A/N: Sorry for the slightly short chapter, the next chapter will be longer, all that I have to do until it's finished is write the part where Norman calls out Ray for being a traitor, and the end
Emma, starting today let's play tag in teams." Norman says to Emma, who is holding the laundry basket for us, teams could be interesting.
At this rate, most of them would die if they escaped individually." Ray says, I mean he isn't wrong, but they are gaining progress.
"But everyone's movements aren't bad. So we shouldn't break them up individually." Ray says, I grab another shirt and put it up on the wire.
"So we are basically going to play tag but with formations?" I ask facing Norman and he nods, we are most likely going to be team leaders, Don will be upset though saying he should be a team leader since he is older than me by like 1 month.
"We'll play tag in a way that's similar to what the real escape would look like," Ray says, I heard Emma sat the real escape with a small tremble in her voice, I pat her shoulder to get her attention and I smirk, having someone stress about something that we are preparing for is not the best idea.
And I have another idea. Let's tell Don and Gilda. We'll explain the situation and have them lead the teams." Norman says, I highly doubt Don is going to believe our story, especially if we tell him what happened to Connie.
"What if their Mom's informant?" Ray asks Norman, I don't want to think that they are Mom's informant, but they are the oldest besides Emma, Norman, Ray, and I.
"No worries, finding out who the informant is, and also winning them over, I can do those simultaneously." Norman then puts his finger over his lips.
"And I've already made arrangements," Norman says, my eyes widen, he's done all of this in a couple of days without getting caught, I'm not surprised, it is Norman after all.
Emma, for now, I'll tell you 100 types of formation patterns, so memorize them all." Ray says, this should be easier than getting 300's every day on tests, Emma can do it.
"Easy peasy!" She says with her signature smile, Ray then starts saying all the formations, I pick up the empty laundry basket and put it back in the house, we should have enough time to do multiple formations today.
A lot of kids start mumbling about the idea Ray brought up about teams, they are saying things like 'I won't get caught this time!' and 'I can do it!' completely obvious to our actual motive which is to train to escape here.
"Okay then, try not to get caught for 10 minutes," Ray says and everyone starts getting ready to run towards the forest.
"Start." He says, I'm on a team with Don and Gilda, since I'm their age, we jog towards the forest with Emma's team but we split off.
"This is really fun!" Don yells out to us, Don was being a little bit stubborn but he came around and listened to my directions.
"I want to be the leader for the next one!" He says, Don is a good person but he loves to be in charge, it's not a bad thing but it could be an issue when we are trying to escape demons.
"Let's take a break for a little bit," Gilda says, Gilda is the exact opposite of Don, she doesn't want to take charge and follows directions to the exact wording, not wanting to work it out herself. I walk over to Ray, Norman, and Emma who are leaning against the wall.
"It looks like playing tag in teams is going to work!" Emma exclaims to us, I take the last mug of tea off the table and I take a sip. A few seconds pass by before anyone says anything
"What was Phil's score again," Ray says as he eye's Phil, one of the younger kids, he couldn't think that Phil could be the traitor, he's way too young to know what benefits he would get if he was the traitor.
"Let's see, he's averaging about 203 lately, that's pretty high," Emma says, are they seriously debating on whether Phil is the traitor.
"He also survived the time when we played tag with Sister Krone," Ray says, just thinking of Sister Krone makes my blood boil, even when I know she was doing it to lure me out it still makes me mad.
"He's always looking for you, and Norman, with Sherry too." Ray finalizes his point about Phil, everyone goes quiet for a couple of seconds, I put down the tea mug, Emma then holds her head and yells slightly.
"Stop it! I don't want to suspect anyone after all!" She blurts out, she's lucky we are far enough away that no one can hear us, even while yelling.
"Idiot, even when you don't want to you need to suspect more, that's the only way we are going to find this traitor, this is life or death we are talking about." Ray karate chops the back of Emma's head, I look out and see all of our siblings playing, when one or more could be against us, against freedom!
"Ray, any progress on how to break the tracking devices? How long will it be before you can break them?" Norman says, breaking me out of my trance, Ray then starts thinking.
