Excerpt: Rain

Running.

I remember that clearly. Running and slipping in desert sand turned to mud. Running and desperately trying to stay away from what I knew were people chasing me. Running from a world of pain and hurt, and into a world I didn’t know. Into a world I didn’t understand, but I knew it couldn’t hurt me as badly as the world I was running from.

Rain.

It was raining. Strange and ironic. Rain and clouds and lightening, and I could only hope that I could make it to the fence before I was caught.

I don’t remember much after that. A jacket put over my shoulders—far too large to be mine—and a baseball cap put on my head. I remember blue, blue eyes. A delicate kiss on my forehead and the one who’d caught me telling me to climb the fence and run.

I pistol whipped him and then did climbed.

I woke up, dry and wrapped in flannel. The gun was on the nightstand in the little room. Rustic and dirty and comfortable. No one was touching me and hurting me. No white walls and hard tables. No straps to hold me down while the poking and prodding and making me into something I wasn’t was happening.

Just a blanket and a pillow, and an old dog who was laying on the floor, watching me sleep, and who had gotten up when I took the gun and made my way into the next room.

My jacket—[I]his[/I] jacket—was over a chair in the dusty dining room. Plain wood table and nearly Spartan accruments. Out in the desert still, I could see. Out in the desert and alone in the house.

I stepped out side in bare-feet, looking at the dusty ground and seeing tracks. Truck. Ford. F-150. I knew the tires well enough. Had been made to memorize. Had been made to see and to know because I might have to track my ‘targets’ that way one day. Survival at it’s best. Fingers in dirt as I tasted it.

Fresh. Small oil leak. The dog meant the person would be back.

Flannel pajamas that were too big, and I was clean. No sign of the dirt and dust and mud that had caked my feet when I’d collapsed. I remember big white lights and someone listening to dogs tracking me. Was in scrubs and a jacket. Was hurt. Was trying to get away even with no strength to run.

I picked up the wallet on the table. Alexavier Jones. The man’s picture was next to it. A ‘Driver’s License’. Blond hair. Older than me. Blue eyes.

My eyes.

I frowned. Something tried to click but the puzzle piece missed it’s slot. Didn’t quite fit yet. Didn’t quite match yet but it would someday. I hoped.

Hope? No hope. I’d been born there.

“Good to see you awake.”

I turned, gun still in hand and pointed at the man. Quiet and deadly like I’d been taught to be. Weathered hands were raised quickly, showing that he was unarmed, even as he’d dropped the bags he was carrying with him. No fear. No shock. He just…stood there. Waiting.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

I felt my eyes narrow, even as he picked up the bag and moved to put them on the table. I moved with him, even if he didn’t seem to notice. I knew he did though. Could hear the heartbeat. Frantic. Terrified. He was good at pretending he wasn’t.

“My name is Frank. What’s your’s?”

Old and weathered, his voice sounded like dust was in it. Quiet. Soothing. There was a bowl on the table he was stacking apples into and I realized that I was hungry. I hadn’t really had an apple before. Had seen them. Hadn’t tasted them. Hadn’t known what they were like.

Not part of my regimen in apple-form. Just part of my regimen in a sauce or something else. Only the healthiest of foods. The dog was looking between us, growling a little at me. The man’s dog. Frank’s dog.

Not mine.

I don’t have things.

I had to think. Names weren’t something I had. Numbers. Code-words. Nothing more nothing less and I was hungry and tired and it was so strange being dehydrated. They’d always kept me so healthy.

I wasn’t used to not eating. That wasn’t until next year. They’d teach me how to starve. At least, that’s what they’d said.

It was sunny out. Hot. Quiet out here. Flat. We’d see things coming from miles away. Time to hide myself if I needed to. The man had shown he wouldn’t hurt me.

I needed a name.

“Rain.”

It was all I could think of. Rain had freed me, and so….I’d take that name. Because it seemed right.

“My name is Rain.”