Beautiful Crime ※ DogNut

three

Keeping an eye on the new group was surprisingly easy; they barely noticed Adelaide sneaking around behind them and listening in to their conversations. Nothing seemed to be suspicious, however, which frustrated her since it would've been nice to have some kind of gossip to give back to Jordan. There wasn't much she could do, anyway. She wasn't going to properly invade their conversations, that would just be too obvious and then it would be game over.

There was one thing concerning her; it was the boy spouting out nonsense about a lamb and a goat. Honestly, it was beginning to get on her nerves and hearing his annoying voice drone on and on about how the lamb would save them all made her want to jump off the roof of the nearest tall building and bring him down with her. She would've told Jordan this, but she was pretty sure that he would call the kid a crazy son of a gun who just escaped the loony bin.

But in this world; the crazies were the most dangerous while the sane were more likely to run and hide than do anything else.

While the group were out finding food, Adelaide had snuck back to her room and had a much-needed rest. She didn't sleep; she just rested her eyes and thought of home as she remembered it. She remembered her mother's perfume being sprayed on her clothes before she left the house for work, her father's laugh booming throughout the house whenever he would watch a comedian on TV, her brother screaming at his TV screen whenever he died while playing a video game.

That was home to her – full of life and love. But now her home was just an empty house with nothing inside but reminders of what life used to be like.

Opening her eyes, Adelaide reluctantly rolled herself out of bed and slipped into her boots before walking out of the room, leaving her jacket behind as she walked outside into the sunlight. She noticed most of the group were outside and a group of kids were running around outside; the perfect excuse to eavesdrop.

Leaning against the wall, Adelaide slowly slid down to the floor until she was sitting down on the concrete, bringing her knees into her chest as she watched the younger kids playing some kind of game with each other. It was nice to hear people having fun for the first time in what seemed like forever. She was so used to the silence that came with being alone in a museum with nine other boys, she'd forgotten what fun sounded like. She stayed there for a while, her eyes closed as she listened to the sound of the children's laughter.

"What's up with you and DogNut?" Brooke's voice spoke in front of her, bringing her back into reality.

Adelaide opened one eye to see the trio of girls in front of her, identically having their hands on their hips as they almost glared down at Adelaide, their eyes narrowing a little. "What?"

Brooke almost laughed as she sat down on the concrete beside Adelaide, Courtney and Aleshia sitting beside her. "Don't look so clueless, there's something going on between you – don't even deny it."

Adelaide rolled her eyes, laying her legs flat on the ground as she inwardly groaned. "You disturb me from my moment of calm to ask me about King Dickward?"

Brooke nudged Adelaide's shoulder, sliding over towards her. "Don't try to hide it, witchy-boo. I can tell from the way he looks at you it's weird... he looks at you and everything else just seems to disappear like, you're the only thing that matters."

Adelaide glared in Brooke's direction, her jaw clenching as her lips pursed together. "Okay, first things first, blondie; DogShit looks at every girl like that, I'm not anything special. Second; there is nothing going on between us, he's a jerk and I hate his guts. Plus, I'm pretty sure Courtney's going all gooey-eyed over him and frankly, she can have him – I don't care."

She knew one day she would regret saying that but it was just how she felt at the time; indifferent towards him. Sure, she had kissed him and she admitted that she did think he was cute but there were others in the world that Adelaide would probably find that were better than him. Although; until all the grown-ups were gone, Adelaide was sure that nobody was truly in the mood to be in a relationship.

Perhaps when everything was safe, people would be ready to be in a relationship with others. But there was a possibility that the world would never truly be free from the grown-ups.

Shaking her head to herself to rid herself of all those thoughts, Adelaide pushed herself off the ground and walked back inside and was going to go back to bed until it would be time for dinner. Once she was inside, she noticed something had changed the screaming laughter she heard from the kids while playing a game turned into screams of terror behind her.

Once she heard the screaming, Adelaide turned around and vaulted over the bench outside the door and charged at top speed towards Frédérique. She pushed Frédérique back with such force, both girls fell backwards. With almost unhuman speed, Adelaide jumped back onto her feet to hold Frédérique down to allow Brooke to bring the younger children inside and away from Frédérique.

Adelaide placed her arm over Frédérique's throat, holding her down onto the ground but still allowed her to breathe. She noticed Frédérique was trying to bite into her arm – she seemed more like one of the grown-ups than a kid and that terrified her more than anything. Making sure Frédérique was held down, Adelaide turned back towards the doors when she saw the kids being held back by Brooke and Courtney, all of them clearly terrified. Some of the kids had tears streaming down their cheeks, especially the little boy Frédérique had bitten into. She looked at them for a moment before turning back to Frédérique and tried harder to make sure she wasn't bitten. Not an easy task since she was wearing a t-shirt and her jacket was still in her bedroom but she knew she needed to try to protect those kids from the monster one of them had become, and she would've died for them in that moment. "Brooke, get Jordan! And hurry, I don't know how much longer I can hold her down!"

Note

Sorry this chapter is so short (I think the next chapter will be too) but it's all building up to the battle at the end of The Dead which would be pretty long then we would get into part two.