“We talk about the progressive movement being nonviolent, but we tend to ignore the fact that violence is just as much a part of bringing social change. Even in the old civil rights era, there was Martin Luther King Junior as well as Malcom X or Stokely Carmichael. The fight for our future was on multiple fronts with multiple philosophies. 

We have been the target of violence for so long that we forget that we are capable of using it for ourselves. We think that violence is inherently wrong, but remember that fascists are much less likely to lash out when they know that we’re willing and capable of fighting back. They have never played fair and only ever used the rules and promise of “civility” as a way to keep us tied up. They were never “civil” so why the fuck should we be?

Reforms and political change came from “civil” and “uncivil” actions, because that’s how our broken-ass society works. We fight on all fronts. And let’s be clear… the fight is far from over. We might have begun to turn the nation away from the brink, but we can’t get complacent.”

-Anonymous anti-fascist protester during the October 2031 United States consolidated union strike.  

_____________________________________________________

I’d heard too many stories to count of people who assumed that playing RoEM could offer you superpowers. Too often they failed to realize that even if your brain knew how to swordfight or forge or other things, that didn’t mean that your real-world muscles could keep up with it. You were liable to hurt yourself that way.

While I’d seen my feminine body develop toned muscles from combat and forging, my real-world, masculine body was thin and frail. In the real world, I felt weak, sluggish and tired compared to how I did in RoEM.

Though, at the moment, I wasn’t feeling much of anything beyond raw terror, as my Dad, intent on doing god-knows-what, roared in wordless rage and charged across the length of the front lawn.

I heard the car chime as Gavin began to start it, but I knew that he couldn’t escape at this rate. At least not without leaving me behind. Dad was moving too fast.

Maybe that was for the best, part of my brain thought, At least he could avoid facing Dad’s wrath. I shuddered to think what he would do to Gavin if he caught him. I could survive Dad’s wrath… probably. I’d been doing it for years now. 

Are you seriously going to just give up?

I blinked in surprise as Marianne’s voice floated through my mind. I’d lost count of the number of times in the course of training that I’d heard that phrase.

You’re tougher than this. You’re better than this, Zoey! You have so much power inside yourself but you’re scared to use it. Stop running away! Fight back!

I wiped the sweat off my face, nodding as I stared down my opponent.

I was tired of being afraid. I was tired of running. I was tired of this broken human being who called himself my father trying to control my life.

Fuck this. I was a Justicar. I was a Paladin. I was a warrior of justice and truth, and game or not, I was going to fucking act like it.

I set my stance, feet planted, digging into the soil of the front lawn for a footing. My ankle shrieked in protest, but I ignored it for the moment. I went through the movements Marianne had taught me. Twisting my torso to get the extra power. Fingers tucked back to present the bone where the palm met the wrist. Focus all of my energy and…

Screaming at him in a register I hadn’t realized I was capable of, I drove the heel of my hand forward and connected it with his face as he charged heedlessly into me. I watched my palm connect into his chin with a sickening crack that ran up my arm and shoulder. I felt a blinding pain shoot up through my arm and throughout my whole body, worse than anything that I experienced in RoEM. 

I wasn’t going to stop. I couldn’t. Not with so much at stake. Shrieking, I twisted my body further, pain be damned, following through the strike as I twisted with the blow. This diverted Dad’s charge directly into the car itself, and I essentially forced his face into the trunk.

Another impact and more pain surged up my arm. I felt Dad’s face crunch into the trunk with a hollow thud and an awful snap as his face collided into the composite surface of the car. He went limp and crumpled, screaming as he held his face, blood clearly flowing out from underneath his hands.

Mom shrieked as she looked down on it from the window of my old room. More lights in the neighborhood houses around us lit up and more shadows illuminated in their windows and doors, watching everything unfold. We had an audience.

But nobody acted or stopped what was happening. There was only me and Gavin in this fight.

My whole body screamed with agony as the world slowly went back to a normal speed. My arm was roaring with concentrated, excruciating pain. I’d probably broken something in addition to my busted ankle. Gavin called out to me, but his words were distant and hard to make out. He grabbed me and yanked me into the back seat, which I all but collapsed into.

At my feet, outside the car, I could see Dad stumbling uneasily to get upright. His nose was off-center and pouring out blood as he gurgled in barely coherent fury. His eyes were empty of anything save for rage and agony. Gavin scrambled to pull the door closed between us and Dad tried to insert his hand in the frame to stop him.

This only accomplished his hand making a cracking sound as Gavin slammed it on his fingers. 

Repeatedly.

Dad finally howled and drew back his hands, now bleeding and malformed as well. Gavin took the opportunity to fumble the door closed, which locked automatically as he did so.

Dad pounded on the glass of the window, howling at me with his eyes burning with inhuman fury. His hands left long streaks of red across the window, like claws gouging out flesh. He shouted, through a broken mouth full of blood, a name that was not mine and never could be. Gavin slid away from me, roaring the engine to life with a squeal of rubber, pulling the car away from what was no longer my house.

Dad stumbled as he tried to follow us, running alongside the car, still screaming… but collapsed onto the sidewalk.

Pain still shooting through my arm and ankle, I fell backwards. I felt dizzy. I felt weak again. Whatever strength I had briefly had left me. And the pain was now too overwhelming. I needed to close my eyes for a moment… and that was all it took before I felt my awareness fading away into a distant haze.

