She sneezed.
The sound overly loud in the silence of the junkyard. Dani shivered and hugged herself tight. It wasn’t enough. If she didn’t find a way to get warm soon, she just might die from the cold. She shoved her fist into her mouth to stop a bubble of hysterical laughter from tumbling forth.
On cue, her stomach rumbled with hunger. The pangs had grown due to lack of food these past two days. They lengthened and dug their claws deep into her stomach walls, filling the emptiness with pain. What would Amanda say or do? Did it even matter?
Amanda was dead.
Dani slowly unfurled her fingers, and held it out until they were extended before her. The dark red splotches of blood on her hands were unmistakable, a stark contrast to her olive-toned skin. Amanda’s blood. Her hands were stained with her sister’s blood.
Ten-year-old Dani wrapped her hands around her slight frame and hugged her sides quickly to get them out of sight. Like an injured animal, she moaned and rocked her body back and forth. The sound so filled with pain and anguish it echoed and bounced off the abandoned machinery around her.
She closed her eyes and rocked herself harder, desperately, the way Amanda would have done if she still lived. She mustn’t think. It was always better that way—
“Get up!”
Her eyes flew open, a ball of terror bouncing its way up her empty stomach to lodge somewhere in her throat.
She stared into odd green eyes. They glittered in the dark face of a boy who looked to be Amanda’s age- fourteen.