Renata sticks her head out from her hiding spot to see if the three men that had been tailing her were gone. If it wasn’t for her dressing like a teenage girl, she wouldn’t be able to work or walk down the streets. She wonders why they were out here looking for her now after a year? They had followed her from the Piggy Wiggly where she stopped to get a money order to pay her rent. She had spotted them when she walked across the street to get to the other side. She then leads them on a wild goose chase, taking back roads and side streets, so she wouldn’t lead them to her apartment. Renata had then duck inside a store and watched as they drove by.

Once she realizes the coast was clear. She starts walking towards her apartment. It was small and over a convenience store that was owned by a friendly old man. He didn’t mind her being Spanish. She didn’t know what her father was. She only knew her mother was Spanish. She knew her step-father wasn’t her father, even tho her mother kept insisting that he was. There was no way her step-father could be her biological father. She had none of his traits or looks. You could see those in her younger brother and sister. They both had traits from him, where she took completely after her mother in looks and build. Her mother was a small petite woman just like her and most of her looks where Spanish, where her sibling had features from their biological father.

Renata heads up a flight of stairs after unlocking the outer door and headed upstairs to the door to her studio apartment. It wasn’t much, but at least it was better than living on the streets like she had done after being thrown out of her house by her father and mother. They had caught her coming home from a transgender meeting at the local LGBT center. It wasn’t the first time they had caught her sneaking in dress in some of her sister castoffs or even his mother’s things that he had sneaked from her laundry. His step-father whipped him so bad and tossed him out onto the sidewalk with just the clothes on his back. His mom refused to help him at all. His sister met him the next day at their favorite spot and gave her some money she took from their father and said if he ever needed anything to call her.

Renata hated the fact that she had been born a male and knew how she felt since she was four years old. She enjoyed playing with dolls and wearing pretty dresses and such. At first her parents didn’t have a problem with it, but as she got older they tried to force her towards more male oriental things. Like trying to get her to play football, which she didn’t like. Her father had signed her up for hockey, but kept falling on her butt or miss the shots directed towards her during practice and during the game. She wasn’t built like the guys in her neighborhood. She was more into dance and acrobatics, not baseball, hockey or basketball. He didn’t mind volleyball, but it wasn’t considered a manly sport by his father.

Renata sits her purse down on the living room table and look out through her window to see if those two men were anywhere around. She knew she gave them the slip, but why were they still after her? It’s been almost a year since she testified against their gang leader and that was when she was still forced to dress as a male. Renata grabs a Pepsi from the refrigerator and walks over towards her sofa and let her mind drift back to the events of that year.

The first week on the streets had been tough for her. She could remember sleeping at the shelters and abandon building. She was lucky that it was still summer, but the unbelievable heat during the day was something she wasn’t prepared for. She tried getting a job from one of those temp agencies that paid you by the day for work, but because she had no identification on her, they wouldn’t take her. She had come across a bunch of guys standing on the street corner and learned that sometimes people like construction site owners and farmers would come by and pick people to come and work under the table for money and such. So, she decided to give it a chance figuring someone might choose her to work. The first few days no one took her, but on Thursday of that week she along with several guys were chosen to work. They loaded up in the back of a beat-up pick-up truck and was taken to a warehouse. Once inside the warehouse, they were told they would be working all weekend and if they had a problem with it to tell them now.

So, for the next four days she had been force to load and unload container trucks all day long and into the night. They gave them fifteen minutes of rest in between containers and feed them dinner every day. When they stopped for the night, which sometimes was late at night. They would escort them to a room with a half bathroom and made them sleep on the floor. The room was locked at night so they couldn’t get out and there was no window in their either. That went on for the whole weekend and when they took them back to where they originally picked them up, they gave them a hundred dollars each for the job.

She spent some of the hundred buying a couple of shirts and pants from a local thrift store and a beat-up backpack. That night the shelter she stayed out had a shower she could use to clean-up and change her clothes. The food they served wasn’t too bad. The next day she went back to the same street corner and was picked by a middle age man to come back to his place to do yard work. While she was there doing, the yard work another couple in the neighborhood spotted her and asked if she would be willing to do their yard as well. They would pay her and feed her for the work. So, all the second week and part of the third week she had work from people in the neighborhood and from a few construction foreman that saw her. When she got dropped off at night, she would sleep at the shelter.

