Gertie might have been able to hide her worry, on the other hand, Tory was far easier to read. Her lips were pressed into a thin, harsh line as she rushed me out of the house, urging me on at nearly a running speed.
Despite her best efforts to get me back to the barn before any events unfolded, the moment we stepped outside, I became privy to what looked like quite a show.
Nearly fifteen members of Gertie's group held up five haggard-looking teenagers. The youngest was a girl around Jamie's age. She wore a dirty, torn, long-sleeved shirt and jeans – no jacket or gloves in sight. I was sure if I could have seen her shoes past the snow, they wouldn't have been any better than sneakers.
I watched her shiver, but I was sure it was in cold rather than fear because her eyes glared daggers straight ahead, even as she held her hands up high above her head in surrender. A young woman pushed the girl to stand slightly behind her and I quickly noted their resemblance.
Sisters.
They both had the same smooth, dark complexion, the same almond-shaped eyes, and the same heart-shaped lips. The only real difference between the two besides their age was that the younger had her hair in braids, whereas the elder's head was shaved.
As I was observing their lack of gear and weapons, I saw the elder girl tug at a boy's shirt, almost yanking him behind her as well. The boy had to be around sixteen or seventeen, but he towered over the girl, making her gesture to protect him somewhat impractical. He could have been their sibling as well, but his expression held the fear that the other two lacked.
The other two teen boys looked around apprehensively, but their gazes kept going to the siblings as if they were looking to them for direction.
"That doesn't mean anything to us," the elder girl said, answering a question I had missed. "Let us go."
"Hurry up," Tory hissed in my ear, grabbing me by the elbow to drag me on.
I kept watching the group even as I let Tory guide me. Eventually, my interest caught the elder girl's attention and our eyes met. She looked at me with a mixture of confusion and worry and I had to imagine she thought I was some kind of prisoner. While our stay wasn't exactly under ideal conditions, I didn't want the girl to panic and act out when her group had everything to lose and nothing to gain. I did the only thing I could do – I gave her a nod of reassurance, hoping she could interpret my intent.
"Move it." Tory pushed at my back, not even noticing my gesture. Her focus was between the barn and the house. Gertie had finally emerged and was about to make her presence known.
I made it to the barn far quicker than I would have liked and Tory had to practically shove me inside as I tried to catch more of the happenings. It wasn't concern I felt but curiosity. The teens were hardly a threat so I doubted Gertie would treat them poorly, but I wanted to know exactly how she would handle the situation.
Are they going to stay here too?
It wouldn't be out of the question, but it did make me wonder how Gertie managed everything. Logistically, she could only really watch over a certain number of people at a time and it would have made sense to urge another group to move on if one was already staying. However, it was Gertie after all, and with all her moral uppishness, I suspected nothing was ever that clear cut.
We need to be prepared for anything.
Big Al waved happily at me as I approached the stall. I gave him a half-hearted smile in return, too deep in thought to manage more. My group greeted me as I entered but I went right to my knitting. My exhaustion made everything harder, but I needed to get more done in case we were kicked out prematurely.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Ian whispering with Ray and shortly after, Ray moved to sit beside me. "What's going on?" he asked.
I glanced at Ian and we locked eyes for a moment before he turned to talk to Misty and Carlos. My stomach twisted uncomfortably. I made my focus turn to Ray.
"Tell the others that another group has arrived. I don't think they're dangerous, but I want everyone to be alert just in case, okay?"
Ray's eyes widened slightly as he nodded. "Okay."
"I don't know what Gertie has planned, but this might change our... situation."
Ray looked unconcerned by my statement and I could almost see the millions of thoughts running through his head behind his eyes. "Did you see the group? Did they have guns?"
"No. They had nothing." To me, that was almost more alarming. I knew as well as anyone that desperate people resorted to desperate measures. I also had to hope that both they and Gertie didn't get any ideas of dipping into my group's supplies. Their youth would almost definitely play on Gertie's conscience. "They also looked young."
Ray raised a brow at that. "How young?"
"There were five of them. The youngest is probably Jamie's age. I think the oldest can't be more than eighteen or nineteen."
The look Ray gave me instantly made me regret my words. Sometimes I forgot that he was barely out of his teens himself.
