Chosen Family

The building was coming down, and I swear it wasn't my fault. Still, no time to dwell on the fact that it DEFINITELY WAS NOT MY FAULT, TOTALLY NO WAY. I had to get to Ben before he caused any more trouble. After all, it was partially his fault that the massive red brick building was on fire.

Not mine.

His.

Well, maybe it was my fault a little bit. But mostly his.

Still, I had to save him, because he was my partner in crime, and I couldn't do much without him. I'd never really admit that to him, but it's true.

"Ben!" I shouted, dodging a piece of rubble as it fell almost on my head. This wasn't the first time we'd been stuck in a dangerous situation, and I'd thought he'd be capable of keeping himself safe for what, 20 minutes?

"I'm HERE already!" He followed up with, swinging down from the rafters with his blond hair smoldering. "Good." I said weakly. Ben ran over and pushed me aside aggressively.

I was extremely annoyed my this, "WHAT SIDE ARE YOU ON ANYWAY-" But a blazing piece of plaster falling in the exact spot I had been just seconds ago shut me up. "Oh... thanks." I murmured, brushing a bit of rubble off of my shoulder.

I felt the building give a tremor and grabbed Ben, pulling him aside just as the floor fell away. I was barely able to land without a twisted ankle.

"We gotta get out of here." We said at the same time, then shared a rare grin. So it began, jumping and dodging fireballs, holding our breaths through clouds of ash, while determinedly trying to save/kill each other.

Finally, a window made it's appearance, and before I could think of something to say, Ben shoved me out of it, screeching: "It's for your own good! I hope!" Then tumbling after me.

Luckily it was only a two-story fall, otherwise I'm sure we would have broken bones. No, only my wrist felt off, it was probably sprained. I think something else was sprained too, my lungs from laughing so hard.

I didn't feel badly hurt, the huge sack of potatoes on a cart that both Ben and I had landed on really made a nice landing spot. I just lay there for a while, snickering and hearing Ben giggling next to me.

Surely, I was covered with ash and soot and WHO KNOWS WHAT from head to toe, and speaking of toe, I think my shoe was melting, but I was happy.

Until the cart started moving. Then I just felt like all the happiness I'd had dropped into my stomach, then slid to my feet, filling myself with cold discomfort.

"Where did we land?" Ben asked tentatively, hardly believing our bad luck. "By the looks of it, a vegetable dealer's cart." I responded, pulling bits of cucumber out of my brown hair.

"Of all the stupid pieces of bad luck." Ben said, then added something I was glad I couldn't hear. "Come on, we can still escape!" I encouraged, sitting up and trying to be heard over the sounds of horse hooves over cobblestone and the rattling of wheels.

Ben also sat up and hooted. Instead of the feeling of the ride and the nerves I'd been observing, he'd thought to look over the edge of the cart and see where we were.

It was a huge bridge that we were shooting across, a man in a patched tailcoat sitting in the front and easing two horses to shoot faster and faster.

"There's no escape now. Look ahead." Ben gestured forward, and my response died on my lips. At the end of the bridge was a huge entryway, but beyond that in every direction was a wall. We were headed straight for the Main City.

If we jumped now, the water landing would kill us in a second. If we waited until we got into the city, who knows what else would befall us. "We should wait until we get into the city. Who knows what else will befall us, but YOLO, right?" Ben voiced my very thoughts, as usual giving me the creepy idea that he could read my thoughts (which he couldn't obviously, otherwise he would be extremely miffed at the many things I called him in my head).

"I guess so. I mean, we can try..." I sighed, raking a hand through my way-too-long hair.

"Gotta love that enthusiasm." Ben snarked, and I rolled my eyes. Seriously, what did the boy expect of me? "I mean, we can try, exclamation point, exclamation point." I said, and Ben laughed, which made me like him all over again. "Better."

By this time the cart had made its way across the entirety of the bridge and through the entryway. Ben and I were hit by a barrage of noise, so loud I couldn't hear myself think, much less speak.

