earbuds

nineteen

We parted ways with Cara, her taking the car and us taking the van. She were to meet us somewhere afterwards to make a trade again, or something like that. We drove to the location, waiting for hours for those people to come out of the building. No one talks the entire time we're waiting. It's agonizing, but none of us wanna talk. The air around us is too intense. Sweat forms at the top of my forehead, anxiously waiting for something, anything to happen. It was then, George's attitude changed and he quickly glanced up between Clay, Nick, and I. We had to act fast, our planned changed in the moment when we saw someone else and not who we thought. We had to make due.

They ushered me out, in hopes to distract those people long enough to get knocked out. I had stumbled out, in hopes of popping up in front of them with their backs turned towards the van. I did just that, as quickly as possible.

"Heyyyy!" I shouted towards them, voice laced with uncertainty, and they turned. Great, set them, Clay and Nick, up nice and clean. "I apologize, but you guys look familiar. Maybe from... TV? Newspaper?"

One of them scoffed. "Newspaper? No one uses that anymore." Their face contorts, kind of annoyed.

"Wait-"

Shit.

"Aren't you the head's daughter?" Another spoke up, smirking and turning to their friend, slightly punching them in the arm. Their friend looks hurt by the sudden action, rubbing their own arm, but speaking up after realizing that it was indeed me.

"Yeah, they were looking for you."

"Haha, that's so funny, but I don't have a family." Hope this works. Probably won't. I scratched the back of my head and looked down in "sadness".

"Nah, you're definitely lying-" A bonk to the head and neck each of them earned, falling limply to the ground.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Thank god. They were about to notify authorities about me." Clay picks up two of the three while Nick slightly struggles with picking up the third. He does have a bit of muscle on him, plus they're carrying dead weight, not saying that these guys are dead. They're just limp.

"You all good? You're shaking." Clay leans in and whispers to me while he's struggling slightly with keeping the people on his shoulders, on his shoulder. I glanced over at Nick who was still kind of struggling to keep this dude upright as well. I was, in fact, shaking. I just nodded and looked down in hopes that we could move on and think about the next step of this plan.

"Guys! Captain has a set of the person we caught. Accidentally made that one instead of the one we needed. We lucked out." George said as we were closer to the van. We threw the people inside and stripped them of their clothes, neither of the boys embarrassed by this. I was, though, having to undress and redress.

The boys were finished, looking at me then between themselves. Nick shrugged and turned around focusing on the bag of guns that he had previously packed. George was too busy on his laptop to care. Clay, on the other hand, wasn't getting it. He was still looking at my embarrassed self, eyebrow cocked. He shrugged, stroking his chin before speaking up. "What's up? We need to go." He said, kind of urgently.

"I.. can't change." I looked at the girl, who's clothes were already on the ground, covered by the boy's clothes they were wearing. I held my arms, each of them with the other hand, watching the floor of the van subtly shake with the movements of Nick. I blushed, feeling stupid embarrassed over such a tiny problem.

"Why not?" His poker face really told a lot. He didn't understand.

"Clay, she's a girl. Get that through your thick ass skull." Nick boomed, waving a hand in the air, putting it back down to load another gun. Our guns.