earbuds

seventeen

"I can't sleep." I mumble, glancing an eye over at Clay who was looking at the ceiling. George and Nick were fast asleep.

"I can't either." Clay mumbles, turning towards me. Luckily, Nick had more than 4 blankets so the two of us sharing the bed, didn't need to share a blanket either.

"Are my parents going to die?" I asked the impending question.

"I can't say for sure. I can't promise they won't die, but the plan before was to not kill them. Now, I'm not too sure. They're close with what they're accomplishing." Clay stayed laying down, as did I. I don't feel comfortable sitting up, and I guess Clay was the same. It's too dark and the others are asleep.

"I won't have a place to stay, if they die.. actually won't be able to go back after this." My voice shakes and I move to my side, covering myself with the blanket for safety and hopes that Clay or anyone else doesn't see me with vulnerable and scared.

"You can come with me, if you still trust me.. and we can live somewhere secret together." Clay mumbles, still loud enough so that I can hear him. "Or not. If you don't want to, I can set you up with a whole new identity, and help you that way. You can start somewhere new, get a job.. go to college.." His voice fades.

"I see.." I say in a whisper. I close my eyes, pause thinking about the future, the plans whatever the plans are. "I'm scared."

"I.." Clay pauses. "Me too."

We both finally drift to sleep and when we wake up, the house is busy with noises and boxes being unpacked.

"Which one of these are mine?" I hear chatting in the background and a few clicks, sounds of something being loaded. Maybe a gun of sorts? I open my eyes, missing another day of a room without windows, seeing the sunlight crack through them.

"This one." Nick's voice chimes, another few clicking sounds and something being handed over from one to another. I look over to where the voices were coming from and rub my eyes. George is with his computer and Nick and Clay both are messing with different types of guns. As someone who's never messed with those and been the daughter of scientists that work for the government, I've never needed to.

"Why'd you have to have the AK-47 man?" Clay complains. Seems like he wanted that one.

Nick seems to chuckle, "'Cause I'm more experienced with it, dumbass."

"You're awake." Clay's voice interrupts the conversation they were having, looking over at me with a smile.

"Good morning sleeping beauty." Nick replies sarcastically, continuing to pack bullets into his gun cases and bags. "You know how to use a pistol?" He looks over at me and watches me get up from the blow up mattress on the floor.

I yawn and shake my head 'no'. "Never needed to."

"I guess we're going to take a pit stop to teach you for a bit on our trip tomorrow." He mumbles, throwing a pistol into a case. "George, you good with a pistol?"

"Yeah." He says, continuing away at his typing. "I have a layout of the place, by the way. We can etch out a plan tonight."

Clay looks at Nick and watches him, his face distorting a little bit.

"That's good." Nick replies, messing with a few boxes, of what I'm guessing, ammo. He stuffs them into a bag and throws it over his shoulder. "I'm gonna need you to tell us about your parents." He points to me. "The ins and outs of what you know, weaknesses, strengths, things we may have missed." He turns around and goes into the general direction of the door, or where the door is.

I let out a yawn, rubbing my eyes to hopefully wake up more. Clay looks back at me to give a sympathetic look. "Sorry about him. We don't really hang out much anymore so he's a bit tense. I promise he's cool."

"Yeah yeah." I brushed him off and went in the direction of, what I think is, the bathroom. I hope it's the bathroom. I open a door and luckily for me, it is the bathroom. I step inside and lock the door, doing what I need to do.

Once I finished, I stayed an extra longer to splash water in my face, hopefully to help wake me up. I guess I should stop being so emotional about these things. This made sense when I would ask them, my parents, about their project and they would tell me about all of their other projects except this one.

I don't know what weaknesses or strengths they have, I don't know if seeing me, it would count as a weakness or strength. If they saw me in danger, would they even bat an eye? I splash my face with the cold water once more and dry it, stepping out of the bathroom. The boys were in the kitchen area eating and chatting.

"You know we'll probably have to kill her parents, right?" Nick's voice echoed and I dared to come out of the hallway.

"I tried finding other ways, and if there's any way to not kill them, I would pick that way. But it just seems kind of impossible." Clay sighed.

"Do you think they're already under a brainwash? Or that they're the ones that have thrones around them under the brainwash?" Nick looked in my direction as I sucked it up and walked out towards them.

"The second one seems more likely." Clay sighs. "They seem like they're the ones running that business."