"TIME TO ESCAPE?" I faintly heard Ben scream over the din of salesmen and soldiers, house people and vehicles. "SURE!" I hollered back, and he crawled over the sacks of food to the edge of the cart. Before I could ask what the heck he was doing, Ben was gone over the edge.

Thinking him dead or run over, I ran over to the edge and clambered down. It was quieter down on the sidewalk, in a dirty place by the sewage pipes.

"BEN! BEN WHERE ARE YOU?" I shouted, panicking and gasping for breath. "Right here!" Ben peeped cheerfully, munching a red bell pepper and leaning against the alley wall.

"YOU JUST MADE MY MIND GO THROUGH THE SEVEN LEVELS OF THE UNDERWORLD PANICKING ABOUT YOU AND THE WHOLE TIME YOU JUST JUMPED INTO THE ALLEY????" I bellowed, and Ben patted me on the shoulder. "Ease up, Nora, I couldn't explain my plan to you, because you'd disagree to it!"

I protested, but stopped abruptly. I totally would have disagreed to do it. Shoot. Sometimes Ben was smarter than I gave him credit for, which I almost never did.

"Let's get going." Ben interrupted my thoughts, and we snuck out of the alley into into the main streets. It was a lot quieter, the noises like a low rumbled behind us and in front of us at the same time.

There were many exotic people along the street, and one in every ten was a salesperson, two in every ten tried to talk to us. I was mentally calculating this while I should have been paying attention because I nearly knocked an old man off his feet.

"Hey there be careful! The government don't like people who's in other's business, too deep in their heads to see innocent old folk like me RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM! Run along now." He shouted, bringing a lot more attention to Ben and me than we would have liked.

Several soldiers saw us and began a speedy pursuit. "Run." Ben whispered. "But that will just make us look more suspicious!" I shot back.

"I don't care about looking suspicious, if they find us here we're toast, burnt toast with no butter or anything!" Ben said sagely, and we burst into a run, crashing into almost 16 old people apiece and diving into a shady alleyway full of people equally as suspicious as us.

I saw a sly looking man in a black coat with patches on the elbows flipping through a fat wad of cash, a couple of young orphans beseeching people for food, and many more that I instantly looked away the second I saw them.

"Why did we run into This alley? And Is that A DEAD BODY?" I started as a murmur but my voice rachetted higher as I saw something on the ground. "Probably. The cops won't follow us here, bet you a million dollars." Ben said, then added, "Oh, and keep your voice down. If I have to speak in your language: 'The chance of a mugger catching us in here is about 82%, actual statistics'."

Instead of comforting me, the stats freaked me out. Just then, to add to our panic, a barrage of soldiers began to filter through the alley. "Owe me a million dollars, and I'm gonna hold you to that." I said sharply, then leapt at an alley wall and grappled at the bricks to climb up it.

Ben's eyes were wide below. "You can CLIMB?" "Obviously, come ON!" I commanded, already at the top and scrambling across the roof of a building.

"Okayyy, just don't tell me for the entire time that we were friends that you can scale walls like a spider, yeah real nice." Ben muttered. "ARE YOU CLIMBING?" I shouted.

"Coming!" Ben said, followed by some choice words.

He hefted himself to the top, and for only a second we could enjoy the enchanting views before the whirring of a helicopter sounded in our ears. "OF ALL THE POSSIBLE THINGS TO HAPPEN!" Ben screamed, and I grabbed his wrist and began running across the roof as red lights glazed over us.

"Grab a pole." Ben commanded, and I looked over, beside us was a trapdoor leading down into the building and next to the trapdoor was several long wooden poles. I wondered why we couldn't just run into the building but was beginning to trust Ben more than I had thought possible.

So I snatched a pole, as did he, then he asked: "Can you jump, ya know, using these?" "I can try!" I promised, just as we reached the very end of the building.