____________________

“Zoey… Zoey, come on, you need to wake up.”

I blinked, and looked around myself.

I was… in the backseat of a car? This certainly wasn’t RoEM, but as I turned to face the voice, I saw Gavin?! What was he doing here? And dressed in normal clothes? He didn’t even have the sword I made for him. But he was calling me Zoey and not the other name, though. So… I had to be in RoEM, right?.

He was leaning over me, his hands gripping my shoulder as if he was shaking me.

“Where’s Marianne?” I mumbled, looking around myself in a daze, “Or Syd?”

Gavin snapped his fingers in front of my face which only served to further disorient me. “Zoey, listen, I need you to wake up. We’re in the real world, okay? This isn’t RoEM.”

I frowned, and with a lurch that turned my stomach, the twisted blur of memories of the escape and the fight snapped back into my head.

“That… was real?” I breathed, beginning to shiver. “Oh fuck, I… I did that to Dad?!”

“Yeah… holy shit that was incredible,” sighed Gavin, shaking his head, “But you fucked up your arm… badly.”

I turned to stare at the arm and saw that my wrist was swollen and didn’t seem to be able to move without sending searing pain up through my body.

“Shit, we need to get you to a hospital,” breathed Gavin. “But we might have a warrant out or something… given what happened. Your Dad or one of your neighbors probably called the cops.  They’re definitely going to arrest you as soon as they see your ID at the hospital for treatment. We can’t go to a hospital.”

I nodded. Public healthcare required you to present a state ID to receive treatment. And neither of us had the money to pay for a private clinic.

Gavin held up a plastic bag from a convenience store. “I got you some painkillers, water and something to wrap your ankle… but we need to get moving. The car’s probably going to be reported and tracked. It’s Dad’s… so they’re going to go to him first.” He gritted his teeth. “Fuck, he’s gonna be pissed.”

I nodded, wearily accepting the pair of pills provided by Gavin from the rattling bottle. I took a deep enough pull from the bottle of water that I nearly choked, but managed to keep everything down as I looked at him for guidance. “What do we do next?”

“Do you know anyone we can talk to?” asked Gavin, pressing his lips together as he pulled out a cheap, bulky, and rectangular convenience-store-bought phone. “I can’t call any of my family without risking them getting in trouble with the cops too.”

I frowned. Anika and Beth would be the best possible option, if I actually knew their phone numbers. “Can I see the phone?”

Gavin nodded as he offered it. “Yeah, I just finished installing a VPN app. As far as everyone else knows, you’re calling in from Norway. If you’re calling direct, just make sure you use the VoIP app instead of cell data, ‘cause they can track that.”

I nodded, logging into my Discourse account and making a call to Beth.

She picked up almost immediately. “Zoey?” she mumbled blearily. “What’s going on? What time is it?”

“I ran away from home,” I said, my voice shaking as I finally opened up to the nightmare I was living through. “Dad kicked Paige out of the house earlier and she’s on the run with Ruth. I tried to escape with my boyfriend tonight. Dad caught me and attacked me, but I fought him off. I hurt myself fighting. Me and Gavin need a place to hide. We think the cops are looking for us. Please… we need help.”

I quietly held my breath as my heart pounded blood into my head, counting out the silent seconds. I heard whispering in the background.

“Holy shit, Zoey, are you serious?” Anika cut in, her voice sharp.

“Yeah,” I croaked, “Sorry.”

She took a deep breath and released it. “Okay, where are you now?”

“In a parking garage on Grand and State street, across from the convenience store,” replied Gavin, leaning in closer.

“Are you calling from a personal phone?” asked Anika sharply.

Gavin snorted. “Hell no. I got a burner phone. We’re using a VPN.”

“Good kid,” breathed Anika, “And neither of you are carrying anything that can be tracked, right?”

“I tossed my phone out as soon as we left Zoey’s house,” replied Gavin.

“I don’t have anything, Dad took it all,” I added, trying to help.

“Okay… are both of you wearing something to cover your faces? Something with hoods?” continued Anika, as if checking off a list.

Gavin reached into a bag and pulled out those papery masks people would wear when they were sick. “Yeah we got masks. And both of us have hoodies.”

“Listen very carefully,” said Anika, her voice tense, “You should assume they will be able to track you to where you are now. Car companies will give data to cops without hesitation. They might be able to requisition the local security cam footage to follow where you’re going as well. I can’t say how much time you have, but you need to get moving. Give me a second to find you a way to escape… JADE! WAKE UP! ZOEY’S IN TROUBLE!”

I winced as her shout blew through the speaker. I didn’t know that Jade lived with them, but I was grateful for her presence.

“Zoey, listen to me,” breathed Beth, now taking the call. “You’re going to be fine. We’ve done this before and we’ll do the best we can to get you two to safety, okay? Put those masks on and get moving out of the parking lot. Let me know when you’re at the exit, okay?”

Me and Gavin exchanged glances and while it was still difficult as my body ached in pain, I was able to get upright with Gavin’s help and limp out of the car.

The surrounding parking garage was nothing but empty yellow lines stretching in all directions, lit by the buzzing of fluorescent lights swarmed by insects. I slipped the paper mask over my face and pulled my hood up, as Gavin did the same. Wincing with every step, Gavin got me to a nearby stairwell that smelled of stale cigarettes and fresh pee and we began to climb down.