"Let's see. About ten days." Ray says, ten days should be enough to tell the other children, I don't know about training though, that might take another week or two.
"Then let's commence the plan ten days from now," Ray says, what? There's no chance we can get ready in that amount of time. From the look on the others' faces, they seem to agree with me.
"We'll carry out the escape plan ten days from now, on November 8th." Norman finishes off his sentence with a smile, while everyone else's face shows a different look.
"What? There's no chance we can get ready that fast, what if the other kids don't believe us, or their training, we haven't even been doing it for a month." I cut off Ray from snapping off with my own, hopefully, Norman sees my point of view.
"Exactly Kenton, it's only been two weeks since Connie has been shipped, the shipment cycle is two months, so we should have at least a month and a half, we should plan carefully during this time." Ray blurts out too, his look looks different from Emma's, like he is scared that another plan won't work.
"Yea, just as you two thought that way, Mom's controlling us to think that way, too. So we need to outwit that." Norman says, huh, that actually makes sense?
"And what if we fail because we rushed the plan, then what?" Ray outbursts, why is he so mad about what Norman says, sure I looked mad, but I was just confused. Norman isn't the type to rush something.
"Either way, we still need to escape before winter comes. As soon as we can break the tracking devices, let's execute our escape plan as quickly as possible." Norman says, the more that I think about it what he is saying is making sense, the faster we get out, the more time we have until winter and we will get out before Mom even realizes that our plan is ready.
"That means we have to do what's necessary for the remaining ten days." Emma points out, and Norman nods, I'm still worried about the training, but I'm on Norman's side now. I turn to Ray and he looks like he was to argue with Norman more but he keeps quiet.
"Let's talk to Don and Gilda tonight," Emma says, I'm glad that we are telling more kids, the faster we do it the faster we get out.
I sneak out of the bedrooms and walk to the library, all that I can hear is the sound of the floorboards creaking, I get to the door and hear footsteps behind me, shit, I turn around a just see Emma, Ray, and Norman, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and I open the door, Don and Gilda are both sitting at the table.
"What did you want to talk about?" Don says to us, I walk over to the table and sit down too, Emma, Ray, and Norman follow. I open my mouth and start telling them the 'truth'.
"Human trafficking?" Don questions us, his facial expression is humorous like he's about to start laughing any second now.
"Yeah, all of our siblings have been sold off to bad people." Emma says, I know she wants to say that Connie and everyone else who 'found a family' is dead and we need to escape, but this sounds more believable, we'll tell them what actually happened eventually. Don then starts a laugh that could wake up the entire house, way to be secretive Don.
"There's no way! No way!" He says, slapping his knee, Gilda on the other hand seems to believe us for the most part.
"But the walls, the gate, and the siblings who left and never write us letters…" Norman tries to convince Don but he keeps laughing it off like it's some kind of joke. I get up from my seat and stand right next to Emma.
"Don, we are being 100% serious, this is not a joke with a punchline, this is the life we are living in," I say, now that I think about it, that line was kinda depressing, at least it got Don to stop laughing and to think for a second.
"Wait, what about Mom, you're not saying she's against us?" Emma looks down and it becomes silent, everyone knows the answer but no one wants to say it.
"She's the one… who's selling us to the bad people." Emma breaks the silence and Don and Gilda stare at Emma, lost and confused, I knew this wasn't going to go smoothly, if they are this mad and sad at this lie then how are we going to tell them the truth? Don's face then scrunches up about to yell at Emma.
"There's no way our kind Mom would do such a thing! Take that back, Emma!" Don then puts his hand on her shoulders and shakes her a little but, but Emma still doesn't make eye contact. Gilda then turns to the situation happening right in front of me.
"Don, Emma loves this house along with Mom. So there's no way she would lie about that." Gilda says in a saddened voice, Don seems to get angrier but he calms down just a fast, his angry look turns into Gilda's saddened look. He takes his hands off Emma's shoulders.
And I did think it was weird. The night that Connie left,,, Emma, Norman, and Kenton went to the gate, and…" Gilda gets cut off from Don.
