Inside The Wall by Caleb VanSteenwyk (chromebook ebook reader .txt) 📕

the window by the bottom of his shoes. I followed, lifting one leg up first to support the rest of my body, and dropped into an alleyway to the side of my house, right as the door to my house was broke down.
The kid and me ran down the alley noisily, followed by the emotionless yelling of a guard. “They went out the window!” He screamed, and the marching began again, at a much faster speed than anyone could run. “Go, go!” I screamed, louder than I needed to. This is just like when I lost John. Guards chasing after a kid, and me I thought. On the ground next to me, there was a whizzing sound that made me jump, and dust kicked up by my feet. “They’re armed! Don’t stop running!”
“Why would I stop running?” The kid yelled.
Finally, I stopped the kid at the balcony that had saved me many times, especially when the person I was stealing from caught me. From there, I could get onto the rooftops, and run to Baron’s bar. He had a hole in his kitchen roof that he couldn’t afford to replace. I jumped up towards the balcony, grabbing the floor posts with my hands, and muscling myself up. It was like extreme pull-ups, this time with two lives on the line. With some struggle, I lifted myself up.
“Jump! I’ll grab your hand and pull you up!” With a pang of guilt, I realized that going first was the same thing that had killed John. “Hurry!” I leaned down, arm outright.
“I can’t jump that high!” The kid yelled.
“You don’t have to! I’ll grab you.” The kid leaped up, ending up half a foot short from my hand. The guards were out of the alley and were running towards us. A bullet hit the wall next to me, and I heard the family inside scream. I leaned over as far as I could this time, holding onto the posts tight. “Jump again!”
The kid bent his knees for a couple seconds before making his leap. I grabbed his outstretched hand this time, and pulled him up with a struggle, almost falling over myself.
“Follow me!” I yelled, and the amount of fire coming towards us increased. Luckily, we were running away from their direction. The shingles were mostly intact here, but had large holes in various places around where we were running. Soon, I ran up and made the leap between the rows of adjacent buildings we were running on, onto Baron’s roof. I motioned with my hands for the kid to follow. He backed up, ran and leaped onto the building easily. The gap was only about a meter.
We crawled towards the hole in Baron’s roof, and I jumped down into the back of Baron’s bar. He was inside the kitchen where we fell, and we were lucky not to land on him.
“Oh, Bryce! You scared me!” He put a device in his pocket that he had been fiddling with. “What’d you steal this time?” The kid fell down “Uh… You didn’t kidnap this guy, did you?” Baron asked.
“Shut up!” I yelled. He looked at me, hurt. “There are guards coming! Be quiet.” I kneeled down by the back wall, and waited for the sound of marching to come. If the guards knew where we were, Baron, the kid and me would all be killed. But, after a few minutes of waiting, the sound never came.
“Okay, I think it’s safe.” I said.
“Alright, then.” Baron started. “Back to my question. Did you kidnap this kid?”
“No, no of course not.” I replied. “A guard was taking him, and I kind of fought back. I killed the guard, and before he died, the guard shot his mom.”
“You did what?” Baron exclaimed. “That’s crazy. Who in their right mind would attack a guard?”
“I don’t know. I was mad, and I had just lost my brother, and when I saw him being taken like that, he’s so close to John’s age. My mind was fogged, I guess, and I just lost it.”
“How’d you even manage to take out a guard?” Baron asked.
“I leaped from a building. First, I tried attacking him in the open, but he threatened to kill the kid’s mother.” I had grown tired of just calling him ‘the kid’, so I asked. “What’s your name, kid?”
“My name’s Clyde.” I finally knew his name. But I didn’t really have the time to ask before. The whole time I’d been in contact with him, I’d been shot at, or at the risk of being shot.
“Ok. Clyde’s mother. When they were out of sight, I picked up my knife, and got on the rooftops. I met up with them, and leaped of the building. I stabbed him in the spine right by his neck.”
“Wow. I didn’t know you could kill a guard with just a knife.” Baron said.
“Yeah, either did I. When he came by this morning, he told me the guards were coming after us. So that’s why we came here.”
“To escape the guards?”
“Yeah. Also, I was hoping to stay here for a while, Clyde and me. Both our houses will be under tight security for a while, I think.”
“Why don’t you just stay at the Rebellion’s base?” Clyde asked me.
I gave him a funny look. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, I figured since you’re part of the rebellion, you could just stay there for a while if you needed to.”