“Guess we’ve got another stealth dungeon to get through,” sighed Gavin, laughing nervously.

I couldn’t help but laugh along with him, even as my ankle burned like fire. “Y-yeah,” I breathed, “Just be grateful that Zach isn’t here to aggro every single mob we pass.”

“Oh shit, I forgot about that raid,” laughed Gavin, shaking his head, “Fuck, Harry was about to kill him. I lost track of how many wipes we had. You should have seen him at school the next day. Said that if Zach pulled one more time, he was going to personally uninstall RoR from his box and smash it to pieces.”

“It’s… weird to think about,” I sighed, pressing my lips together as we navigated the stairwell. “Those old days. It feels like an entirely different life. I sort of miss it.”

“Same,” breathed Gavin, nodding slowly. “It was simpler… less complicated.”

“But… I… I don’t want to go back to it either,” I said, frowning as I turned to look at him. “This hurts… but it’s real. Everything feels so much more… here now. I couldn’t have ever…” I felt myself flush, “kissed you and told you how I felt if I didn’t go through all this.”

“I could only imagine,” sighed Gavin, nodding slowly. He smirked at me. “You know… we still haven’t kissed in the real world.”

“As sweet as this is,” chimed in a bemused voice from the phone, “I think we need to focus on what’s in front of us. Hi, I’m Jade and I’ll be your personal swine wrangler for the evening. Nice to hear your voice Zoey and… what’s your name?”

“Gavin,” he replied, frowning faintly. “I’m her boyfriend.”

“Got it,” said Jade nonchalantly, “Pleased to meet you. I’m going to try to get you two out of trouble. I’m sending you a link now. Click it and download the app so I can get your location.”

“Uh… can’t they track the GPS?” Gavin asked warily, as he fiddled with the phone. “I mean, they’ll definitely know to track the only signal here, given that nobody else is in this parking lot right now.”

“Yep, that’s why this app doesn’t use GPS. The app triangulates your location based on surrounding known public wireless networks and their strengths. Completely passive,” replied Jade. “Relax kiddos, I’ve done this before.”

“From Zoey’s perspective, Jade. You were running from your parents,” chirped Anika, “But don’t let me stop you.”

Jade scoffed as Gavin clicked through a few prompts on the screen. I squinted to see what he was doing. It was alien to see everything so flattened outside of a holographic interface and all contained in a tiny little screen. How did old people deal with this back in the past?

“Okay, got you,” replied Jade, breathing a sigh of relief. “Let me trace out a path for you two. Keep your heads down and just follow the map. You should be able to avoid most of the cameras so the pigs can’t follow you. We’ll meet you at the destination.”

“I’ll pick you up,” said Beth, audibly moving around as she spoke. “Jade, keep them moving and safe. Honey, come with me.”

“Got it,” barked Anika, also moving.

In the tense minutes that followed, Jade walked us through the path on the map app, which wound us through empty alleys and closed storefronts. The streets were still, and illuminated only by the buzzing of overhead streetlights. What few people were crawling around in the middle of the night paid no attention to us. As we turned a corner, Jade hissed at us suddenly to stop for a few minutes, telling us to remain next to a particularly smelly dumpster in a brick-walled alley. “Against the wall. Duck down.”

“What-” I began.

“Shh,” she hissed. “Quiet. Wait.”

We did so, and as we did, from the alley, we saw a cop car drive past. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I drew closer to Gavin. He held me tight, and I could feel him shaking. Thankfully, the shadows of the waning night did enough to keep us from being seen.

“Okay, he rounded the corner. Keep moving,” sighed Jade.

“How did you know that he was there?” I asked.

“You got some kind of cop-tracking app?” snorted Gavin in awe.

“My dad was a cop,” grumbled Jade, “And in addition to leaving me with a shitload of scars and trauma, I was able to steal his logins and use them to peek in on the pigs’ networks. They track one another to see who’s closest to call in backup. This shit kept me safe when I was living on the streets. His login still works because he never bothered to change the password, the lazy fuck.”

“So… you can see what the cops see?” I asked, blinking in amazement.

“Yep… I’ve even got your police report,” chuckled Jade, “‘Deadname Harlow, age sixteen, kidnapped by an African-American male, aged twenty to thirty.” She snorted. “Wow, they seriously can’t tell the age of anyone who isn’t white, can they? ‘Mr. Louis Harlow attempted to stop the act and was brutally and viciously attacked by the perpetrator.’ Oof, Zoey, they got an awful picture of you for the report. Wearing a striped tie and button down shirt with a Bible in your hands. You look so miserable.” 

“It was my baptism,” I grunted as my ankle twinged again. We rounded through another alley as I viscerally remembered that photo and the discomfort in having to dress and look like that. 

“They got a good pic of your dad though, Zoey. Holy shit you two fucked him up. Couldn’t happen to a better guy. They haven’t pegged Gavin as the suspect yet, but I think they got a snapshot of your dad’s license plate. It’s got a picture of your dad as a person of interest, I think. Harvey Jones, right?”

“Yeah…” hissed Gavin, wincing in embarrassment, “That’s him.”

“Oof,” sighed Jade, “They’ll probably drag him in for questioning.”

“Fuck,” hissed Gavin, “They’re going to have a field day. Dad’s got a massive record after what Zoey’s racist fucking dad and his pet pig did.”

