Two and Two Together

*Ainslee*

Lying back on the soft grass, I stare up at the sky, watching the stars beginning to glitter overhead as the sun drops below the tree line. I have one hand on my full stomach, the other under my head.

“Your belly aching?” Nelson asks, sitting next to me.

I don’t even look up to answer him, knowing he’s talking to me. “A little.”

“I told you guys not to eat so much. That was all a hoax, you know. They pretend to be nice to you, pretend to care, and then rip your throat out.”

I hear Annamarie whimper and sit up, despite my aching stomach. “Stop it, Nelson. You’re scaring her. They won’t rip your throat out, Annamarie.”

She pulls her legs up to her chest and wraps an arm around them. It won’t be long now until we have to get ready to run, and I am not prepared. Neither is she, but for different reasons. I can tell fear is pulsing through her, the sort of fear that makes a person paralyzed, not persistent.

“So you think they fed us to slow us down?” Travis asks, picking at his t