Taken (Erin Bowman)

with games like checkers and Little Lie.
    Emma was a scrawny thing back then, but she kept up with us. If we were getting good and dirty in the streets, she tagged right along. If we were climbing trees and scuffing our knees on rocks, she boasted the same battle scars. And even though we spent countless hours together as children, Emma was always closer to Blaine. I’ve never been able to shake the jealousy, but I suppose I brought it upon myself. When I was six and the two of them seven, I pushed Emma over and stole the wooden toy she was playing with. She favored Blaine from that day forward, and naturally that’s when it started. As soon as she favored Blaine, I favored her.
    At first it was a childlike thing, but my affection never faded. I watched her change over the years, abandoning her thin frame for the curves that now fill out her dresses. She’s become increasingly pretty as she nears eighteen, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in no one else. I’ve made my rounds in the slatings, but I’d be kidding myself if I said I didn’t want just Emma. I guess it’s fitting that I’ve never been paired with her. I probably don’t deserve it.
    “Is Carter in?” I call out.
    “She’s making a house call,” Emma replies, answering my hopes without even looking at me. “Give me a moment and I’ll be right over.”
    I sit on an empty bed and rub my jaw, wincing as my hands find an open gash. Blaine was right. I definitely need to have it looked at.
    I watch Emma as I wait, admiring how her steady fingers pluck jars from the shelf with ease. She moves so quickly but smoothly as well, her hands confident from years of administering care. They never falter, never slip. Her eyes, too, are focused, darting back and forth. Every time I look into their brown depths, I feel something in my chest heave.
    Eventually, when the jars are organized to her liking, Emma meets me at the bed. She has a beauty mark on her right cheekbone, and it almost looks like a single tear escaping down her face.
    “I should refuse to help you. After what you did to Chalice and all.” Emma has a soft voice, calm like winter’s first snowfall.
    “She deserved it,” I say surely.
    “You’re lucky that I believe all injured beings deserve to be healed.” She looks at me, puzzled, her head cocked as if she is studying a wild animal. I know what she’s thinking. It’s what they all think: How can I look so much like Blaine and be so different?
    She takes my face in her hands and examines my chin. The open cut stings, but I focus on her touch instead, her fingers against my skin. When she is satisfied with her inspection she turns her back on me and begins to mix various ingredients in a shallow bowl. I watch her crush them, her forearm and shoulder flexing. She finishes, wipes her hands on her apron, and faces me again.
    “One scoop should do,” she says. She passes me the bowl, which now holds a pasty mixture. “Rub it on the inside of your mouth, near the gash. It will numb the area, and I need to stitch up that cut.”
    I scoop a small handful of the mixture with my fingers and apply it as Emma instructed. Almost instantly, the pain begins to ease.
    “And take this,” she orders, handing me a small helping of an ingredient I don’t recognize but swallow nonetheless. “I need you perfectly still, and it will help you sleep.”
    Emma is readying a needle when her mother enters the Clinic.
    “How’d it go?” Emma asks.
    “The baby didn’t make it,” Carter says, putting her bag down and repinning her hair on the top of her head. It is the same shade as Emma’s, light brown like the hide of a young fawn, and full of stubborn waves. “Died during the labor. Just as well though, seeing as it was a boy.”
    Emma looks saddened by the news. “And the mother?”
    “Laurel is fine.” I know this girl is a good friend of Emma’s. I’ve seen them at the market, giggling and whispering to each other as they trade for goods.
    Emma breathes a sigh of relief, but I notice a single tear trickle its way down her cheek. She pushes it aside with the back of her hand and returns her attention to the needle.
    “Lie back,” she tells me, and I do. My head feels oddly light; and Emma, leaning over me to examine the wound, seems to shine like dew-topped grass in morning sunlight. She tells me to relax, but I’m stuck staring into her brown eyes and instead I let words bubble to my lips.
    “You want to do