I winced. Even if I had no way that I could have stopped him, I still felt miserable knowing that the monster who had caused so much damage to our lives shared a portion of my DNA.

“Seeing your dad’s rap sheet now. Looks to be a whole lot of trumped up bullshit, but that’s usually good enough for them to lock someone up,” said Jade, her voice wavering. “Shit, I’m sorry, Gavin.”

“This is my fault,” Gavin breathed, wiping at his eyes. "Goddamn it, Dad’s going to jail.”

“No Gavin!” I insisted, staring him down. “Holy shit, this was my choice to run. My choice to fight. Don’t you dare try to take that away from me.”

“Zoey… I, as a black male, took you, a white woman, into a car and attacked your white father,” he said, his voice tight, “I am in so much more danger than you right now. The cops might kill me if they find me. And I have no idea what they’re going to do to Dad. Jesus fuck, I should have fucking thought this through.”

“The good news is that you have people looking out for you,” insisted Jade, “Whether it’s in RoEM or real life, the Guardians look after their own. And on that note, look to your right.”

I saw headlights coming down the nearby road as a car turned around the corner next to the nearby post office. As I peered closer, I saw familiar faces behind the glass.

Anika and Beth. Breathing a sigh of relief, me and Gavin limped towards them.

Beth stopped the car, opened the door and rushed over to wrap me in her arms. Anika did the same. I broke down sobbing, letting the burden of the pain wash away in the warmth of my real family’s embrace.

Finally, after all the pain and uncertainty, we could have a moment of safety.

___________________________________________________

Gavin didn’t leave my side as I collapsed into Beth and Anika’s bed. I felt more than a little guilty for taking it, but Beth insisted that I needed a comfortable rest to heal. Gavin wrapped his arms around me as I slept, and hazy dreams filled my mind, with flickerings and snapshots of memories, fears and the present all roiling together into an ugly mess.

I woke again, to the sound of voices. Familiar ones and an unfamiliar one.

“She should go to a hospital,” rumbled the deeper, unfamiliar voice. “I don’t have an imager in my pocket to see if anything is broken, but dollars to doughnuts her arm’s probably a break… if I go in blind to fix things, I would do more harm than good.”

“If we send her to a hospital, they’ll send her back to her parents where her dad will kill her, either fast or slow,” shot back Jade angrily.

“I know it’s not ideal,” said Beth, her voice even and calm. “But that's all we can do at present… until we can find a long-term solution. She needs treatment.”

“Any luck on finding her sister?” asked Anika, her voice tense.

“I reached out to some of my contacts at the Center, but nothing solid yet,” Beth replied.

“Dad,” said Aiden, which made me realize who the unfamiliar voice was. “Are there any… like… back-alley contacts or something you can go through? Someone who can take care of Zoey without telling anyone?”

“Aiden, do you think that I just know mob doctors or something?” sighed his dad. “You watch too many true crime shows.”

“Uh… I might have an idea,” says LD, uncertainly. I blinked in surprise at realizing that they had come for me as well. “My… mom is a vet. She might be able to get us an MRI. I mean, I don’t know if she’ll be down with all the legal issues, but it’s an option.”

I pushed myself off the bed, my body protesting, but not enough to cripple me entirely. Gavin grunted, rudely awakened as he wiped at his eyes. “Huh?”

“Hey,” I breathed, smiling so wide I could barely stand it. “I… thank you Gavin. I… I couldn’t have done it without my boyfriend.”

“I mean, don’t thank me yet,” he grunted, scratching at the back of his head. “I might have just gotten us into worse trouble.” 

I shook my head and leaned forward, putting my weight on my good hand. “Maybe I like trouble?” I said, waggling my eyebrows.

“Now, that’s the Zoey I fell in love with,” Gavin grinned, leaning closer to me.

We kissed. Despite all the ways my body was wrong or broken or hurt, the feeling of his breath meeting my own, his tongue dancing with mine and the duet of our voices sighing with joy made all of it irrelevant. He was my boyfriend and I was his girlfriend. There was nothing more natural.

Until the door opened and light flooded into the bedroom.

“Whoops!” hissed Aiden, shutting it closed again. “Sorry! Sorry!”

“What’s going on?” asked his dad, his voice concerned.

Me and Gavin shared miserably awkward gazes for a moment and nodded as we got out of the bed. Gavin helped me to my feet and let me lean against him and avoid my busted ankle.

“Okay, okay,” I breathed, pushing the door open. “I’m awake. What time is it?”

The windows outside revealed the light of the morning which flowed into the apartment through the blinds. I still didn’t feel like I’d gotten enough rest. I could probably have slept for days and still not felt satisfied. But there was work to be done. I could sleep later.

I hadn’t gotten a great view of the apartment when I stumbled into it a few hours ago. It was small-ish, with a large couch and loveseat stuffed into the corner with a table in the center. A round kitchen table with a trio of chairs sat in the center of the apartment, decorated with a bundle of flowers in a vase. The kitchen in the back had a slight pile of dishes and pans sitting in the sink, but it was otherwise clean and organized. A small table near the doorway had a little purple tablecloth with moons stamped on it and a series of candles in a circle around a central bowl. Above the table there hung a literal wooden longbow on the wall, suspended by a peg.

The walls of the apartment were decorated with colorful pride flags (I didn’t recognize any of the colors save for the blue, pink and white of the trans flag) and a few photos of Beth and Anika together.

