Stung - By Bethany Wiggins Page 0,2

and clamp down on my long, tangled hair. Fire lines my scalp as the skin pulls taut against my skull. I hang with my feet just above the balcony and flail, dangling by my hair. Somehow, the man’s grip slips on my hair and my shoes touch the balcony. And then, with an unexpected release on my scalp, I’m free.

I glance over my shoulder. The window frames a face with smooth skin and hollow cheeks—a boy on the brink of manhood. He peels his lips back from his teeth and growls, and I stare into his brown eyes. For a moment it is like looking into a mirror, and I almost say his name. Until I realize his eyes are wild and feral, like an animal’s. When he grips the outside of the window and swings his feet through, I scramble up onto the ledge of the balcony. And jump.

My spine contracts and my hips pop as I land on the trampoline my mother bought when I was eleven years old. The blue safety pads are long gone. I’m surprised the weathered black mat doesn’t split beneath my feet as I bounce and come down a second time, stabbing the black mat with the nail file and dragging it as far and hard as I can. I jump over the exposed springs as my brother sails through the air behind me. The mat tears noisily beneath him and he falls through it, like jumping into a shallow pond. And when he hits the ground, I hear a snap and a grunt.

I run to the fence that separates my house from the elementary school and dig my feet into the chain-link diamonds. Just like when I was a kid, racing the tardy bell, I clamber up and over the fence in a heartbeat.

As I sprint across the empty schoolyard, past the silent, rusted playground, I dare a look over my shoulder. My brother is hobbling toward the fence, his ankle hanging at an odd angle to his leg. His eyes meet mine and he holds a hand up to me, a plea to come back. A sob tears at my chest, but I look away and keep running.

Chapter 2

A scorching sun beats down from the turquoise sky, gleaming off the distant buildings of downtown Denver. Yet no leaves grow on the skeletal trees, no flowers bloom in pots on front porches, no grass grows in dead front yards. Even the Rocky Mountains looming on the western horizon look brown and brittle. The only green in this world comes from brown-tinted pine trees—those that aren’t as dead as everything else. I am in a world of winter being burned beneath a summer sun.

I stumble through a silent neighborhood. The houses’ windows are shattered. Rusted cars sit atop flat tires in driveways. My shadow stretches long over the cracked, litter-strewn pavement. I skirt around a faded, tipped garbage can and walk faster, because deep down I can sense that this is a bad place to be when the sun sets.

My feet slow as I walk toward a telephone pole. The wires lie spaghetti-twisted on the ground below it, and tacked to the front is a piece of paper at odds with this trashed, forgotten neighborhood. The paper is daffodil yellow—not sun bleached or water warped or wind frayed. I take a closer look.

REWARD

1–4 marks = 1 oz honey

5–7 marks = 2 oz honey

8–9 marks = 3 oz honey

10 marks = 8 oz honey

To claim reward, marked one must be alive.

Payments made Sundays @ Southgate or Northgate.

No payment for dead body.

Sincerely, Governor Jacoby Soneschen

I walk past the daffodil-yellow paper and round a corner in the deserted street, and a dog barks—the first sound that I haven’t made myself since leaving my house. More dogs join in, and my heart speeds up, a weak, dehydrated fluttering against my ribs. Four houses ahead, a window reflects evening sunlight … and the window is whole. Several dogs stand in the front yard below that window, teeth bared, saliva strings dangling from their barking mouths, yanking against the chains that keep them from charging me. My steps slow and I glance at my right hand. The flesh-colored makeup still hides the tattoo. When I look back up, four men stand in the yard with the dogs, and each man holds a gun pointed at me.

M16 assault rifle. The name flitters into my confused brain. And I can remember the day my dad taught me to shoot.

The guys at