Born 01 - Born

makes me smile so easily.
    He grins at me and I remember his hands on me. I can't stop staring at his lips. It makes me feel sick.
    Will clears his throat. "So how will you get captured?"
    I shrug. "Just act lost near the area." I glance at Jake, who is still staring at me. His grin hasn’t left his face. I dig my stick in the dirt and draw a circle. I hit a rock and dirt goes flying up at Jake on his stump.
    I laugh. He wipes his face clean. "Thanks."
    Will laughs. "Stop being a baby."
    Jake shakes the dirt out of his hair. "You did that on purpose."
    I put my hands up with the stick in them. "I didn’t, I swear." I wish I had.
    "I don’t think you should go in there, Em."
    I dig the stick again. "I have to." I don’t say that I led them straight to her. I don’t say that it's all my fault. I don’t have to. We all know it's true.
    Will turns the hare on the spit slowly. The smells are starting to make my stomach make noises I haven’t heard since before I found the cabin.
    Will looks around. "When you get captured, you need a way out." He gets up from the fire and mutters. "Jake, turn the hare." He goes to a tree and rips off a branch. He sits next to me on the log. The warmth of his body touching mine sets my nerves on fire. I swear there is electricity where our arms and legs touch.
    He bends down and draws a rectangle. In each of the corners he makes small boxes. "There is a section that is for the women who are pregnant or about to be impregnated. This is probably where you'll go. Then this wing is for the younger girls who can't have babies yet. This is for the women with the babies. This is where the little girls are kept. Girls they raise to be breeders." He moves the stick to the other side and makes a smaller box. "This is where the men are, if there are any men. Sometimes they don’t have any there." He clears his throat nervously and draws an X in the middle but off to one side. "This is the fertility lab. This is where the lab coats and doctors and cleaners all stay. This is your only chance. They will have a dump somewhere near the clinic. The garbage goes every few days."
    I frown at him, but Jake asks the question burning in my mind before I can. "Dude, how do you know so much about the breeder farms?"
    Will blushes in the firelight. "I lived there for a time."
    Jake raises an eyebrow. "As a cleaner or a doctor?" He laughs like he knows the answer.
    Will laughs. "I wish."
    Jake shakes his head, "Nasty, dude. Nasty."
    I feel lost. I look blankly at them both. Will's face looks like it's on fire. "I was forced to, um… donate."
    I don’t understand what they're talking about.
    Jake makes an odd motion with his fist, "He had to wank his pud for the man."
    I don’t know what this means, but I nod before they explain.
    Will watches my face and laughs again.
    Jake turns the hare. "So, how many little Willys are running around?"
    I feel my stomach drop. I understand. I feel judgment burn its way across my face. He shakes his head. "I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly in on the plans."
    Jake pokes the hare. "How was the life there?"
    Will laughs. "Thinking about signing up?"
    Jake looks up. "Hey, if there are three square meals a day and I get all the, um, reading material I need to deliver the goods, I'm in."
    The humor falls from Will's face. He almost twitches when he shakes his head. "No. No three squares and material, Jakey. It's more like milking a cow."
    Jake ignores the terror on his brother's face and grins from ear to ear. "Are there milk maids?"
    Will nods. "Not the kind you're thinking of. Mine was a guy named Dr. Angles."
    Jake gags. "Oh, shit. Never mind."
    Will looks down at the drawing again and chuckles, but I can tell he's haunted by it. "There is no human contact, Jake. It's all done by machines, the girls and the boys. Anyway, this section here has the surgeons’ clothes and booties. Change and climb into the garbage bin in the morning on a Tuesday, Thursday, or a Saturday. The garbage comes around lunch and the best chance you have at not being noticed is then. They will be looking for you after lunch."
    I feel sick thinking about the plan. I'm not as strong as the look on my face suggests I am. I gulp.
    "I think this is done." Jake pokes the hare.
    I shake my head. "Always over cook wild animal."
    Will nudges me with his body, almost playfully. "You sure about this?"
    I nod and reach into the flames to turn the potatoes. The fire licks at my skin but I ignore it. It hurts.