“Zoey! You’re awake!” cheered Beth, stepping around the others and (carefully) wrapping me in a hug. “How are you feeling?”

“My ankle still hurts and my arm is a giant ball of pain,” I hissed. “I don’t suppose anyone has any healing potions or can maybe ask one of the gods for healing?”

“Uh,” intoned what I assumed to be Aiden’s dad, eying the crowd around us, “Is h-she okay?” 

“She’s making a joke, Dad,” sighed Aiden, placing a reassuring hand on his arm.

Aiden’s dad was a larger man, stocky and well-muscled, with thick hair on his arms. His dark, shaggy hair stuck out from a number of angles and his blue eyes were narrowed in concern as he watched me. He was dressed in green medical scrubs along with sneakers and he seemed rather tired, but otherwise friendly.

“Okay… Zoey?” he waited for me to confirm my name, which I did with a nod. “Sit down here on this couch and let me check a few things, okay?”

I winced as Gavin helped me follow Aiden’s dad’s instructions with a minimum of pain. Anika helped me lie back down and propped my feet up on the armrest in the exact way that would have made my dad furious.

Well… less infuriated than he was now, obviously. I imagined that Dad had reached a new level of rage at this point. 

Aiden’s dad squatted down at my feet, reaching out for my busted ankle. He looked over to me cautiously. “Okay Zoey, my name is Riley. I’m Aiden’s dad. I’m an RN… a registered nurse,” he said, slowly and carefully as he unwrapped my ankle, “I need to see if your ankle or arm is broken or sprained. This isn’t going to be fun, but I promise you that I’ll do everything I can to not hurt you, okay?”

I nodded, watching Riley gingerly grab my ankle between his thumbs and pointer fingers. 

“Does this hurt more?” he squeezed, and I hissed. He moved his fingers slightly. “Or this?” He squeezed again and while it hurt, it did hurt less.

“The first,” I wheezed, as Gavin knelt down and held my hand.

“Okay, good. I think that means we have a sprain,” he sighed. “Uh… Jade, could you reach over and fish out that cold pack I put in the freezer?”

Jade nodded and did so, offering Riley a plastic cuff emanating frozen mist. “Just like old times, eh Mister O?” she chirped, as he accepted it.

“Thankfully, Zoey isn’t in the same shape you were in when I treated you,” he said, carefully wrapping my ankle as I gritted my teeth. Gavin reached out and caressed my shoulder and I leaned into his touch. “Okay, how does that feel?” Riley asked.

“Cold…?” I said, feeling rather silly saying so.

“Not too tight?” he asked warily.

I shook my head. I could feel the cold beginning to cut down on the throbbing pain slightly.

“We’ll have to get you a boot so you can walk around again, but I think we need to look at your arm next,” he stood up and walked around the couch to lean down at my shoulder. My arm was an ugly, inflamed red and still shrieked with agony at the lightest touch. 

“It’s broken, isn’t it?” said Aiden, stepping beside his father.

“Probably,” he grumbled, gingerly reaching down to my shoulder with his fingers again. “Just need to figure out where.” He looked down at me. “This is going to hurt. A lot. I’m going to do my best not to hurt you more than is necessary, but I need to get an idea of where the break is. I’m going to work my way down the shoulder and the arm and I need you to tell me when the pain is the worst.”

I nodded, gritting my teeth. “Do it,” I hissed, clenching my good fist.

It was miserable. Starting at my shoulder, he pinched it with his thumb and forefinger. Each touch was a nightmare of suffering until I nearly felt like I would pass out when he reached my wrist. Only Gavin’s touch and reassurance on my other arm was enough to anchor me to this world. As he reached my fingers and hand, they absolutely hurt, but nowhere near the level of my wrist.

Riley bit his lip. “Yeah, she needs imaging. Wrist fractures are fiddly little things and if they aren’t set properly they can cause all kinds of problems.”

“Well, good news on that front,” said LD, stepping out of the nearby hallway, tapping on their phone earpiece. “Mom was all kinds of pissed that I’d gotten roped into this mess, but she agreed to let us use the MRI at her clinic, no questions asked.” They snorted. “Well… actually lots of questions asked, but she’s not gonna snitch on you to the cops.”

“Alright,” sighed Riley, nodding. “Then we can get her there. Uh… You go by  LD, now?” He looked up at them and they nodded. “Okay, thanks.” He turned to Aiden and Jade. “You and…” he turned to Gavin, frowning. “Uh?”

“Gavin,” he supplied, still squeezing my hand. “I’m her boyfriend.”

Every time he said the word, my mind positively spun with delight. He’s my boyfriend! I’m his girlfriend!

“Okay, help me get her up. I can carry her to the car,” he said, nodding. Riley looked up to Beth and Anika. “Any luck with her sister?”

Beth shook her head. “No…” she frowned. She looked over to me. “Would she have anyone to reach out to?”

“Her girlfriend, I guess,” I said, allowing Gavin and Riley to pull me up. “Uh… Ruth Sason?”

Jade pulled up her phone interface and began typing in the air. “Well, we have a lead, at any rate,” she said after a moment. “Ruth went missing from her home. I’m guessing she and your sister ran off together.”

“Try talking to Molly… the hairdresser!” I called back as I was being carried out of Anika and Beth’s apartment. It was the only person I could think of that they shared a connection with.

