Born by Tara Brown

slip
from my mouth.
    She crouches in some larger bush and sits
and waits for nightfall.
    I speak after a while. I feel awkward in
her silence. She's never silent.
    "I can help you find your mom."
    "She never got taken."
    "Where would she go?"
    "Knowing Momma she went to hell. She
was a mean and spiteful woman. Full of piss and vinegar is what Aunty Lisa
always said."
    It hits me like a club to the face,
"She died?"
    Meg glances at me, "I told what she
always said. You do whatever it takes to not go there. They woulda put her in
the fields anyway. Her insides were injured having me. She couldn’t have more
babies."
    I want to cry. She had a mother. She had
someone. It feels like it's my fault somehow.
    "I'm really sorry Meg. Do you have
anywhere you can go? Do you have other people?"
    She shakes her head, "Nope it was me
and Momma and aunty Lisa."
    I won't ever leave her. No matter what I
won't ever leave her.
    The day fades to night slowly. Spring is
further along and the days are longer. The cool air is still fresh and crisp
but the sun is getting warmer.
    Leo sleeps against me and Meg whittles a
small piece of wood. She passes me the finished product. I don’t know what it
is.
    "It's a rook."
    I raise an eyebrow.
    "For chess." She says it like
I'm an idiot.
    "The game?"
    She nods and smiles, "I'm making the
pieces for a board. I guess I have to start over. Mine were in our village."
    I look confused, "You have a
village?"
    She shakes her head, "Nope. Had. The
others came last month and burned it to the ground."
    "Life is hard Meg. I'm convinced the
god that everyone talked about before, hates us."
    Her brown eyes harden and she pulls her
dark brown hair back from her filthy little face, "Don't ever say that Em.
No matter what we have to believe that he's going to help us. The evil is
us."
    Leo jumps up but it's too late. As I hear
the branch snap behind me I see the black hood go over Meg's little face. I
jump up but the guns are on me.
    "What have we got here?"
    The man standing before me is grinning.
He holds a rifle at my face.
    Leo is ready to attack but I put my hand
out, "No Leo. No." He looks at my face confused. I can see it in his
eyes. I shake my head.
    I look at the man, "We'll walk with
you but you can't put that over my head. If he can't see my eyes he's going to
lose it and kill at least one of you."
    He nods, "You walk with the wolf. I
will kill him if I have to." He removes the black hood from Meg, who looks
like Leo. I give her a sharp look too, "No Meg."
    I know the desperation on her face is
trying to over take, I feel the same way. But we can't win the fight. We can
die like her mom.
    One of the other guys with a gun smirks at
me. He's young and bold looking. He speaks to me and I can hear the smile on
his face, "I'd ask if you were spies for the others but you're girls. What
girls would help them out? So that leaves me with only one assumption," He
grins and nudges me, "You're looking for a date."
    I frown at him. I don’t speak.
    Meg snorts, "You wish. No we're
looking for our friends. The others had us but we got away."
    I shoot her a dirty look. She scowls,
"Don't give me that look Em. Momma says we need to remember some ways of
the world before and manners is one of the things we all seems to forget
about."
    The man with the gun smiles, "Her
momma sounds like the kind of girl we are always looking for. Warm my bed, bake
my bread and say please and thank you like a lady should."
    Meg shoves him, "My momma never
warmed no man's bed. She weren’t no lady. She was a survivor. She was a
fighter."
    He shoves Meg back. I catch her.
    "Easy kid."
    The leader gets in my face with his gun.
I look up into his dark blue eyes angrily, "Her mom just died creating a
diversion for her to escape the hunters."
    He makes a face that surprises me,
remorseful, "I'm sorry Meg, is it? Never speak ill of the dead, unless
they're one of the monsters who started all of this." He holds his hands
out.
    She sniffs and wipes