Adolescence, m. mayfield

02. strange boys

The three boys had taken Ten and Eleven back to a house. The one with black hair said Eleven could ride on the back of his bike, then forced the one with darker skin to take Ten on the back of his- said boy didn't seem too pleased to have a stranger on his bike.

The dark haired boy took off his coat and wrapped it around Elevens arms to keep her warmer. Ten got spun around by a boy with a cap on his head, "You can have mine" the boys smiled at him and handed over the brown jacket.

It was starting to rain heavier as they rode through the wooded path, but it eventually opened into a large road with houses sprouting out from the sides. Ten and Eleven were snuck through a side door leading to a big, warm room. They were told to sit on a couch as the boys argued with each other. Ten wrapped an arm around Eleven when she jumped at a loud thunder crack outside, the boy shivering at the wet fabric of her sweatshirt touching his already cold arm.

The three boys stopped arguing and a silence passed until the scared boy and girl were bombarded with questions.

"Is there a number we can call? For your parents?"

"Where's your hair? Do you have cancer?"

"Did you run away?"

"Are you in some kind of trouble"

"Is that blood?" the black boy reached his arm out to point at a red stain on Eleven's jumper. Ten was about to stop his hand but it was already being slapped away from one of the other kids.

"Stop it! You're freaking them out!"

"They're freaking me out!"

"I bet they're deaf" the boy with a curly mop on his head extended his arms to clap loudly in the siblings faces, both jumped at the sudden noise. He looked back at his friends with a small shake of the head, "Not deaf"

"Alright, that's enough, alright?" the tallest boy mediated again, "they're just scared and cold" he pushed past his friends and walked to the corner of the room.

Eleven gasped again at the thunder, pushing herself further into Ten's side. He looked softly at her and squeezed her shoulder in hopes it would calm her. He didn't like this as much as her. What if papa found out they were here? These random boys would end up like Benny. Ten didn't want that.

"Here, these are clean, okay?"

Ten looked over at Mike who was standing back in front of the duo, holding out some clothes to both of them. Eleven sat forward to pick the blue sweatshirt and grey sweatpants as Ten was handed a red
long-sleeved top and grey sweats.

Ten held the shirt out to look at it, deciding he liked the colour. Next to him Eleven stood up, pulling the sweatshirt over her head and going to pull off the shirt Benny had given her-

"No, no, no, no, no!" The dark haired one jumped forward to stop her as the other two turned away with frightened mumbles. Ten jumped up and pulled the boys hands away from his sister. The boy quickly retracted his with a hiss of pain, giving Ten a weird look. Ten glared at the boy, he didn't want anything bad happen to Eleven again. He was here to protect her now. The other shrugged off the look Ten was giving him and looked over to Eleven, "see over there? That's the bathroom. Privacy. Get it?"

She looked around nervously, at Tens subtle nod Eleven gathered the clothes and walked the way to the small white room with Mike on her tail. When Mike came back Ten was still standing at the couch, not knowing where to go, "Uh... you can just change in the corner back there. It's dark"

Ten nodded and headed the way of Mike's pointed hand. There was some stacked cardboard boxes, he examined them before changing into the clothes given to him. When he was done, he was about to turn back but accidentally knocked something over. The brunette bent down to pick it up, it was some sort of toy, a blue robot. Ten smiled at it and shoved it into his pocket- he used to play with a toy like that in the lab.