Born 01 - Born

Em. Easy with the visuals. She's my little sister, for Christ's sake. I'm not bitching. My leg is just killing me."
    I glare. "Is it bleeding?"
    He shakes his head and looks down at his pants. "No, but it hurts."
    "Climb the tree and wait for us." I hand him the water bottle from my belt.
    He shakes his head and looks at Will who is stoic.
    "Will, I'm not staying."
    Will licks his lips and thinks for a second. "You can't hold us up."
    Jake rolls his eyes and sighs. "Let's just go." He points into the woods.
    I hold the water bottle out for one more second but he doesn’t take me up on the offer.
    I turn and start to run. My leg is sore, and my stomach is empty. In my haste, I never stocked up. Anna has been hard on my rules.
    When the sun is setting, we are where I want to be. Jake hasn’t complained and Will is starting a small fire. I take my bow and find a nice quiet spot to sit and wait for something to make a sound.
    The silence of the woods is alarming. I've never been in the woods here. I'm exhausted but I focus.
    I hear the crunch of a stick. I raise my arrow in the direction I heard it. A large hare hops over a branch and sniffs the wind. Its ears twitch. It smells me. I release the arrow, anticipating the hop it makes. The arrow slices through the neck of the rabbit. It tries to move for a second and stops. I wish this isn’t my life for the seconds it takes me to retrieve my arrow. I gut the hare where I kill it. I never bring it back with all its guts. Leaving guts outside the cabin proved to be a mistake. I skin it quickly with the skinning knife my Granny had always kept in the cabin. I leave the animal's remains and carry the carcass back to the fire.
    I hear the cracking of the wood when I get close.
    Will is standing over the fire and Jake is sitting on a log next to him.
    "So is there something between you two?" Will asks but doesn’t move his face.
    Jake shrugs. "I don't know. She's a tough one to get to know. We kissed. It was a mistake."
    Will looks at him and smiles. "I hear that. You remember the Lara Croft movies where Angelina Jolie was all hot and quiet but would kill anything that moved?"
    Jake laughs and points. "Yes. Exactly. Jesus, give her some pouty lips and bam, Lara Croft."
    I feel my insides trembling. I don’t remember the movies they're talking about. I can't help but want to cry.
    Will laughs and shakes his head, "But what a bitch though, huh?"
    I grab a rock from where I'm standing and toss it back a few yards. They can't see me if I crouch down.
    "She's back. Manners." Will speaks low and starts poking the fire. I stand and walk from the bushes. I just want to throw the stupid hare down and leave them there, but my stomach is growling. I am exhausted. I will stay as long as it takes to eat, and then I'm sleeping in a tree. Maybe if I'm lucky, I will fall in my sleep and wake up in Heaven.
    Will holds out a small sack. "I have some potatoes from the camp and tinfoil."
    I nod. "Okay." I feel awkward. Kissing them both was obviously bad, but having them call me a bitch after they kissed me is awful. Having Jake say it was a mistake is killing me. I can't look in his eyes. I walk around him and find a good stick to make a spit with.
    I search the ground around the fire until I find a good branch. I strip the small branches and leaves from it. I smirk and I shove the stick into the open neck. I am imagining it's one of them.
    "You're a scary little thing."
    I frown at Jake, who is watching me get the hare on the spit.
    "It's a compliment."
    I don’t stop frowning. It doesn’t feel like a compliment. Even if it were, it wouldn’t stop the pain of the kiss being a mistake.
    I build a spit with rocks and branches and twine from my backpack. Will has sliced the potatoes and laid them in the tinfoil. He places them high on a rock with a flat surface in the circle around the fire.
    Will glances at me. "So what's the plan?"
    "Get captured and free us both."
    He laughs.
    "I can do it."
    He shakes his head. "I know you can. It's just funny, that’s all. You're willing to sacrifice yourself to save my sister?"
    "She's the first person I've met that I liked. Genuinely." It's a dig at them both. Screw them.
    He raises his eyebrows. "Fair enough." He looks hurt. The image of the girl in the short shorts doesn’t leave my mind easily.
    Jake looks hurt. "What am I? Chopped liver?"
    I smile. My Granny used to say that if I hugged my Grampy first. I hate that I'm smiling. I hate that he