Children of Dawn

Jinxx’s POV
I sprinted through the streets of the city, feeling the blood drying on my hands and face. A police siren roared down the road in my direction and I ducked into the alleyway until it passed. I leaned against the wall and caught my breath for a second. I ran a hand through my hair, smearing more blood on my face in the process. I struggled against my stomach. It was busy trying to expel what little food I had, I refused to let it. I had spent good money on that food. I took off running again, in the direction of the warehouse where they had Sammi. I had the briefcase in my hand and the kidney was in the briefcase, surely Dr. Brazold and his gang would still give me the money, and Sammi and we could run away together. I ran to the line of warehouses, luckily without seeing a single soul on the streets. I couldn’t remember exactly which warehouse Sammi was in, but lucky for me, as I came around the corner one of the huge, muscled dudes was standing outside a warehouse. He looked slightly surprised as he saw me running up.
“Do you have it?” He grunted.
“Yes! It’s in the briefcase. I need to talk to Dr. Brazold, now!” I shouted nearly tripping over my own feet as I slowed to a stop. He opened the door to the warehouse. Inside the hospital area seemed to have been totally taken down there was nothing but Brazold sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. He looked up and gasped as I walked in.
“What happened to you, boy?” He balked. Gesturing for his goon to leave the room, I heard the door slam closed.
“He’s dead!” I screamed finally allowing myself to weaken. I dropped the briefcase and bent over with my hands on my knees. I wasn’t crying though. I didn’t want him to see me cry.
“What do you mean, who’s dead?” Brazold asked walking up and putting a cold hand on my shoulder, forcing me to straighten.
“The man you wanted me to steal the kidney from. He’s dead. He was on medication that thinned his blood and there was nothing I could do to save him,” I gasped trying not to fall into a full blown panic attack. Brazold shook his head and looked sad, but something told me that it was fake.
“Did you get the kidney?” Brazold asked squeezing my shoulder.
“It’s in the suitcase, but the police are after me. I need to take Sammi and go,” I said suddenly realizing that I’d been in one place for far too long.
“My boy, it’s not your day,” Brazold said shaking his head.
“What do you mean?” I asked. Dr. Brazold patted me on the shoulder and then slowly guided me to the chair in the middle of the room. He pushed me down and I looked at him with my gut sinking.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” Brazold said looking down at me with large sad eyes.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“Sammi’s disease had progressed farther than I originally thought. She died on the table during the surgery. Just like you, there was nothing I could have done to stop it,” He said and suddenly my world stopped. The only thing I could hear was the pounding of my own heart and an incredibly loud ringing in my ears. Then suddenly I remembered. Our child.
“My baby, what happened to my baby?” I begged Dr. Brazold. There was a long pause.
“She didn’t make it either,” he said, and I was suddenly full of rage.
“What kind of fucking doctor are you! You can’t even save a baby?” I screamed, standing up, finally feeling hot tears running down my cheeks. From somewhere behind Dr. Brazold two large men appeared. I didn’t care I took one step forward and punched Brazold as hard as I could in the jaw. The next thing I knew I had my arms pinned behind my back and a hand on closed around my throat. I tried to pull in a gasp of air but I couldn’t Brazold stood up from the ground, shaking off my hit.
“Don’t choke him to death, he has every right to be mad at me,” Brazold demanded and the hand loosened just enough for me to breathe. I caught my breath and the world seemed to come back into focus. Brazold walked away, I couldn’t turn my head to see where he’d gone. He drifted back into my view with a backpack.
“I know this will never make up for what you’ve lost, but in this bag is five hundred thousand dollars in cash, and a gun. I want you to take this bag and walk to the Canadian border. I will have men waiting for you there. They’ll you someplace safe where you can live in peace. I promise I’ll take good care of you,” Brazold said. The men let go of me. I reached out and took the bag from him slinging it over one of my shoulders.
“Let me see them. I need to see their bodies,” I demanded. Brazold shook his head.
“Now is the time for action, to save your skin from prison. I fear if you see them you will be thrown into grief and will not be able to act. I swear to you that once my men have gotten you safely across the border you will have all the time you need to grieve for your losses, but right now you need to act,” Dr. Brazold said. Before I had time to protest the burly men were dragging me to the door. They threw me out into the night. As the door to the warehouse slid closed I could have sworn that I heard the scream of a newborn baby. I couldn’t have been sure, though. I convinced myself that it had been nothing but the door squeaking and my grief stricken brain had made it up.