Riley shut the door behind us as Gavin, LD, Jade and Aiden stepped out into the hallway. 

“Might be a bit of a squeeze, but we should all be able to fit into the SUV,” Riley grunted as he led the way. He looked down at me. “You doing okay?”

I looked up at Riley with a strange sense of disbelief. I wasn’t sure if Dad had ever carried me, at least as far as I could remember. Being in his arms was a sign that he was going to hold me in place so he could shout at me. The idea of a father actually carrying me and worrying about me was absolutely alien.

“Y-yeah,” I said, still staring at his clean-shaven, smiling face. “T-thanks.”

He nodded as he continued to carry me down the hallway. 

“You… you’re actually okay with Aiden being transgender?” I asked as we stepped down the hall. “All of us being trans? I mean, except for Gavin.”

“Sadly, I am but a humble cis boy,” he sighed dramatically, putting a hand over his heart. “I blame my parents, honestly.”

“Well, I won’t say that it didn’t take time for me to understand,” said Riley, a smirk on his face. “Aiden had to spend a lot of time educating me and I still mess up sometimes… but I can tell that Aiden is happier this way than he’d ever been before. You weren’t a particularly happy girl, were you?”

“Gosh, what was it that tipped you off?” snorted Aiden, shaking his head. “Was it when I set my church dress on fire? Or when I took a pair of scissors to my hair?”

He nodded with a faint chuckle. “Daria… my ex… she wasn’t too happy with the idea,” he sighed sadly as we rounded down the apartment staircase. “Said Aiden was ‘confused’ and that it was that dang ‘social media contagion’ or whatever. We tried to get her to see reason, but then she started hanging out with those turds online…”

“TERFs, Dad,” said Aiden. “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists.”

“I know what I said, son,” replied Riley, which caused us to chuckle. “Point is, she told me it was between her and my boy, and I knew who I had to choose. And I’ve met others, too.” He gestured to Jade. “Seen how people can change for the better.”

Jade flushed slightly, not quite meeting his gaze. “Ugh” she mumbled, pushing on the door outside which led us into the daylight and parking lot with a handful of cars. "Don't remind me."

“Jade was actually a bigot at first,” said Aiden, putting a hand on her shoulder as we stepped over to a large blue SUV which opened its doors for us as we approached. “We met at a rally.”

“I was a dumbass,” sighed Jade, shaking her head. “An angry little shit just looking for people to fight. Me and the other chuds were chasing after a group of activists and I tripped over the curb. The others just stepped on me and left me behind. My ‘brothers in arms’ didn’t give two shits about me if I wasn’t able to fight,” She glanced over to Aiden. “He was the one who stopped and helped me up. Got his dad to treat me.”

“We’d gone over the story of the Good Samaritan at church that week,” Aiden said, smiling. “I kind of took it to heart.”

“I got to admit that I was a little terrified of Jade at the time,” sighed Riley, “She was shouting and hollering and calling me all kinds of nasty things. It was my boy who told me that I needed to set an example and be better.”

We slid into the car, with Gavin letting me rest my head on his lap in the middle bench, leaving LD in the front to give directions and Jade and Aiden in the back. Riley slid into the seat and punched in the address provided by LD.

“We talked,” Jade said, hugging herself, “I was desperate to prove that Aiden had been lied to or brainwashed… but looking back on it, I realized that it was me who had been lied to. I was told that if I was enough of a man,” she spat out the word, “That the weakness… those feelings inside… would go away.” She flexed an arm. “It took Aiden to explain to me that femininity wasn’t the same thing as weakness. And that I didn’t need to fit someone else’s mold.”

“That’s… really incredible,” I breathed, staring up at her. “So… you were able to change? I mean… not just like… the transgender thing… but like… your ideas? Your beliefs?”

“It took a while,” she forced out a breath, “And I made some mistakes. But yeah, I did the hard work to untangle everything. It helped that I had friends to help me carry that weight.”

“You just needed to get some space from that toxic mess of a home, honestly,” said LD, turning around in their chair to face us. “Your dad was a fucking psycho.”

“How did you figure yourself out?” I asked LD.

They shrugged. “Still sort of working on that. But Jade helped clue me in a little on the whole gender thing. Showed up for band practice one day in a dress. Dared any of us to make fun of her. I took the first step and asked her where she got it. Showed up to the next practice wearing my own dress.” LD sighed. “I’d always been okay with dressing up one way or another. Did drag a few times. Eventually I realized that the labels “boy” or “girl” didn’t really mean much to me.” They sighed as they looked over their shoulder. I could see that we were beginning to slow down. “Can’t say the same for my parents, unfortunately.”

“We gotcha LD,” insisted Aiden, giving them a thumbs-up from the back seat. 

They nodded, but kept glancing over their shoulder uncomfortably. We were drawing close to what looked to be a clinic. The car switched to manual as Riley maneuvered it into an open parking space.

Riley parked the car and got out, circling around to open the door and help me walk, with Gavin providing assistance. As we moved out of the SUV and into the lot, I could see the building before us with the sliding glass doors and storefront. The sign hanging above read, PawsMedic Animal Clinic. We moved inside and were met by a tall, severe-looking woman staring at us in the lobby.