"You did?" He turns back to Me and Emma and we nod, he then turns to Norman and he also nods, he then turns back to Gilda.
'Even if you broke the rules, all three of you would usually apologize immediately, and everything would go back to normal, but you guys haven't done that." I gasp, I knew Gilda noticed things that others brushed off but I didn't know that it was to this extent.
"Emma, you've become so serious now. So I couldn't ask about it." Gilda sounds like she is on the verge of crying, after some seconds she completely breaks down and starts crying into her hands, I slightly hit Emma's shoulder and she then jogs over to Gilda.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry Gilda. I made you worry." Emma says, she puts her hand on Gilda's shoulders to comfort her, comfort isn't my strong suit so I'll leave it to Emma.
"Did you see it, Emma? Connie being sold off… to those bad people." Gilda continues crying but manages to get words out between the tears, I turn to Don and his anger has completely disappeared and he just looks like he's in pain along with Gilda. Norman answers this question for Emma.
"Yeah, but we didn't make it in time," Norman says, smart, if he said that we watch Connie get shipped off Don would have got extremely mad.
"Connie's safe right?" Don says, his voice wavers.
" I don't know," Norman says, Don gasps but he doesn't push for more answers, I know the feeling that Don is feeling right now all too well.
"But now… how can this be." Don balls but his fists and looks at the ground, like he is about to cry.
"I don't know if this proves anything but…" Norman holds out a folded in half piece of paper, the siblings' scores.
"For the last few days, these are the scores that I had Ray and Emma look into." He unfolds the paper and starts reading it out loud.
"The ones who are left are over 6 years old, and 'adopted' in the order of the lowest scores first," Norman says, I look at the paper, and at the end, I see Aki with the highest scores, I walk away from them.
Connie's scores are low, Hao and Ceddy…" Don continues reading our sibling's names, like that demon said, all of the recent shipments have been 6-year-olds.
"You're right, Don," Gilda says, Emma clears her throat and they both turn towards her.
"Don, Gilda. Let's escape from her and go help Connie and the others. Let's all run away from here together!" Emma says, they look at her for a second before nodding.
"Thank you." She says, I walk out of the library and wait for the others, once Emma, Norman, and Ray come out I start walking back towards the bedrooms.
I wake up and see Emma and Gilda sitting and Emma's bed, smiling and laughing, I smirk a little bit, it's good to see at least something go back to normal.
Time passes and it becomes tomorrow, I'm washing out our white clothes right next to Ray and Norman.
"According to what Emma said to me, Gilda is innocent," Norman whispers to us, well, that takes what little suspicion I had of her gone, Don has too good of a moral compass and was too close to Connie to be the traitor, so around our circle all whose left is….
"Hey Kenton, Ray, I wonder why traitors betray others," Norman says, I turn to the others and start talking.
"They betray because they get something out of it like living to adulthood, or they're too ignorant to realize that they are in the wrong," I say, Ray's eyes widen for half a second before they go back to normal, what was that about?
"A guarantee to live, huh," Norman repeats, it's a good deal but not a deal I would make, my friends and siblings come before any guarantee from someone against us.
More time passes and it's about nighttime, I'm walking through the halls and Norman stops me.
"Kenton, can you come here for a second?" He asks me, I wonder what he wants, I nod and he leads me towards the dining room, I sit down at a seat right across from Norman.
"I'm going to get right to the point, I think Ray is the traitor and I want you to help me call him out with me." He says, I had my suspicions but I didn't want to say anything since I didn't have evidence, just a suspicion.
"So what do you want me to do," I say, I look around and see no one, I swear I felt like I was being watched by someone else.
"I placed ropes all around the house and told different people where they were, today with Ray we are going to check the ropes, I checked beforehand and the rope I told Ray about is gone, while everyone else's is still there, so I just want you to be in our conversation so I have another person that can vouch for me." Norman finishes off, he told me the rope was in the supply closet in the ceiling plates, Norman is on another level with smart.
"Okay, let's go call out this traitor," I say, I get up and follow Norman in the hallways, right next to Sister Krone's room Ray has his back against the wall.
"Yo." He says, doing a slight wave.