"Sorry," I mumbled, wanting to hurriedly move on from the subject. "Just let the others know, please?" Big Al let out a jolly laugh at something Jamie said, making me add, "And please be discrete."
Ray looked between me and Big Al and nodded again. "Alright."
He moved off and I got back to my knitting, listening intently as he whispered the news to the others. I knew almost instantly that I'd made a mistake in asking Ray to be the one to deliver the news. His discretion abilities were clearly on par with his ability to be sensitive. If Big Al didn't instantly catch on, then he had the observational skills of a pinecone.
Ray had many great traits and I had come to rely on him, but he couldn't always read the room even when it was dictated to him. I needed to be smarter in the future about who I could lean on and when... especially if Ian was out of the picture.
It was strange how much I missed him after a single night. I hated him, but I missed him. I knew my distance hurt him, but I wasn't sure I had it in me to care. I was struggling too much with my own emotions. I was too angry. And too scared.
In the short amount of time that I'd had to process what Ian had told me, I'd discovered that as angry as I was about what he'd done – and I was very angry – that wasn't where the heart of my emotions lay. It seemed that deep down, what enraged me the most, was that he had revealed anything at all. And that scared the hell out of me. I didn't know what kind of person that made me and I didn't know if I wanted to find out.
---
It took Gertie less than ten minutes to cave – or so I assumed. The teens were checked over for bites in the stall next to ours. My group listened quietly, only resuming their conversations in whispers once the other group was given the all-clear.
"So," Ian said, breaking the worst of the tension that had built up in the silence. "Do you guys normally take in this many people at once?"
His blunt question was the exact one I'd been dying to ask. I could hear the clicking of my needles slow as I lost my rhythm, wanting to hear the answer.
Big Al was thrown by it and, from what I could tell, he was far more serious than usual. "Sometimes." I looked up in time to see him shrug. "It happens."
"Really? But do you guys normally take in two different groups at the same time?" Ian's skepticism matched my own.
"Whenever we can."
Does Gertie train her people in non-answers?
I could picture them taking in pairs at a time, but anything more than that seemed to be asking for trouble – even if the groups looked harmless. It seemed sloppy to me and I didn't think Gertie was the kind of person to tolerate sloppiness.
She must be pretty torn right about now.
Maybe I was getting a bit smug thinking I could understand her, but I did have a clear view of a few things. My group had more to offer her and we'd already saved a member of her group and come to an agreement. The other group had nothing to offer, but they could easily tug on her heartstrings. She would struggle to take us both on if she could.
She won't kick us out. She can't. Not yet.
We had more to offer her and as someone who believed in a bottom line, I didn't think she'd easily wrong us.
I hope.
But if we stayed, then there was even more to worry about.
I picked up my pace on my work. We were still at the mercy of her group, but if I got another scarf done, I'd have a better position to stand on if she attempted to share any of my group's goods with the other group. Her moral imperatives would make it hard for her to take from me when I am already giving her goods.
She doesn't steal.
A part of me knew that my paranoia was on overdrive, but I didn't want to be blindsided by any worst-case scenarios. Gertie didn't give away goods, she traded them. She had too many people to look after to do anything else. If the group came with nothing, then they'd leave with nothing. I had to believe that my group's stay didn't change that.
Relax. Just relax.
"You need to calm down." The muffled voice came from the other side of the wall I'd been leaning against. The stall's wall didn't reach the ceiling, making it easier for sound to travel, but not by much. Her hushed tone was evidently only heard by me as I sat alone on my side of the stall.
"Don't tell me to calm down," a deep voice snapped at her. The venom in his tone had me sitting up straighter.
"That must be rough," Ian answered Big Al, distracting me. "But you like your job, right? I'm sure you get to meet all kinds of people."
Big Al's shoulder sagged a little in relief, clearly finding the new subject to be much easier to talk about. "Are you kidding? I love it!"
"- that's your choice, not mine." The deep voice from the other side of the stall sounded furious.
"- there was this one man. Such a nice guy. He had this huge-"
"- you don't get to decide that for everyone here. Please, you-" The elder girl's voice had me subtly pressing my ear to the wall to hear more.
"- and it smelled like roast beef, but it-" Big Al was working himself up in his own story, becoming more boisterous as he went on. It made it nearly impossible to get anything other than small bits and pieces of the conversation between the teens.
