***

"Rats!" Norman punched the tree beside him. After the announcement of Sister Krone and Carol's arrival, the kids were able to go outside. Norman, Emma, Ray, and Alex had walked all the way to the tree on the hill to talk about the new obstacle that stood in their way. As you can tell from Norman's reaction, they were not taking it well. Rightfully so. This would make it ten times harder to escape.

While Norman had punched the tree, Ray stood with his back leaning against the trunk while Alex sat beside it. Emma was standing a foot away from it, watching Norman with a sad look on her face. Alex had no idea what they were supposed to do with a new player added to the board. How did they not expect this?

"Things aren't looking great for us," Ray stated. "I also don't like the fact that she moved into that room." Sister Krone had been set up in the room that was in between their rooms. This made sneaking out in the middle of the night a lot trickier.

"Reorganizing the food supply... Checking the extra sheets for any defects..," Norman leaned against the tree, "We've been tricked into preparing for welcoming a second enemy onto our grounds! It was obvious from those hints... How did I not notice?!"

Alex stood and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Hey, none of us noticed. How were we supposed to know? We were already so on edge." The whole time they were doing chores they were worried about what Mom might try to do. It was only fair that they weren't going to be able to account for something like this.

"Well, even if you did," Ray turned his head to look at Norman, "It's not like we could've done anything to stop her from coming. There's no need to-"

"That's not the point though," Norman cut him off, "Mama was intentionally sprinkling hints in front of our faces this whole time! If she had wanted to truly catch us off guard, she wouldn't have made us do just those three chores. If we truly want to escape... We have to overcome that mother of ours!"

"How are we even going to get that?" Alex stared up at the sky with a far off look in her eyes. There was a hint of confusion and uneasiness in them as well, "She always seems to be a step ahead of us."

Ray got up off of the tree, "But... We also have to remember that even us panicking like this may be part of Mama's plan. 'I am above you all in strategic thinking.' 'I know all of your plans.' 'Give up.' The fact that she's leaving all kinds of hints for us proves that she's trying to intimidate us into submission," He stated. He was correct. Mom obviously didn't seem to be worrying because she knew that Sister Krone was going to be coming. She knew that she had nothing to worry about if Sister Krone was here, "If that's the case, we shouldn't be backing down here. As long as we manage to get out of here in the end, victory is still ours. So basically, don't feel bad because that's what the enemy wants. In fact, we should be celebrating right now."

"Huh?" Emma asked.

"Why are earth would we be celebrating?" Alex moved her gaze from the sky and to Ray. Her facial expression turned into a puzzled one, "There's a new adult here which will make it a lot harder to escape now, Ray."

"We have two extra sources of information now!" Ray informed them, "We need more information anyway. This is exactly what we needed!"

Emma smiled, "We won't lose without gain. We'll be the ones to win this battle!" The four of them took off deeper into the forest. They knew the smaller kids would be wanting them to play, but they couldn't. Not while they had many things to plan for. Emma sat down on the ground, "First, we need to figure out where those two came from."

"Right," Ray said.

"Then after we'll have to find some way to get information out of Sister Krone," Alex added in. Sister Krone was definitely going to be the type to keep her mouth shut. They just needed to find some way to trick her into talking or something like that. Emma nodded in confirmation.

"Carol is a replacement for Conny..," Norman trailed off, "In other words, they've restocked the farm's supply."

"Agreed," Ray crossed his arms, "Assuming that this place really is a 'farm' rather than an 'orphanage,' there must be some sort of source that those demons... Are either producing or abducting their supply of one-year-olds from."

Norman averted his gaze to the ground, "To summarize our current situation in three points..."

"Does that mean that all of us came from that source?" Emma inquired.

"Probably," Ray replied, "That's where that lady must be from too."

"Our biggest new clue is the fact that there are adult humans out there apart from Mama," Norman brought his hand up to his chin in thought, "Perhaps there are multiple other farms just like this one out there too. Were these adults... Born into serving those demons? Or were they abducted by the demons from a normal human society? Even a small difference like that will make a huge difference in the world we're up against."

Alex thought about it for a moment before saying, "I doubt that they were stolen. That would cause too much of a disruption in human society and it would make it harder to get more kids. There's no way that humans wouldn't notice that babies were mysteriously going missing." The humans obviously wouldn't let something like that go unpunished. It might end up resulting in a war and Alex doubted that the demons would want to deal with all that.

"You have a point." Norman agreed.

"The fact that Carol was just brought to us early is also a great plus. There may be no visible marks on the older kids, but Carol just got here. To summarize our current situation in three points..," Ray started counting off the points on his fingers, "One, the adults are our key to knowledge of the outside world. Two, Carol will be our key of uncovering the secret behind these trackers. And finally... Three, Mama is being weird."

"Wha- Huh?! What?!" Emma wasn't getting the last point at all, "Sorry, but I don't get it!"

"No offense, Emma, but sometimes I wonder how you're always able to get full marks on the tests. You're always so slow when it comes to this stuff." Alex told her. She wasn't met with any kind of response. She couldn't be too hard on Emma though. It wasn't like they were taught the basics to escape.

"But wouldn't you agree?" Ray inquired, "Though indirect, she keeps trying to intimidate us. And it's not just once or twice, she does it every time! Something's definitely up! If she knows all of our plans, why doesn't she just hurry up and find us?"

"If she tried, she should be able to," Norman said.

"Exactly," Alex agreed, "She could easily just keep us away from each other or find our ropes and take them. But she hasn't even done that." They were still together when they did chores so putting them to work wasn't exactly a good strategy. Mom was a lot smarter than that. She could have also found and stolen their 'ropes' while they were working, but she didn't.

"It must be that she has some sort of reason that she either can't or intentionally doesn't," Norman explained. That made sense. She was probably putting her own plan in action and it required her not to interfere with theirs.

"What's the reason?" Emma asked.

"I don't know yet," Norman responded.

"Maybe she wants us to feel like we have some kind of freedom that we really don't. Something cruel like that." Alex suggested. It was a pretty good idea if Mom wanted them to suffer in the end. Their mother had sent multiple of their siblings off to their deaths so Alex wouldn't put it past her.

"But that's pretty much all there is to us not knowing how to predict Mama's next move," Ray said. "Understanding her reasons is our top priority right now. You know what to do, right?"

Alex and Emma shared a smile. It was finally their time to do something for the escape plan. It was mostly Norman and Ray who had been doing things for it. Neither of them had a chance to actually help out. But this was finally their time. The two of them said, "Yeah!"

"Us two won't be able to approach her." Ray motioned to him and Norman.

"Leave it to us!" Emma placed a hand on her chest. "We'll do all it takes to find new information on the trackers from Carol!"

"We won't come back until we know exactly where the trackers are!" Alex exclaimed.

"We won't be able to approach her. If we try now, Mama will start to suspect us," Norman stated. Only the older girls of the house, Emma and Alex being two of them, were allowed to help with the babies. Mom never gave them a reason why. "We've got to find and destroy the trackers. Otherwise, we'll never be able to escape. Especially if we want to take everybody with us. We're counting on you... Emma, Alex!"

The girls nodded with determined expressions. They were going to make sure to find the trackers. They had to. This was for them and their siblings' safety. They had to make sure they escape from this cage.