I think I'm going to give up on chronological order for this story. Strictly speaking, this chapter comes after the last one. Whether or not future chapters will take place between this chapter and the last I'm not sure.

I've been trying my best, but the problem is this story isn't being written chronologically, and I often run into a lot of trouble trying to fit the pieces together. Simply posting pieces should allow me to update this a lot faster.

If you're strongly opposed to this idea and would prefer chronological order, you'd best speak up.

"Hey, kiddo."

Kiddo…

She looked at him, her expression blank and waiting. She hadn't been paying much attention to what was ahead of her. What was behind had been too much more important. Now she paused. Blood pooled behind her fingers, ran down her ankle.

"You hurt?" His eyes had caught on a droplet for an instant, then reversed direction to stare at her right arm, where she was holding it with her other hand. "Come here, I'll help you."

The child paused a moment more, heard voices in the distance, and stepped forward, into the lighted doorway.

He shut the door behind firmly, pushing it until the lock clicked into place. His posture didn't suggest a threat. He meant the door to keep things out. At the moment, the child agreed with that idea. And the child was older than she had been, so the three small rooms she was locked into were not as dangerous as they would have been. Even still, it helped that the walls were flimsy.

She was maneuvered over to a small round table, careful not to limp. He took out a dull white box from a drawer and placed that on top, then stretched out her arm over the wood. She curled her fingers under by habit, so that they and not her palm were against the surface, keeping the claws out of sight. And his breath hissed in softly in a sound she recognized as sympathy, and she wondered why people were like that.

"This might hurt," he said, the hint of it in his voice as if the thought alone could be painful. He was uncapping a bottle, filling the room with the smell of alcohol, and then he pressed a patch of cotton fiber over the top and upended the bottle quickly. The sloshing sound was quiet – the bottle must have been mostly full, although the plastic was opaque and the child could not tell by sight. She saw his hand tremble once, very slightly, and then he dabbed at the raw skin. His eyes were focused there, as if he didn't want to look at her in the face. Only when he finished did he. "Sorry," he said then, replacing the bottle and standing.

He was curious, in the way that tied to sympathy. "What happened to you?" he asked, turning on the metal faucet over the metal sink.

"Scratched." She did not know the name, but that was what he asked next, so she said, "Something. It might have been a pokemon."

He looked at her. After a moment, "At Gine Labs?" He had wet a cloth.

"In there."

"Anyone with you?"

They and I scattered, she thought. "We scattered," she said.

He placed the cloth carefully over the injury, then began to press it gingerly into place, piece by piece. It would have been less painful to have put it on quickly, but she could see in his movement he did not want it to hurt. "They okay?"

"I don't know."

"They leave you?"

"Sort of," she said, because there were not good words for leaving chaos where one could not stand and wait for long, but not where one had to run blindly.

"Sort of," he repeated, without the intonation of a question. But he looked at her and waited.

"There wasn't much time to group together. But, they didn't care if I made it out or not. So I went a different way."

"Sorry." He pressed his fingers on the underside of her arm and she lifted it. He began wrapping it up with a dry bandage, pulling it tighter in the first sure movements he had made. Perhaps because the wound was covered now.

"It doesn't matter." She tossed her head the way she understood was appropriate, not caring in which way he took it.

And it worked halfway, although he did not drop the subject entirely. There was silence a few moments. "They going to look for you?"

"I'm supposed to meet back up with them on my own."

"You're going to?"

"Why not." She did not want the impression she was asking him.

Sirens came through the thin and flimsy walls, painful enough to make her want to cover her ears. They seemed louder than usual. Everything did. Her arm was bleeding, her leg was bleeding, her head ached. Whatever had been on the claws, it was potent.

"That's rather fatalistic of you." When she didn't answer but only pulled her arm back into her lap, he said, "So why did you go in there anyway?"

"Told to."

"You just did it because someone said to? Your friends?" His voice was unhurried, as if he didn't want to upset her with questioning. "Or – were you going with your friends?"

"This wasn't a…" The child considered. "Something done without thought. By kids who just decided. Has it happened like that?"

