the blade met bone as it cut deeply into the back of the officer’s neck. The officer crumpled to the ground. He lay motionless, and Hayden watched as his blood pooled around her boots. The man in the cart freed the rest of the prisoners as Hayden stood panting over the body of the officer. “Oh gods,” she muttered, then “Wynn!” Hayden ran to Wynn’s side peeled back fabric to find the wound, but Wynn pushed Hayden away. “You’ve doomed our family, Hayden. How could you be so selfish?” The realization that she and her sister had grown irreparably apart filled Hayden from the inside out, a look of disgust forcing itself onto her face. Wynn could never understand the compassion she had for the people suffering outside of the Enclave. Wynn did have one thing right, though: Hayden was now a murderer and a criminal according to the Enclave laws, and she would surely hang for what she did. And Wynn would hang beside her. “Ya’ gonna help me with these ropes or ya’ jus’ gonna sit there lookin’ sorry fer yerself?” the man shouted from the back of the cart as he pulled the gag out of another prisoner’s mouth. Hayden climbed into the back of the cart and began cutting the bindings with the officer’s bloodied sword. “Ya’ got a name, kid?” the man asked. “Hayden. Stokes.” “Name’s Lazarus Meacle. Call me Laz,” he responded, “We better get moving ’fore that cap’n notices his lieutenant’s missing.” “We’ve got nowhere to go,” Hayden lamented. “Good thing I’ve got a ship then, aye?” Wynn looked up, surprised, “You’ve got a ship? How’d you end up in 60
Manastash 2013