She was wearing a white coat over her scrubs, glaring at all of us over the top of her red, cats-eye glasses. She had dark skin and her hair, black with a few strands of gray, was tied back behind her head in a bundle to reveal her sharp cheekbones and thin frown. Her brown eyes immediately swiveled onto LD with a look of extreme frustration.

“God damn it, boy,” she sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose. “What the hell kind of mess have you gotten yourself into?”

LD pressed their lips together for a moment before replying. “She needed help.”

Their mom glanced over at Jade. “She’s one of your bandmates, right? What’s wrong?”

“Uh… her,” added Riley, nodding his head over to me. “Doctor,” he added politely.

She peered at me for a moment, frowning. “Oh… so he’s one of those, too?” she sighed, gingerly taking my arm. I hissed in pain, both from the act and from the misery of being casually denied my identity like that.

“She,” growled Gavin, stepping forward. “Her name is Zoey.”

“And how did ‘Zoey’,” she pronounced my name with casual dismissal, “End up like this? Some stupid skateboard trick or you and your band friends acting like fools?”

“I had to jump out my bedroom window and fight off my father to escape from being imprisoned in my own house,” I said sharply, staring at her with barely constrained fury. “Is that a good enough excuse?”

She stared at me, blinking in sudden surprise. I was in too much pain to care about being polite anymore. Especially for someone who wasn’t even going to treat my identity as valid.

“Okay,” she nodded, hiking a thumb over her shoulder. “Follow me.”

We passed into the larger lobby past the entrance. A woman with a birdcage and a man with a large dog casually watched us as we stepped past the front desk and down a hallway of doors, each marked with “EXAM ROOM” and a particular number.

“Hailey,” sighed LD’s mom, turning to the younger girl at the desk. “I need to clean up Luke’s mess. I’ll be back on duty in a second.”

The girl, Hailey, nodded, but gave LD a sympathetic look as they passed.

She opened a door into an office and let me and Riley in. She held up a hand to the others. “Go sit down in the lobby.”

“She’s my girlfriend,” said Gavin, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

LD’s mom didn’t seem moved. “Either you go sit down, or I call the cops.”

Gavin’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?!”

She shook her head. “Look… I really don’t want to. But I need to talk to… them alone,” her voice softened. “Please?”

Gavin looked as if he had eaten something rotten, but nodded all the same. He looked up to me. “I’ll wait for you.”

“I know,” I breathed, feeling more than a little terrified of being separated.

LD’s mom closed the door behind us as Riley helped me lie down on a long bench in the center of the room. The room was covered in teal green tiles and smelled faintly of animal droppings, with countertops and posters along the walls. LD’s mom stepped up to the bench, pulled down a light on a hanging arm bolted into the ceiling and started to look carefully.

“Pretty sure it’s a scaphoid or lower carpal fracture,” said Riley, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well I’m pretty sure that you should take this child to a damn human ER to be treated by someone who went to school for this, but here we are,” she grumbled, squeezing my wrist as I barely bit down a scream through clenched teeth. She looked up at him warily. “How much trouble is my boy in, Riley?”

“Your child,” insisted Riley evenly, “Is fine. Zoey and Gavin are on the run because her father kicked out Zoey’s sister and tried to lock her in her room. She’s a runaway. Both her and Gavin had to fight her father off to escape.”

LD’s mom forced a sigh through her nose as she gingerly allowed my arm to rest on the table at my side. “Oh good… so Luke is only aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

“I notice you still let us into your clinic,” said Riley, raising an eyebrow. “You’re liable too, right?”

“The sooner I can get this boy out of here, the sooner I can lock my boy in his room for the rest of his life,” hissed LD’s mom, pulling another box down from the ceiling with a sort of wide, disconnected hoop to it.

“I’m a girl,” I said, staring hard at her.

She maneuvered the hoop around my wrist, pulling my arm out off the bench, clicking the wide cuff in place. “How old are you?”

“...Sixteen,” I replied cautiously.

“Two years,” said LD’s mom, nodding as she clicked a button on the machine. It hummed to life and automatically and slowly moved up and down the length of my arm “Two years and you’d have been an adult and you could have walked out of his front door and nobody could have stopped you.” She shook her head. “Look, I get it. My daddy was a drunken piece of shit. But I waited it out until he couldn’t stop me anymore. I studied, took out loans, got my degree and finally made something of myself.”

She held out her arms. “I understand what it’s like to live in an abusive home. I really do… I know what it’s like for people to treat you like human garbage when they have power over you. But if you keep your head down and wait it out you can survive and you can escape… when you try to fight back…” she tapped her phone earpiece and projected a screen in front of us. “This is what you get.”

A spectral projection of my wrist, with a clear fracture line outlined in red hovered before me, but I continued to stare past it at her.

“But I don’t want to survive,” I exclaimed, blinking back tears. “I want to live! I’ve been surviving for my entire life and I’d break every bone in my body to escape that!”

She forced out a sigh, shaking her head. “Brave… but stupid.”

She went quiet, looking away for a moment before speaking again.

“I know I’ve told this story to Luke a million times, but I think you should hear it too. It’s all well and good to fight for yourself, but you can’t forget it comes with a risk. I lost my granddad during the first Black Lives Matter protests that way,” she said, turning back to face me. 

