The three couldn't afford an answer. They looked at him, as jolts of fear ran up and down their spines. Their knees were weak, wanting to crumble on themselves. The way Mr. Quagmire spoke… it sounded unfriendly.
"Hello, am I talking to ghosts?" Mr. Quagmire asked as he breathed out the cigar effluent at their faces. Karl and Kimberly started coughing. Guarth pinched his nose and moved away. "So you are not talking to me, huh? Listen kids, and listen carefully." He hissed. "I'm a good lad, only if you will obey me. Life ain't easy, and you all know that. I've just come from the farm in order to plant crops to sell. Sell so as to get money. Money that will take care of you kids. All the nine of you."
"I thought the children's agency was paying you to support us…" Karl interrupted.
"Wait!" The man blurted, gasping air to shock. "Are you speaking while I'm speaking?" He growled as he moved towards Karl.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" Karl apologized spontaneously, but it was too late to prevent the slap that landed on his face. It was loud like a whip's crack making its way through the silent night. Karl held the hurt cheek and rubbed off the pain, tears begging to come out. That slap shook the other two kids.
"You don't talk while I talk!" the man roared. Some saliva spits landed on Karl and his latter. "You'll listen to what I say, do you hear me? DO YOU!" The three kids nodded coherently, fear in their eyes.
"Good…" Mrs. Quagmire spoke as she came behind her husband. "Our day here begins at seven in the morning. You wake up and do the chores allocated to you. Whether it's in the ranch, or the farm, or the house. You will do as expected, and if it's too much, you are free to leave and fend for yourselves in the streets." She paused and looked at the terrified kids.
"The streets. Do you want to belong to the streets?" Mr. Quagmire asked. "Do you know how dangerous the streets are? Do you?" The three shook their heads. "It's bad. Really bad. And if you want to live with us here… you'll stop asking questions and just do as we want. Okay?"
"Yes," Guarth responded.
"Yeah." Karl and Kimberly sadly agreed.
"Good… now go and sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day."
And with that, the three turned, headed inside the house, and climbed to the upper rooms. The house was large. Pretty large. Kimberly branched into one of the girls' bedrooms and the boys got into another room.
In his mind, Karl was never prepared for this life. These strangers he had been surrounded by… there was something about them. He wasn't okay being here, but even so, he had no option. This was the best he could have for now, as he had nowhere else to go. The only family he knew despised him, for their own reasons and his own parents were six feet under back in Colorado Springs. And all of this happened because of him. Could he have listened to Ethan and stopped the friendship between them and Zayn? And ended up protecting Dylan? Was Ethan right? Was it justifiable for the Purcells to hate him that much to the point that they gave him away like he didn't matter to them? Did he deserve this burden? At that young age, Karl understood what had happened and he couldn't help but blame himself. If he could have only listened to Ethan and done the right thing, then life would still be the same. His thoughts carried him to a deep slumber as he thought of how life was and how it was going to be different from the next day, at the hands of these strangers. Little did he know that this night was like the tip of the iceberg. The following two years were going to be worse.
TWO YEARS LATER…
"Quick! Run! Run! Run!" Karl shouted at the two as they slithered their way through the small entrance of a neighborhood supermarket. In his hand, he had a packet of crisps with two bottles of Coca-Cola drinks in the other. In front of him was the ever-growing red-haired Kimberly and in the farthest front was Guarth. And in his hand were the same entities that were on Karl's hands. The three sprung out of the mart after stealing the food from the shelves in order to satisfy their hunger needs.
"Quick! They're gonna catch us!" Karl warned his fellows as they made their way through the busy streets of Topeka, Kansas.
"You're the one who's last! Cant your legs carry you faster?" Kimberly said as they diverged into a less crowded street and hid in an alley. They had managed to lose the security guards from the supermarket. And what a chase it had been!
They threw themselves against the walls and rested, panting heavily as they tried to catch their breaths. They quickly opened the stolen items and began eating with their dirty hands. They were really dirty. Not the hands alone… but the group in general. They wore dirty and torn clothes that spoke of tales that could only be understood by rats.
It had been three months now since the three had stolen money from the Quagmires and ran away from their home to Kansas in order to escape the police. Life had been hard on them as they had to survive on garbage leftovers from restaurants and hotels, and also pickpocketing unlucky strangers their eyes could target. The streets weren't the safest place for them to be as they would all recall the day Kimberly was nearly raped by some gang. Some fights with some rival street children followed and it became their normal. They slept in dumpsters and lived by the same dumpsters. And now three months later, here they were trying to make their ends meet.
"Pass me the drink," Kimberly told Karl and he handed it to her. She tore apart another packet of crisps and devoured its crunchy contents in haste almost choking itself. A small little family of kids in the mid of spring just enjoying themselves on stolen food. Nothing could go wrong. Right?
Wrong.
"THIS IS THE POLICE!!!" The boys in blue disrupted them from their little episode. "Get up with your hands in the hair. I mean air!" They were nearing them inside the alley.
"They've found us!" Guarth gasped. "They've fucking found us!" His eyes were decorated with shock.
"We need to go!" Karl hissed. "Now!" he got to his feet and helped the girl get up too. Leaving the food behind, the three ran away in the opposite direction the police were calling them from. They skipped over poodles of water and slowly crept out of the tight alley.