Mom has a source of information... among my siblings.
{ Who? How many? Anna... Nat? Thoma. Lanni. Mark. Don... }

"What are his scores? Do you remember?" Ray asked me.
"What? Phil?" I asked, snapping out of my thoughts.

"Let's see. Average of the last seven days is about 203," I answered.
"That's high. He was one of the last five remaining when we played tag with Sister. He's always looking for you, Norman, or Emma with Sherry," Ray told me.

My eyes widened, "No. No. No!" I told him.
"That's scary! Scary, scary! Shut up!" I told him.

"Idiot. You need to be more suspicious! Even if you don't want to suspect everyone," he said.

Book 2} Chapter 11
Traitor, Part 1
裏切り者パート1

"Thank you for the food!" we said in unison.
"I'm still not convinced," Ray muttered.

Flashback

"We'll carry out the escape plan ten days from now, on November 8," Norman said.
Emma grabbed Norman's shoulders and I grabbed him from the back.
"Wait! Wait! Wait!" We said in unison.

"Isn't that too soon?!" I exclaimed.
"Well, it's fine but--" Emma got cut off by Ray who chopped her hands away from Norman.
"It's not fine! Mom's objective is to control us. That means if we don't make a move, she won't either. Doesn't that mean we have time?" Ray said.

"Yeah, that's exactly why I want to move quickly," Norman told him.
"What do you mean?" Emma and I asked in unison. We've been doing that a lot lately...

"If it looks like that to us... Mom sees it that way too. I want to outwit her. Either way, I want to escape before winter comes. And it's not like we're doing this that suddenly. We did prepare a lot in a hurry, including training, because we couldn't read Mom's strategy. So we just have to take care of the necessary things in the remaining ten days. Mom has no intention of hiding the existence of her source of information. I'm sure she has various strategic reasons for that, but if she really wanted to hide it, she'd have Sister watch us, even if it was just pretend," Norman paused.

"Making us think that we have time is a trap. As soon as we break the tracking devices let's execute our escape plan as quickly as possible," he finished.

Flashback End

"But seriously, isn't it reckless? In ten days?" Ray asked Norman.
"You'd think so, right? That's why we're doing it, or else there's no point," Norman replied.

Even if it's a bit reckless, we have ten days. The things we have to do by then is... The first of those is... getting Don and Gilda on our side.

"If we have more teams, our mobility to run away will go up. So first, we have to win over Don and Gilda. Even if they are Mom's source of information," Norman said as we followed him up the stairs.

"So? How are we going to talk to them?" Ray asked. "Even if it's the truth, we still need to word it right. Or else they'll reject the idea, blow it off, and it's over," he said.

He then leaned over to Emma, "Listen, don't think that everyone will easily believe you like I did. Got it?" he asked, his eyes serious causing Emma to sweatdrop.

"I talked about it with Emma, but..." Norman paused.
"We won't tell the truth," Emma finished.

"What? You're going to hide it?" I exclaimed, taking the words out of Ray's mouth.

"I don't want to put them in danger," Emma said.
"What?!" Ray asked.
"Mom isn't making a move because we haven't shown that we know. But if someone reveals it, she might ship that person out right away. And I have every intention to succeed in escaping but..." Emma cut herself off.

"Even if we fail, if they don't know the truth, they might be able to live," Norman said.

Okay, now I understand.

"They can call me a liar. I don't care if they hate me afterward, saying that I tricked them. But there's no point if they get killed by Mom before the demons. Now's not the time to tell them the truth," Emma said with a slight determined look on her face.

"But still... even if it's not that truth... It's a different issue whether Don and Gilda will believe our story," Norman said as he opened the door to the library.

"Thanks for waiting guys," Norman said with a smile as he walked in.
"So what did you want to talk to us about?" Don asks.

I split from them and head to lean on a bookshelf.
Then, they told them the story.

"Human trafficking?" Don asked.
"Yeah. All of our siblings are being sold off to bad people," Emma said, a look of worry if they'll believe on her face.

{ Hm, so that's their story. }

Don then bursts out laughing.
"BWA! HA HA HA HA HA HA! Dude, I was wondering what you were so serious about... Ha ha ha! There's no way! No way!" he laughs.
"The walls, the gate... and the fact that siblings who left never write to us is... Come on, stop it! So what's the punchline? What kind of prank is this?!" he asks.

We stay serious.
"Huh? What? You're not saying it's true, right?" he asked, his laughter dying down.
"It's true," I said, looking down.

