Freerunner

Chapter 6

I sat on the concrete ground, observing the prisoners glide over the obstacle course they'd made up with the bars and benches available. I was going to have to learn to do all this immaculately or else I'd have no chance keeping up with them in their flight. I scratched my head under my new hat. Well, it wasn't really a hat. They called it a 'bandanna'. I winced as the guard on patrol scanned the grounds. She glanced over me, unaware that I was not one of them. Thank you Alex, I thought. It was his genius that had gotten me this far.

The night before, I had begged Alex to help me. I did have a little plan to start with so I wasn't giving him an impossible task.

"So what if we swap the names in the confinement roster and make it so they're people who won't recognise me or something?" I suggested.

My little brother rolled his eyes. "Seriously Rosie, everyone recognises you. You're the spitting image of mum when she was your age apparently."

I shuddered at that; relieved it was only appearance that put us together.

"Okay, how about you dress up as a soldier and stick around while I'm training?" I advocated.

He shook his head. "I don't know, sis. Why do you want to do this so badly anyway?"

I groaned. "I've already told you, we need to find Stevie and these guys are our best bet out of here."

He raised an eyebrow. "Wait, says who I'm getting out of here too?" He said, narrowing his eyes. I put up my hands defensively. "Hey, I just assumed so because this place is a hell hole. You've gotta agree with me on that. But don't worry, you won't have to learn to fly like them. As soon as they see how awesome I am, they'll be sure to do me a favour." Alex didn't seem entirely convinced. "Well, I'm grateful you thought about me too. If you left me here alone, I'd probably go crazy," he said half-jokingly. I smiled. "So are you gonna help me or do I have to get caught a million times before getting somewhere?"

He exhaled loudly. "Alright, just give me a minute."

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. I did my best to stay silent and not start tapping my foot impatiently. Then, without changing his position, he mumbled to me:

"Did you say something about dressing up?"

That's how I'm squatting here now, no one doing a double take to check if I'm Rose Kennedy. Of course, I had to give my brother most of the credit but I did plant the seed in his head. Luckily for me, Alex was trusted by my parents so he could get his hands on valuable information.

Well, valuable to us at least, maybe not anyone else.

When the war broke out and everyone was forced to move on base, civilians were originally allowed to wear their normal clothes. It was only changed when I was four since there was an ambush and the normal people were easily distinguishable from the militias. Since then, everyone was required to wear the uniform. However, their clothes were never destroyed. It ended up that all of it was chucked in a box and left to be chewed up by rats in the attic.

Alex made me go to school that day and promised he'd find those clothes. So I waited in my seat at the back of the class by the window, praying he'd keep to his word. Sure enough, a knock came at the convent door and my little brother asked for me to be excused. The nuns didn't suspect him since he was a very respectable member of the Kennedy family, unlike me. Doing my best to contain my excitement, we walked together to the attic.

We ransacked the place and found the cardboard box filled with regular clothing. My eyes widened at the pretty fabrics, all different textures. I picked through and found a light green T-shirt with black sleeves. There was a greyish purple, zip-up jacket with a fuzzy material around the hood that was comfortable and a pair of pants that had a coloured stripe up the side like the ones the guys had. I swapped my boots for ankle shoes. To finish my new guise, I pinned my hair under a hat.