Mary pov
I watch from the sidelines as Lazari and Ruby take down some bounties.
"Hey Hey Hey!" Sally says. "What are you guys doing?!?"
"Taking down the more dangerous bounties and keeping everyone safe." Lazari says.
"I don't understand??" Sally says. "What was wrong with this one? 'Please help find these missing children'. It seems harmless."
"Don't you remember our first bounty? It had the same thing but we had to fight a monster." Ruby says, holding the bounties in her arms.
"Ok sure, but now we're stronger, have better weapons and more experience!" Sally says in defence.
Lazari looks at Sally, her eyes pleading for her to stop. Sally stays stubborn and Lazari sighs. They go to another room.
I hear footsteps right beside me. "Wow.. something must've happened on that bounty.. Lazari was right to be suspicious.." Fran says, beside me.
The bounty???
"Huh? What do you mean??" I ask her.
"Well they weren't supposed to do the bounty but Georgie got everyone by his side. They fought for a while but Lazari eventually allowed it." Fran explained. "Haa.. I wonder if he did that on purpose..."
I look over at Ruby, she took down 1 final bounty. She finally left with her arms full of bounties. I watch her back as she goes up.
(-0-0-0-0-)
It's been a couple days since they took down the dangerous looking bounties. I watch as Coraline complains to Lazari about the money and the bounties overall.
We're always training but.. we don't get the experience of fighting.. and more and more kids are showing. There are also more alive kids now, so we need to buy some food. Then there's also our wants and needs.. the pay we receive is way too little..
I watch as Coraline and soon Ib's friend, Mary, and Aya. They keep getting rejected but they won't budge.
(-0-0-0-0-)
I was helping Ruby with bringing some toys to David's room. I kept on thinking about Coraline and the bounties. It must've shown on my face since Ruby looked worried.
"You okay, Mary?" Ruby asks me.
"Uhmm.. yeah I am.."
"Are you sure? You're spacing out." Ruby starts getting more and more worried.
"Yeah! It's nothing.." I try reassuring her.
She gives up for a while before turning and staring right at me eyes. Her eyes were filled with worry.
"Look Mary I can see it in your eyes. Somethings happening." Ruby looks into my eyes. "What's wrong? You can tell me anything, I'm your best friend." She smiles at me.
I hesitate but I decide to tell her. "It's just.. don't you think that taking the higher paying bounties because they're high paying is kinda.. ridiculous..?"
Ruby looks bewildered. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well.. more and more kids are joining and more and more alive kids are here, so we need to buy food for them." I try to explain. "Plus we all also have our wants and needs, like" I hold up David's toys. "The toys. So I was thinking about doing the more high paying bounties again."
Ruby is silent for a while. "No. It's too dangerous." Her eyes sharpen and it gives me chills. She starts walking over to David's room, stopping the conversation.
"W-wait." I catch up to her and I grab her shoulders. "I don't understand?? What's wrong with what I said?"
"Mary, please, let's leave this behind and play with David." Ruby ignores my question and starts walking again.
"No! I can't leave it behind! This might end up hurting us more than the bounties you took down! We're running out of food!" I grab her shoulder, again.
"Mary."
"Please!" I try pleading to her. "You're my best friend! You promised that you would do your best to protect everyone."
"Mary, I didn't break the promise it's to protect everyone." Ruby says, starting to sound angry.
"How? The only things it's doing is making us run out of supplies more! Plus we trained for this and that's also the reason why we go in groups! So how is it protecting us??"
"Why can't you just keep quiet, like how you were in the Cat and Rat Theatre?!" Ruby, explodes.
...what..?
I was surprised. I could feel the tears swell up in my eyes. My visions starts getting blurring but I see Ruby saying something, but I couldn't hear it. My ears were ringing, my heart was beating fast.
I drop the toys and starting running up to my room. I could hear distant yelling but I didn't look back. I reach my room and I lock the door. I try to cover my ears but the ringing won't stop. I couldn't stop the tears from coming out. I hug my legs closer to me and try to compact myself more. I couldn't stop crying.
