Page 30 of Evolved

I follow, Knox on my heels.

“Wait!” I shout. “Please!”

But they don’t.

They’re alone. All alone, and I know what that’s like. They’ll disappear in this city and we won’t even know where to look.

I climb through the window, get to the edge of the balcony, the balustrade, jump down.

I look left, then right, down squelching lawns, catch a glimpse of the older girl tugging the younger one around a corner.

“Wait!” I call, running for all I have. “We won’t hurt you! I promise”

I get to the edge of the building in time to see them sprinting toward a waiting car, a dark sedan, parked facing the river.

A man sits inside.

He shouts when he sees me. I can’t make out the words, but they don’t seem kind. But maybe a caring adult wouldn’t sound kind as they called kids to run from a stranger during the apocalypse. They might sound nervous, insistent, urgent. Maybe not gentle or kind.

“Wait,” I cry out, running faster.

The little one stops, right there in the street, looking back at me, skinny, lanky hair, filthy, wide eyes holding mine until the man’s shouting grows so loud that the older one lifts her bodily into the car.

The wheels screech away as he peels off before the back door has even fully closed.

And then they’re gone, peeling down the road, then swerving to the right, across the National Mall, and disappearing in this empty, lawless city, two little girls with a man who put terror in their eyes.

Knox stops beside me, looking down the empty alleyway. His hand touches my back, and his lips part.

Those girls were so young, too young to protect themselves. They probably just lost their parents. I know what that’s like too, but they don’t have a grandmother waiting to take them in.

Knox asked what I wanted of the future, and that’s it. I don’t want a future written by men who scream at children, I don’t want kids with eyes written by fear.

The worst of us shouldn’t get to make the rules.

That’s the argument.

Or one of them, anyway.

“I think I’m ready to write.”

9|You know what I’m doing

OTTILIE

KNOX DROPS MEoff the Alweston’s. He leaves to go empty another weapon’s locker, and I go straight to my computer up in my bedroom, ignoring Gran.

Five hours pass.

I write sixteen pages for sixteen different scenarios. Sixteen different talking points. Sixteen different arguments. Sixteen different emotions and concerns.

When I come up for air, the house smells of food.

I find Gran in the kitchen standing over a pot.

“Potato onion soup,” she says when she sees me.

“It smells good,” I say.

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