"You can't stop me," The deep voice stated.
"Please, please don't. Think of-" The elder girl's voice was cut off by Big Al's laughter.
I shot him a glare of annoyance before looking back down at my fabric.
They're going to crack.
I felt it in my bones. The teens were too on edge.
"- that's not my problem. I'm not-"
I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration as my group laughed at something Big Al said, completely oblivious to the storm brewing right next door.
"-with me or not?" the deep voice asked.
I could hear the elder girl respond, but it was too hard to make out the words over the chatter happening in my stall. My heart sank, however, when I heard what sounded like crying.
Tears of fear or frustration?
"Can I use the bathroom?" The deep voice asked in a much louder voice.
I tried to focus back on my knitting project. I was already too far behind to catch up and I needed to focus. The teens' problems were not mine. They had each other to lean on to figure it all out.
"Follow me." A raspy, unfamiliar voice said from the next stall. I assumed it was the same man who'd brought them in and was now acting as their guard. Knowing that it was likely that they'd pass by our stall on their way out, my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see which boy was causing the problems and I looked up in anticipation of their passing by.
The guard walked by and the teen wasn't far behind. He was the lankiest of the three. His pale skin was still blotchy and red in places where the cold had taken the worst of its toll. I could see that his light blue eyes were darting around the space far too frantically.
He's going to do something.
Before I could even release a breath, the teen lunged at Big Al, pressing something he'd had palmed into Big Al's neck. Ray and Carlos both stood up in alarm as Misty grabbed Jamie to pull him back. I waved at them all to back off and move towards the far end of the stall.
"Give me your gun!" the teen yelled. His tone held an edge of hysteria and I had a bad feeling that he wasn't going to be able to be talked down. "Give it!"
So much for the teens not being dangerous.
In his hand, a glint of metal caught the light. It almost looked like a nail file that had been sharpened into a dangerous point. He dug it into Big Al's neck, making a few drops of blood escape.
Big Al seemed too startled to react. He'd been sitting in his chair, completely at ease. After this, if he survived, I doubted Gertie would let him work as a guard again.
"You don't have to do this!" The elder girl shouted from her stall.
"Shut up!" The teen's eyes were becoming wilder by the second.
Not wanting to be caught in any crossfire, I stood up from my spot on the floor, taking my knitting project with me. From my new vantage point, I could see at least new two guards had joined the scene and their guns were firmly trained on the teen.
"It's okay, kid, just-" Big Al was cut off by the teen piercing his skin with the makeshift blade.
"Give me the gun!" The teen screamed, angling himself to face the guards that had begun to encircle him. "Don't come any closer!" He yelled at them. "I mean it. I'll do it. I'll fucking kill him!"
I didn't doubt it. He was teetering on the very edge of a cliff and it would take nothing more than a small gust of wind or a wrong look to send him right over the edge.
They need to act.
The best-case scenario would be to not let Big Al go down with him, but the guards were hesitating. I wasn't sure if it was because they were scared to put Big Al in more danger or if it was because of the teen's age, but they were doing nothing more than containing the scene.
Maybe they need Gertie's permission?
I nearly scoffed at the thought, but every second that went by seemed like one wasted. I readjusted my grip on my knitting needles.
"Pass. It. Up." The teen held out one hand expectantly, never letting the pressure up on Big Al's neck.
Big Al had to know he couldn't give up his gun. I could see the conflicting emotions battling each other out on Big Al's face as he tried to resign himself to what was to come.
"Put the knife down," a guard warned.
"Not until I get the gun!"
The situation was hopeless. It wasn't going to go anywhere until someone died and, from everything I was seeing, that person was going to be Big Al.
Act. Someone act.
The teen was going to act before any of the guards did. He knew he couldn't back down anymore. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ray and Ian whispering to each other. Ray took a small step forward and I was done.
Letting all but a single knitting needle fall haphazardly to the ground, I made it to the teen in three strides. He didn't even have time to face me before I plunged my needle deep into the side of his gut.
He let out a startled gasp, keeling sideways as he grabbed at his injury, taking my needle still embedded in him with him. Big Al nearly flew out of his chair in his haste to back away from us. As the boy went to the ground, the guns that were trained on him moved to me. In response, I simply raised my hands above my head.