“I’m NOT part of the Rebellion. I never have been.” I said.
“Oh. I just thought that since you took out that guard, you were part of it. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that on their own.”
“I’m not with them. My parents were, but not me.”
“Why don’t we stay with your parents, then?” He asked me.
I winced. “My parents died fighting in the Rebellion.”
The kid looked at the floor. “Sorry. I’m just saying all the wrong things right now, aren’t I?”
“It’s okay.” I said. “You didn’t know any of that stuff.”
“Alright, then. Now that we’re all caught up, you guys can stay back here. But I can’t guarantee any comfort. I don’t have anything to spare for you.”
“That’s okay. Thanks for letting us stay.” I said.
“No problem.”
Chapter Five

The next day was a very tough day for me. I had to make a very important decision.
Baron walked in with a look on his face that was not his normal, careless face. His face was bland, with no expression, and white as a ghost. “Guys, I have something I need you to do for me.” He said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I need you to move out of my kitchen. I simply don’t have enough food to support you anymore.” Baron replied, obviously not liking saying it.
“Where do we go? I really can’t go home, it’s crawling with guards, and so is Clyde’s. We’d have to wander the streets.”
“Don’t worry. I already have a place arranged that you can go.”
“Where?” I asked.
Baron didn’t reply. He simply opened the door to the kitchen and nodded to someone beyond the door. The man was very tall, wearing normal peasant’s clothes with extra padding, and a knife on his belt. I recognized him immediately.
“No.” I said.
“You don’t have another choice, Bryce. It’s this or wander the streets. I don’t have enough room or enough food. We’d starve.”
“Find a different place. Anywhere but this.” The man that came in the door was Scar. His name was on posters all over our district. He was the leader of the Rebellion, and knew my parents without doubt.
“Bryce, you can-“ Scar started.
“Shut up.” I yelled. “I’m not listening to you talk. Your little gang got my family killed. I’m not making the same mistake my parents did.”
“We can help you. We’re not trying to hurt you at all.” Scar replied.
“You’ve helped enough.”
“Bryce, It wasn’t my fault. The guards killed your parents. The Nobles were at the root of the guards, and ultimately it’s their fault. We were just trying to prevent the same thing from happening to more people. They tried to take Clyde, and you fought back for that, so you must understand why what they’re doing is wrong.”
“What their doing is wrong, but you’re doing the same thing.” I replied.
“How?” Scar asked.
“You’re controlling your army with the hope of a better life, just like the Nobles are controlling theirs. These men of yours are fighting for a better life for you as you sit and watch it happen.” I replied.
“I fight, too. And my men all volunteered, with enough rage for the Nobles to fight back. I’m not controlling them. They can quit any time they want. They choose to stay because they want it all to stop. All the kidnappings, killings and everything else they’re doing just to keep their perfect lives. The Nobles killed your parents so that they could continue to be rich, and luxurious.”
“I won’t be able to look a rebel in the eye without thinking of my parents.”
“We can offer you a bed, a place to stay, food, and all we ask is a little cooperation with our endeavors.”
“Until we die.”
“Shut up!” Clyde yelled. “Both of you! Bryce, your parents died ages ago, and right now you’re just being selfish. Both of your parents died heroic deaths for a good cause. Just listen to yourself! You’re just being stubborn and one-sided. Your not listening to anything that he’s saying.” I thought about this, and realized he was right. I was being completely blinded by the fact that my parents died. “Your getting a chance to get back at the Nobles, to get them back for taking your parents, and your brother, and your just going to pass this up? And you know what? You’re getting a chance to prevent this from happening to anyone else. I’m listening to what he’s saying, and I lost my parents too!”
He was right. I had a chance here to prevent everything from happening to anyone else. I had a chance to get payback, and in the back of my mind, I knew if I got far enough, I could get John back. I still wasn’t a big fan of Scar, remembering how he tried to bait me, but Clyde was right.
After a while, I replied. “Fine. I’ll come with you. But I won’t be a perfect rebel, and I’ll tell you that right now.”
“Good. I’ll show you the way.” Scar said right before there was a loud bang on the door of the bar. We were all silent.
“What’s all the yelling about?” Asked the monotonous voice of a guard. Baron motioned towards a ladder that had been leaning against the wall, and then pointed to the hole in the roof. Scar grabbed the ladder from against the wall, and Baron went to answer the door.
There was a creaking as the wooden