"I heard about it. Because of the secrecy around the place, they must have thought something amazing or important was inside. They didn't get out that time. Accidental, overuse of force. I heard on the news. The security there made a mistake." He was silent a moment. "What was your group then? Were you…did you join up with some adult gang?"

She did not like the possessive. "The group was Rocket," she said, rephrasing it.

"You…don't have a uniform." His statement was hesitant rather than disbelieving.

"Plenty of times, they don't wear uniforms."

"Jesus. I didn't think they used kids." Then: "Sorry. That's who you're heading back to?" She didn't bother answering. "That why they left you?"

Someone who'd probably die anyway, who'd be too intimidated to be angry and too inexperienced to retaliate even if they were. Someone who wouldn't be missed. A kid. "Pretty much."

"Jesus." He looked off to the side, then down at the table, where her blood had puddled. Under the table a second pool was forming as the cloth around her leg became soaked. He was silent. Her ears could not pick up anything that sounded like what had been pursuing her.

"You guys have doctors?"

"It'll heal," she said instead.

"Will they take you to a doctor?" When she didn't answer, he said, "You need to go to the hospital. I –"

"No."

"I'll take you. They won't turn you in."

"No."

"I don't know medicine. You need –"

"No."

He deflated. "You've got to do something," he said, without conviction.

She didn't answer this, and he looked away again. He was silent again. Then: "Why did…can you tell me why you joined?"

"There aren't many who join," she said. "And I wasn't one of them."

"But you're going back."

"Why not," she said again.

"You don't have to, you know." When she didn't speak, he continued, "There are other options."

"I didn't have to run here," she told him. "There are a lot of things that are only options in that they're possible."

"You could go to a jenny."

"No."

"Why?"

"There are a lot of things that are only options in that they're possible," she repeated. "I could have stepped in front of a car earlier. It's the same thing."

"You guys that scared of them?"

She disliked his phrasing. She didn't answer.

"Look, you're…you're just a kid. I don't know what you were told. But the jennies won't try you, not if you're just a kid."

"The jennies don't try anyone who goes to them like that."

"So…"

"No."

"Why?" he said again.

"I know what happens."

He closed his eyes, looked like he was in pain. "That what they tell you?"

"I know because I saw." When he looked like he didn't believe her, she said, "There was screaming."

And he was silent.

"Are you hungry?" he asked at last. "I don't have anything much, but…"

She nodded, and he stood and walked to the refrigerator, opened it. It was small but still half empty. From it, he took out a yellowish block, wrapped in plastic. He placed it on the false-stone counter and got a plate and knife, then brought all three back to the table. "Sorry," he said, cutting open the cheese and then slicing it. "I don't usually eat at home."

"It's fine." She took one of the chunks with her right hand and bit into it.

"Do you have pokemon?" he asked after a moment. "You've got a belt."

"We split up."

"Them too?" His voice was sad.

She understood what he meant, so she swallowed the cheese and said, "No. We'd already split up, before we ran, and there wasn't time to get back together."

"Think they're okay?"

"We all got out." She saw his expression, but did not try to explain she was not saying it because she wanted it to be true. The blood had saturated the bandage on her arm and was soaking into her lap. She took another piece.

"What are their names?"

"Slice. Apocalypse. Eclipse. The other two don't have names yet."

He half-smiled. "Cheery names." She didn't respond. "Any names you're thinking of, for the last two?"

"I don't name them. It's what they were called."

"Other people named them?"

"That's what a name is."

"What's your name?"

"People call me ice sometimes."

He smiled at that as well. "Do they all pick nicknames like that?"

"People call me that. We don't pick names. You can decide my name is something else, it doesn't matter to me."

"Like it didn't matter they left you."

"Like that."

His expression was sad. She took another chunk of cheese.

"What are they, the ones that don't have names?"

"A scyther and a larvitar."

"Larvitar? I don't know that one."

She touched her left hand to the tabletop, then raised it. "This big. Stands like a charmander. Rock type. Green with black."

"And the others?"

A car's headlights flashed through the window, burning into her eyes. Across from her, the man's expression shifted. The child reached for the knife he had used for the cheese and shoved it through his throat. She moved the plate so that the blood wouldn't splatter on it and resumed eating.