by May Sage
It had been a while but she was trained for this; and she’d been prepared for someone to find her for close to a decade.
Sure, she’d imagined that it would be the feds, rather than an alien, but same difference. They wanted to use her, and she had no intention to let them.
Never again.
Twelve years ago.
She was still hungry; her stomach recoiled when the scent of freshly baked goods hit her nostrils. It made her feel sick, faint, and absolutely desperate. There was nothing she wasn't ready to do for a piece of bread. How long had it been since she'd last eaten anything? Days for sure; maybe a week.
“Good morning.”
The man who said that was smiling down at her, making her flinch and take a few step backs. Adults were bad. They generally wanted her to return to the foster home, and as well as starving there, she’d been beaten on a regular basis.
The man pulled out a wallet and handed it to a pretty, smartly dressed woman at his side.
“Go buy the kid something to eat and a juice, Jean,” he told her, before crouching to be at her level.
The child frowned, looking at him with suspicion. She knew that man. She’d seen him on TV. He was someone important.
“You know who I am?”
She shook her head despite the vague sense of familiarity.
“I’m the secretary of state. My name is Harry Tennison.”
That rang a bell.
“You’re alone out there? Living in the street must be pretty hard for a young boy by himself.”
She’d cut her hair to manage to nits a little better. No need to correct him, though.
“We’ve opened up a program for kids like you, if you want in,” he offered.
By that time, his assistant had made it back; he took the croissant and orange juice from her, and ended it to the girl.
“You’ll get food, and somewhere to sleep. There’s a school, too, and you could make friends.”
She was so distrustful she wouldn’t have fallen for it if he’d acted any differently, but Harry Tennison was a master in the art of manipulation, so he just handed her his card, after scribbling down an address.
She was at the Compound by the end of the week, joining a group of two hundred and forty three kids just like her. Only a dozen survived the month, and it took them two years to break free.
Two traumatic, painful, and valuable years, that made it easy for her to jump to another car, leap off it when it reached a bridge, and fall back to her feet with the grace of a cat.
Aria glanced up, glaring with mistrust for ten seconds, before her shoulders relaxed. He hadn’t followed.
She checked her back pocket and breathed out when she found her phone.
She took it out and keyed in a number she’d memorized a long time ago. It directly went to voicemail, as she’d known it would.
“I’m compromised.”
She immediately hung up, jogging away, and leaving San Francisco behind.