Faded Promises

Doublecross

Betrayal lurking at every corner...
There is a traitor among us... Mother's spy!
Who were they? How many are there? Was it the younger ones or the older ones?
Why are they doing this?
Doubt about each other started to grow.
This might be our end.

"What are his scores?" Ray asked, "Do you remember?"

"Huh? Phil?" Emma said confused, "Let's see, average of the last seven days is about 203."

"That's high." Ray said, "He was one of the last one remaining when we played against Sister. He's always looking for you and Norman with Sherry."

"It looks a bit suspicious too." I added.

"Ah! Stop it!" Emma shouted and repeatedly said, "It's scary!"

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

This is our deciding point.

We were in the dining hall eating dinner. We had planned that we will tell Don and Gilda tonight.

***

"We'll carry out the escape plan," Norman stated, "Ten days from now, on November 8."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ray and Emma said.

"Isn't that too soon?" Emma asked, "Well, it's fine but..."

"It's not fine!" Ray cut her off, "Mom's objective is to control us. That means if we don't make a move, she won't move either. Doesn't that mean we have time?"

"That's exactly why I want to move quickly." Norman agreed.

"Well if Norman says we can do it in that span of time," I said, "Then we will be able to."

"What do you mean?" Emma asked.

"If it looks like that to us, Mom sees it that way too." Norman continued, "I want to outwit her. Either way, I want to escape before winter comes, and it's not like we're doing this suddenly. We prepared 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. 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."

***

We had just finished dinner, and continued our conversation in hushed whispers.

"But seriously," Ray said, "Isn't it reckless? In ten days."

"You'd think so, right?" Norman replied, "That's why we're doing it, or else there's no point."

Ten days to plot out a perfect escape plan seems impossible. So many things to do, for now is... to make Don and Gilda see the truth.

"If we have more teams, our mobility to run away will go up." Norman explained, "So first, we have to win over Don and Gilda, even if they are Mom's source of information, we'll deal with that later."

We were climbing up the stairs, headed towards the library.

"So? How are going to talk with them? Even if it's the truth, we still need to word it right, or they'll reject the idea, blow us off, and it's over." Ray stated and turned to Emma, "Listen, don't think that everyone will easily believe you like I did, got it?"