Walking Amongst Them (Among Us, Book 2)

Attacked

It started snowing as soon as the sun disappeared. At first they were little flurries and then as the night wore on, bigger flakes fell. It didn't take long for the snow to stick to the ground, and by the time we made up dinner everything had a fine dusting of white.

"At least it will be easy for us to see if anyone, or anything, has been walking around. Tomorrow we should go out and check for tracks," Sam commented as he looked out the windows.

We were using the fireplace to keep warm, the mass of blankets piled around it in a semicircle.

"Won't we leave tracks for anyone else thinking the same thing?"

Sam shrugged and looked over at me, "yeah, but if anything out there is smart enough to follow tracks they're probably human."

I frowned, "what if they're bad people?"

"You think everyone is bad. Don't think I don't remember that you thought the guys and I were some sort of sex slave dealers, because I do."

"There could still be some bad people out there, Sam. Even if they don't plan on selling us as sex slaves, they could still be in the game of doing bad things to people. There's no laws anymore. It's every person for themselves."

It was Sam's turn to frown, "I guess that's a risk we'll have to take. We can't just stay holed up here tomorrow, we barely found anything useful today beyond food."

"What're you guys talking about?" Adam asked, shoveling a big spoonful of canned chili into his mouth.

"Tomorrow," Sam replied.

Adam made a face, "Can we just focus on tonight? It's freezing and Abby wants to play in the snow."

I blinked, and then looked over at her. She was pouting at Michael, arms crossed and lip out. It seemed that he'd told her no.

"Why can't she?"

"Well, it's actually up to Michael, since when it comes down to it, she's his responsibility. He probably just doesn't want her out in the dark, or maybe he doesn't want her getting sick again," Sam shrugged.

Adam chimed in, "he just doesn't want her going out and getting all cold and wet when she only has one pair of shoes."

Sam smiled, "See? Fair reasoning."

"She only has one pair?"

"Well, how many pairs do you have? Plus she's growing so it's hard to keep anything in her size, I'd imagine. Don't worry though, Trish knows what sizes to look for if they happen to pass a store or something with little kid clothes."

The reminder that part of our group was gone made me frown as I turned my attention back to the snow.

"Do you think they'll make it back?"

"Not tonight, maybe tomorrow. But I wouldn't be surprised if they take a couple of days, especially in this weather," Adam said, talking with a mouthful of food.

"Dude, disgusting, go away," Sam shoved his shoulder and Adam opened his mouth further.

How could they be so cavalier about the others being out in the snow? About them not coming back for a few days. I guessed that it was probably due to the compound. They'd probably been on a scouting trip that lasted longer than a day or two. In fact, I'd been on one myself. But the worry remained.

"It's just seafood, see? Food."

Sam rolled his eyes and shoved Adam again, a little harder this time but still not enough to really be a shove. Adam laughed again and walked away, waving his hand at us. I turned to look out the window again. But it was dark enough outside and lit up inside, so I wasn't able to see anything beyond my own reflection.