Run

// chapter two

I stare at the coin, balancing it between my two fingers. i often find in the minutes before we go it's eerily calm. it's always quiet down here, but there's a shift in the atmosphere. Miles sits on the tatty, moth bitten couch as he sharpens his array of knives, their menacing faces gleaming in to dim yellow light of the motel room. Amily sits next to him, her long legs sprawled out in front of her. She inspects her nails with those piercing green eyes of hers. Josh is on the bunk beneath me. from the  occasional snore that escapes the junior's mouth, i can tell he's sleeping.

It feels different today. We've done this plenty of times. But this time it feels alien. Because I know them.

I know her.

"Connor!" i bolt up, almost dropping the small keep safe. I hear Amily chuckle from somewhere in the corner. The girl is always laughing at me. She's unpredictable but almost always moody. You never know how she'll take something. At first I was on edge around her. Now I've learned to just live with her, like i've learned to live with everyone else in our small group. Still, at times her cold stare gives me the chills. but i suppose i'd be the same if id been through what she has. 

They call me the freshy. Fresh face. New.

See, everyone else was born into this, or at least a member for the majority of their life. We're quiet, no one knows about us apart from those we've done something direct to, and the authorities who are doing everything in their power to keep us in the shadows. The robberies. kidnappings, the crimes are always pinned on something different while they try and catch us, kill us before we spread, before people really see us.

"Connor, get the stuff in the van. Josh get the computer set up," Miles pauses to rub his temples, a tell that he's stressed, "this has to go perfect."