Pursing her lips as she manipulated the holographic scan of my wrist, examining it closely. “Fighting back caused a cop to crack his skull open with a nightstick. Died of a brain bleed on the pavement as they all watched and laughed. The piece of shit who did it was never charged and the city didn’t give us a damn cent. Grandma had to care for my daddy, his brothers and sisters alone…and  she never got over losing Granddad. Daddy just disappeared into a bottle to cope.” With shaking hands, she adjusted the projection and peered at it. “I’d give anything to protect my boy from ending up like that. I hate seeing how those bullies at school grind him down to nothing when he walks through the front door…”

“Then how come you’re bullying them the moment they come home, too?” I asked, sharply. “Because when you refuse to acknowledge who LD is… that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

“You don’t understand!” she snapped, waving the image aside and stomping up to me. “How could you?! Are you a parent?! You don’t know what I’d do to protect my boy! I know he hates me for it! But if he’d just stop painting a target on himself, he wouldn’t be hurting like this! It breaks my heart to see him keep putting his hand in a fire and I’m doing everything I can to get him to just stop!”

“You think if we could stop being like this that we wouldn’t?!” I said, positively shaking with fury. “I didn’t ask for this! None of us did! It’s the rest of the world that’s gotten itself so twisted. We’re just being ourselves!”

Riley stepped forward, putting a hand on my good shoulder.

“Wanda,” he said, softly, “You know I would fight God and all His angels to protect my boy. You know that.”

LD’s mom… Wanda, I supposed her name was, looked up at Riley, nodding slowly.

“I didn’t understand it at first… how could I? I’d raised Aiden since he was a kid… I’d changed his diapers. I remembered him wearing that cute little pink onesie with the words “Daddy’s Girl” on it,” he took in a deep breath and wiped at his eyes. “But… he outgrew it. Kids change, Wanda. And I’ve come to realize that we can’t know who our kids really are until they figure it out for themselves.”

Wanda didn’t say anything. She looked down at the floor pensively.

“However LD discovers themself, they’ll need family to support them,” said Riley, stepping closer to her. “And while they’ve found their own family… you’re welcome to join it again. Become a part of it.” He put an arm on her shoulder. She flinched at the contact but didn’t move.

“I… don’t understand it,” she whispered. She looked up at me, almost pleadingly. “I don’t get it. I look at you and I see… well… okay, maybe after you… change and do the hormones and surgeries or whatever... I could see a girl looking back at me. I mean… I got used to Va- sorry, Aiden after a while. But what the hell is an ‘enbee’?! Luke dresses up like a boy and then a girl and l… it’s so damn confusing!”

“You care for your kid. You love them for who they are. You support them and you learn, Wanda,” said Riley, stepping between us. “You love your child. It’s not confusing. It’s not complicated. People just make it complicated because they’re more attached to the idea of their child rather than the living, breathing person in front of them.”

Wanda didn’t reply. She stepped over to a nearby drawer and pulled out a roll of some kind of tape or gauze. “I need to wrap this up… we’ll set a cast for the wrist. Nothing else seems to be damaged badly enough.” She looked up to Riley. “Help me?”

Riley nodded and while it was unpleasantly painful, they made quick work of wrapping my arm up.

“H-She should be fine after six to twelve weeks… you can come back to me and I’ll cut it off,” she nodded and went to wash her hands.

“I’ll cover Zoey’s bill,” said Riley, firmly.

Wanda shook her head, looking back over her shoulder at me. “Don’t… I don’t want a paper trail … and,” she gave a soft smile. “She’s… family, I suppose.”

I blinked in shock at that. I couldn’t be sure that she was going to accept LD for who they were… I couldn’t even be sure that she really saw me as a girl. But I could at the very least see that she had finally chosen to start listening.

It was a start. And as I looked down to my wrapped and immobile forearm, I realized that healing took time.

______________________________________________

As we stepped out of the room, Gavin bolted over to me, nearly knocking me off my feet as he crashed into me with a hug. With the help of a boot-like device, I was able to move without putting weight on my ankle. Even though I had to limp to get anywhere, I was able to move under my own power. My arm was wrapped up, and while it was far from comfortable, I was finally able to move the remainder of my arm without it hurting… or at least hurting as badly.

 Wanda stepped out of the office behind me and waved over LD. She hiked a thumb over her shoulder.

“We… I want to talk to you,” she said, softly. 

LD crossed their arms over their chest. “Do I get to say anything or is this just going to be another lecture?”

Wanda scowled for a moment, and opened her mouth as if to shout… but stopped short. She inhaled and exhaled. “I… I want to understand… I know me and your father haven’t done a great job of that. And… I’m sorry about that…” she chewed her lip for a moment. “I’m sorry… LD.”

LD’s eyes widened and their mouth hung open. Slowly, as if in a daze, they walked over to their mother as they cocked their head to the side. They blinked and their mouth moved but no words could escape.

“Treasure this moment, Wanda,” said Riley, putting a hand on her shoulder as he walked past and accepted a hug from his son. “There’s nothing quite like it. When you finally get their name right… when you finally look into their eyes and see your child looking back at you. It’s like that first moment after they’re born all over again.”

Wanda swallowed hard, but nodded, still keeping her eyes fixed on her child. “Come on,” she said, stepping away.

Me, Jade and Aiden all placed a hand on their shoulder to nudge them forward and they dimly nodded as they followed their mother away from us.

Family wasn’t always about blood… it was about the love between people that bound them together. It was a choice. And for what looked to be the first time, Wanda had begun to choose her child over her imagined son.