"Okay then, go!" He shouted, taking a running start and slamming his pole onto the roof, causing him to fly through the beams of red search light with a flip and onto the next rooftop. "Impressive, huh?" Ben bragged shamelessly. "Oh it is on." I muttered under my breath, zooming faster and flinging myself ungainfully across the gap with a scream.

Ben faked amazement: "Gee whiz, master, teach me your ways of screeching like a buffoon and doing a back FLOP across the literally 4 foot wide space!" "Wait'll we get to the next one!" I threw back, sprinting faster.

So it began, both of us barely evading the helicopters and soldiers, shooting across buildings and flying over streets. I'd never had so much fun, and by the time we finally began to lose our pursuers, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

"You Okay?" Ben asked with surprising fondness. "Yeah, sure! How about you!" I said, matching my strides to his so we could run alongside each other.

"Oh, just peachy, other than the fact that we're being chased by the law." He huffed. I responded: "You're right. By the way, can you read minds?"

He looked at me with such utter bewilderment that I couldn't help but continue laughing. So hard that I didn't notice the building was coming to an end.

I tripped just as we reached the edge and felt my foot slip, desperate for a place to step and finding none. Suddenly feeling dread deeper than I ever had before, my hands slipped and down, far, at least 3 stories, fell my stick, and as my hands groped for something to hold, I did as well fall.

The last thing I saw before blacking out was Ben's face. The terrified shock I had expected, and something else unbelievable. No, it wasn't romantic love, but he looked as if his sister had just died.

Realization hit me as I sunk into coldness. She just had.

---------------------------

I screamed and screamed and scaled down the wall, over to Nora, who was lying on the ground completely still and quiet.

No.

People die all the time, I know. My dad died, so did my mother, and that was when Nora found me, only a little older than my age. She helped me like family whenever I needed it.

This wasn't just people. This was my chosen family, and now it was all lost.

I crawled the rest of the way to her body, suddenly exhausted, and laid down with my head resting on her chest, careful to avoid the small bloodstain.

I just lay there quietly and listened to everything going on around me. Cart drivers shouting at each other, kids giggling on their way to school. Music blasting from an apartment above me. All of the city's residents, no, everyone in the WORLD were going about their day like my entire world hadn't just shattered around me.

With a deep breath, tears flowing silently down my face, I tried to move on, to get up, to stop crying.

No use.

That's when I heard Nora's heartbeat, felt the soft rise and fall of her chest. That's when I stopped crying.

"Nora..." I gasped, sitting up and leaning over her, and now I knew, I could feel her weak breaths against my face. "Nora... I'll be RIGHT back."

I ran through a door into a building, and the first door I found was that of an apartment. There was a man and woman sitting and taking care of a dog.

"It's an emergency." I huffed, "Need medical supplies. Now." Without hesitating, the woman jumped up and offered me a first aid kit she had grabbed from a closet.

"Take it. If it's that bad of an emergency that you'd be covered in blood, it's good enough for me." She said, and I looked down at my white cotton shirt and pants, spattered with blood, ash, and cucumber juice.

With a rushed thank you, I returned to Nora, whose eyes were now open and fluttering as she tried to lift a hand. "Nora, you're awake!" I exclaimed with excitement. "If you can talk, tell me where it hurts."

She whispered: "Arm. Left. Back." With all the strength she had, then leaned against the brick wall. Thank goodness I had taken that med class in high school, I thought fervently as I patched up her bloodied arm and chest with massive amounts of antibacterial cream and casts and gauze.

After an hour or two of care, she was able to sit up and talk coherently. "Your fall must not have been fatal then. You probably have a sprained arm at worst, and a lot of wounds, but I'm sure you'll be fine." I diagnosed, leaning against the wall next to her.

"After that, maybe we should lay off on the criminal stuff for a while. Travel the world. Because I never want to think you're dead again."

"I guess so." Nora said with a weak smile.

"Gotta love that enthusiasm." I pointed out.

"I mean, I guess so, exclamation point, exclamation point." Nora said, and I felt both of our smiles widen.

"Better." I said, throwing my arms around her and hugging her close. "So much better."