Page 67 of Surviving in Everton

He keeps repeating random facts like that. Just waiting for me to snap and yell at him, giving away my location so he can shoot me. Too bad I’m smarter than that. I sneak around my wall, low to the ground, peaking around the corner to see him standing on the other side of the room. Just then, Uncle K. starts his distraction, causing Uncle A to come out of hiding. I wait until he’s too far to quickly hide again, then start shooting.

“Hey! No fair!” he wails as he tries to duck back behind the wall as I continue shooting him until he’s fully out of sight.

Logan! Watch out!

I turn at Uncle Kayden’s warning, just in time to dive behind the wall before my dad’s shooting at me. Unfortunately, Violet was waiting on the other side of the wall. She starts shooting at me, giggling the whole time. I give her the evil eye as I run for different cover. Iknewhe was gonna find some way to use her against me.

Bye, Logan!She giggles in my head.

I somehow find Kayden again and we hunker down, back to back, keeping an eye out so no one can sneak up on us.

“I want my dad,” I whisper angrily. “I told you he’d use her against me.”

“Alright, I’ll help you get back at him. But you gotta help me watch out for Ayden and Rowe. He’s gonna do the same damn thing. He knows I won’t shoot Rowen,” he grumbles quietly.

“I’ll shoot Ms. Rowen if you shoot Violet,” I offer.

He chuckles in my head. “Nuh uh. I’m not shooting that sweet girl. Sorry bud. The girls are shoot free zones. But watch out, because I doubt they’ll feel the same about us.”

“Oh, I know. Violet just shot me.” I scowl.

He shakes his head as he stifles his laugh. “Alright, let’s go this way. Stay back to back so no one can sneak up on us again. We gotta work together if we’re gonna beat the girls.”

Time flies as we quickly and quietly make our way through the maze, shooting at my dad and Uncle A every time we see them. We were right, of course, they use the girls against us the entire time. I still like to think we kicked both their butts though. The game’s over too soon and we all make our way to the exit. Violet is bouncing all over the place. She’s a cute little ball of excitement.

“That was so much fun! Can we do it again?!” she squeals.

“Maybe another time, sweetie. It’s time to eat dinner. Then we’ve gotta get home,” her mom tells her.

“Awww, Mooom,” Violet whines back.

“Hey, didn’t you say you wanted to show me that new game you learned at school? We gotta go home for that ya know,” I remind her.

“Oh, yeah! Okay! Let’s eat, then we can go home and play in the playhouse!”

In the car on the way home, Violet starts projecting her thoughts to me. She does it all the time since she learned I can hear her. I’ve actually missed her voice in my head tonight. She tries not to do it in front of her mom because she didn’t know about my ability. So while we were playing she only talked to me out loud. Then during laser tag there was no talking. I know twenty minutes isn’t a long time to go without talking to someone, but when you literally hear someone in your head almost every waking moment… it gets too quiet and you start to feel lonely.

I don’t know why I can hear her no matter what, but I’ve learned to embrace it. Even distance can’t break our connection. It’s obviously magical, but I don’t really care to find out what. I just like having her there. I wish I could talk back to her, but she can feel my amusement, so I guess that’ll have to be good enough.

You okay, Logy?She raises her eyebrows and bites her bottom lip.

I reach over and squeeze her hand, nodding with a small smile.

You’re not mad I wasn’t on your team?

I sigh dramatically and shake my head with a roll of my eyes.

Okay, okay I get it.She giggles as she feels my annoyance.It’s a reasonable question though. She sticks her tongue out at me so I reach over and tickle her.

Her mom looks back at us when she hears Violet giggling. “What are you two doing back there?”

“Logan’s being cranky because I wasn’t on his team.”

“I am not!” I shout back.

Violet just giggles even more. That little brat. I’m gonna make her pay for that.

“How do you know that?” She squints her eyes, looking back and forth between us.

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