"Wait... What? Hold on. Then what about Mom?" he asked, his expression seeming to break.
"She's selling us to bad people..." Emma muttered.
"What?! Don't be ridiculous!! Shut up! There's no way she's so nice, and... take it back, Emma!" he shouted, his hands on her shoulders as she looked down.

"Don. Emma loves this house and Mom. There's no reason she would make up something like that," Gilda said softly.

"And I did think it was weird. That night, Emma, Y/n, and Norman went to the gate..." she paused.
"What?" Don asked.

"And usually, even if you broke the rules, you'd come clean about and everything would be back to normal. But... you didn't apologize for it, and you told me to keep quiet. The Mom made us do chores as if she were punishing us," Gilda said, then looking down.

"Y/n... you've been disappearing a lot. And you look serious all the time, even if you did before, it looked more... pained. It made it harder for me to ask about it, and... urgh..." she paused as tears welled up in her eyes. She walked over to me and hugged me, sobbing.

"I'm sorry. So sorry," I told her as I wrapped my arms around her.
"Did you see it, Y/n. Conny was sold off too? To bad people?" she asked.
"Yeah, but we didn't make it in time," I told her, running my hands through her short hair.

"Hold on. Does that mean Conny..." Don went over to Norman and grabbed his shoulders.
"She's okay, right? They didn't do anything to her, right?!" he asked. I felt horrible.
He and Conny were close as well...

"We don't know," Norman lied.
"How could that be?!" Don asked.

"Let's escape and go help Conny and the others. Let's all escape from here together," Emma said.
"I don't know if this proves anything, but... These are the scores of our siblings that I had Ray and Y/n look into the past few days," Norman said, handing them a paper.

Gilda moved from me and looked at it.
"Scores?" they asked.
"The scores for the ones who left and secondhand information... and it's not all the scores, but after we turn six years olf, we're being adopted in the order of lowest scores first. Isn't that weird?" Norman said.

"It's true that this is Conny's score. And How and Cedie..." Don muttered, seeming to start believing.
"Please believe us. And help us," I said softly.
"Run away with us!" Emma added.

~

That night, Gilda, Emma, and I talked a lot.
We laughed a lot. Like we were little kids.
We weren't alone.
Gilda understood.

From now on, we can... fight together.

~

My eyes fluttered open as I heard a creak and some footsteps.

I turned to see Gilda leaving the room.

Curiosity got the best of me and I followed.

Flashback

"If we can win them over... we'll uncover if they are the sources of information next. To begin with, let's lay a trap," Norman said.
"What are you going to do?" I asked him.

"Tell them where the rope is hidden," he said.
"What?" I ask, tensing up.

"Of course, it'll be a lie. We each tell different locations to Don and Gilda. I've already hidden fake ropes. They'll have gotten on our side and obtained crucial information they didn't have before. If they are spies, they'll make a move for sure," he said. I nodded.

"Who will make a move...? How will Mom find out? We can figure out if Don and Gilda... are our enemies from there," I muttered.

He nodded back at me.
Then, out of nowhere, he gave me a hug.
"Be safe, Y/n."

(nOw tHiS bOY jUst sEnDing MixEd SiGnaLs--)

Flashback End

I heard footsteps behind me causing me to jump slightly and almost punch in self defense, "Relax, it's just me," I heard Emma whisper.
I let out a sigh of relief.

"Gilda went into Sister Krone's room," I said with a sad look. Gilda couldn't be the source of information... All of that couldn't be lies... her sadness once she found out couldn't be fake.

But then why was she at Sister Krone's room?
And why did I feel like we could trust Sister Krone?

Side Story Part 2:

Although Mom said...

"I came to visit~!" I said with a smile as I entered the room with Emma.
We rushed over to Norman.

"Emma! Y/n! no, you can't be here. You'll catch my cold," he told us.
"I won't catch it," we said in unison.

"We can't get sick so don't worry," I said with a smile.

We ended up getting kicked out by Mom. She held us in her arms.
"And who told you that?" she asked us. We both pointed to Ray.

"It says in this book that idiots cannot catch colds," Ray said coolly as he read his book.

Never Give Up

"We came to visit again!" I said with a smile as we entered the room.
Once Norman saw us, he hid from us.

"You shouldn't! You'll catch my cold, and Mom will find out!" he said.
Emma and I looked toward each other before I jumped on the bed, "Then just give me your cold," I said.
"Huh?"

"That way we can be sick together! All three of us," I said with a smile.

We got caught by Mom again. She held us the same way as we pointed to Ray.
"You again, eh?" Mom said.
"It says that you get better faster if you give it to someone else," he replied coolly.

To Be Continued In Side Story 3

11/3/19
Word Count: 1733