I sat on the ground in the moonlight for what seemed like hours. No one came out to see if I was still there, or to invite me back in. I pushed myself to my feet and shouldered the bag. I didn’t care if the money was really in there or not. It didn’t matter. Nothing did.
Ashley’s POV
I trudged through the woods. I had been on the run for days. I never went back home after the murder. I knew that my family would have done the right thing and turned me in, so I ran. I picked a random direction and left the city. I abandoned my Aunt’s credit card so they couldn’t track me and I left. After getting outside the city I found my way into the woods and had been trudging around there for days. I was hungry, tired, and weighed down by guilt. I was trying to find some water for myself. I thought that maybe I could find a way to catch a fish and give myself dinner. I was skinnier than I’d ever been before.
As I stepped around a group of trees I suddenly became aware of a sound that had been growing louder every step I took. I crept towards the sound. It sounded like a wounded animal crying out in pain. I could take it out of its misery and eat it. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. My stomach rumbled, and I also heard the sound of rushing water. It looked like it was my lucky day. Unfortunately the animal cry was sounding more and more human, it made me uncomfortable, but I reminded myself that a lot of animals sounded oddly human. I stepped around a rock and to my surprise the sound was coming from a human.
A boy about my age was sitting on the rocks next to a small river, there was an open backpack next to him. His head was in his hands and he was sobbing uncontrollably. Wailing like he was badly injured. Worse than that, he was covered in blood. Lots of it, but it was dried so I didn’t think that it was his. I had at least found a stream to wash most of the blood that was on me off. He was still soaked all the way through in the stuff, and he hadn’t seen me yet. It made sense for me to walk away and just leave him there to cry his eyes out, but something told me not to. I took a quiet step towards him and he seemed to have no idea I was there.
“Are you okay?” I asked. He didn’t respond, he just sat there and cried. I knew that if he could hear I should have spoken loud enough for him to hear me. I took another few steps forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Like lightning he slapped my hand away, stood, and drew a gun from the bag sitting next to him. He slung the bag up onto his shoulders. There was dried blood all over him, his hands and face were streaked red and white, where his tears had cut through the blood and revealed his sickly pale skin. He pointed the gun straight at my face in a trembling bloody covered hand. I backed up quickly with my hands by my head.
“Stay the fuck away from me!” He yelled, with a grating, hoarse voice.
“Woah, woah, woah. Dude, I can turn around and leave, you don’t need to shoot me or anything,” I said holding up my hands in surrender.
“Why did you touch me?” He demanded, his blue eyes sparked with a dangerous glint.
“I was just trying to see if you were okay, that’s a lot of blood,” I said.
“I’m fine it’s not my blood,”
“If you hurt someone, it’s okay. I did too. I didn’t mean to, but I hurt someone,” I said, trying to be as soothing as possible. He drew the bag closer to himself, I started to put my hands back down at my side.
“Don’t fucking move or I’ll blow your brains out!” He shouted. I froze.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked softly.
“A truckload of money, you might want to stay away. I killed someone for this money and I’m not going to give it up easily,” He said and then suddenly his face relaxed and he looked like he was going to cry again. “Actually. You can have it,” he said and all his rage was gone. He brought the gun to his side and slid the bag off his shoulder. He held it out to me. I crept forward and started to take it out of his hand.
“You don’t have to give this to me,” I said. He shook his head and let the full weight of the backpack rest in my hand. I pulled it over my shoulder. I didn’t know how much money was in it, but I knew it was a lot based on the weight.
“You can have it because I don’t need it anymore,” He said. His voice so quiet that I could hardly hear him.
“Why don’t you need it?” I asked. Instead of answering he looked me in the eyes and I saw more pain than I ever could have imagined on another human face. He took a deep breath and to my horror he put the gun in his mouth.
“No!” I screamed. I lunged forward and tackled him, the gun went off into the air between our heads and I wrenched it out of his hands. I through the gun away and heard a splash as it landed in the water. He screamed as I wrestled him to the ground. I pinned his hands above his head and straddled his waist.
“Why would you do that?” I yelled as tears rolled down my cheeks. He sobbed again like an animal in pain.
“There’s no reason left for me to live,”

Notes

Well I actually teared up on that one. I hope the rest of you did to. Leave a comment for me so I can know what you think. See you next week!