One day she had been picked again to work a warehouse along with several others. They had picked like seven of them transported them in a box truck and transported them out to a huge warehouse. They worked all day long in the heat without stopping. If any of them stopped, they had money deducted from the pay they were getting. It was the second day working there when things went south. She remembers hearing cars pulling up to the place and then shouting going on inside a small office. There were three guys in business suits talking with the guy that had hired them and the next thing she knew he was being shot by the guy and the other guys that had come in with him were shooting guns at them. Renata remembers being shot in her shoulder and another bullet grazing her right arm. She remembers falling towards the floor and then several people that were nearby falling on top of her. The next thing she remember was passing out.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was in a hospital room. There was an IV going into her arm and she felt the bandages on her right arm and across her left shoulder. She must had done something to alert the nurse, because the next thing she knew the nurse was coming in.

“Welcome back to the living. We were wondering when you would wake-up.” Carmen smiles at the young man in the hospital bed. She was working when they brought him in from the operation.

Renata looks at the nurse. She had short black hair like his and was slim and young looking.

“Where am I?” Renata still felt a little groggy and his mouth was dry.

“You’re at St. Augustine’s Hospital. You were brought in three days ago,” Carmen checks Renata’s vials and makes notes on a pad she had brought in with her.

“Three days ago?” Renata couldn’t believe it.

“Do you want anything?” Carmen knew she was going to have to inform the detective that their witness was awake.

“Some water would be nice.” Renata felt his throat was extremely dry.

Carmen walks over and grabs one of the packaged pitchers down form the cabinets over the sink and fills it with water. She also grabs a paper cup and takes it over to Renata. After helping him sit-up, Carmen pours him a cup and hands it to him.

“Thank you.” Renata accepts the cup and takes a sip from it. The cool water felt nice against his throat.

“You’re welcome. If you need anything else. Just press the button next to you.” Carmen gives Renata and walks out to check on the rest of her patients.

While Renata is lying in bed looking out the window. She wonders what the cops are going to do when they find out that she was just fifteen years old. Thirty minutes later there’s a knock at her room door and two male police officers come walking in. The first one looked to be as old as her step-father. He was young looking and had light tanned skin. The way he had his hair styled, you could tell he was a cop. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a light blue and black tie. His partner was older and rough looking, like he worked outside all the time. He was taller than the first guy and had a military style haircut. The first one was firmly built, while the older one looked to have a small belly.
Detective Lawrence and his partner Detective King look at the teenager they had been assigned to question as they walked into the hospital room. He didn’t know what to make of the lad. What he saw sitting up in bed looked more to be a girl, then a boy. The kid had long straight black hair down to his shoulder and effeminate features. The kids full head of hair was covering her small ears. His build was short and petite. The first time he had seen a picture of the kid, he thought he was a she. The small button nose, soft cheeks and the oval eyes. The kid had a feminine looking face and body structure.

Detective King hated the fact that he had been assigned to this case. He didn’t like spicks and especially didn’t like freaks like this kid. As far as he felt, all transgender people should be locked up in a mental hospital. He had better things to do instead of being here speaking to this spick brat. If they didn’t need this kid to testify about what happened at the warehouse three days ago. He would leave now.

Detective Lawrence “good afternoon, I’m Detective Lawrence and this is my partner Detective King and we have been assign to your case. I was wondering if you feel up to answering some question for us about what happened three days ago, at that warehouse you were found at?”

“Sure, thing Officer. I don’t mind helping.” Renata didn’t see any reason not to cooperate with the detective.

“Good, can you give me your name and how old you are and then start from the being of that day and what you saw.” Detective Lawrence pulls out his recorder and a note book to make notes.

“My name is Roman García Lozada, and I am 14 years old.” Renata tells the detective everything he experience that day from being picked up at the street corner with several Mexican men to being taken to the warehouse and what they were doing. He tells them about the argument and then the shooting and about him falling and having several people he was standing next to fall on him, covering him and then blacking out and waking up this morning. Renata takes several sips of water during the whole conversion. The first detective stops him occasionally, to ask questions.

Renata had been watching the other detective during the whole time his partner questioned him and wonder why he wasn’t taking notes or asking questions. When the detectives were done. Renata recalled she was relaxed. The weeks that followed were just as bad. He was sent to a boys group home. The boys there were hard core delinquencies and he had to stay there and put up with their abuse and such. Some of them force him to perform oral sex to them. One of the biggest of the boys raped him.

Renata ran away after the trial so he could get away from the abuse. He took a bus out to Austin, Texas where he found a job at a local gay, lesbian bar. He managed to get a fake driver license and birth certificate after finding a stash of money someone had toss away. He hadn’t known it at the time, but the person that toss the money had been arrested for drug possession and part of the local gang. The money and drugs had been tossed during the chase from the cops. The cops found the drugs, but not the money. It wasn’t like it stood out either. The only reason he had found it, was that he had been on his hands and knees pulling weeds from the flower bed he had been hired to remove the old mulch and put new mulch down.