The Fleece Job (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 3: Payback

Peter

  I slept in again this morning. I sleep in most summer days. That's what they're for I suppose. For someone who hates waking up as much as I do, I shouldn't like sleeping as much. Except nightmares don't come in the night for me. Just the day.

That's why I'm rolled out of bed, sitting on the floor, breathing heavily as I look around my brother's room. I couldn't sleep again last night. I read. Watched YouTube. Couldn't pass out. so I came in here and lay next to him and listened to him breathing. Then I went out. That always works because so long as Cassian is here I'm safe. So long as Cassian is here everything is fine.

Except he's not here now. It's two in the afternoon. And I'm in his room, sitting on the floor breathing and forcing myself to stare at the hockey sticks propped against the wall. And the Bolts jersey hanging on the back of his door. and other things that mean I'm definitely here and definitely all right.

He left. Of course he did. It's two in the afternoon. He's got better things to do than watch me sleep.

I sigh, forcing myself to stand. What day is it? Wednesday? I fumble for my phone. Not in my pockets. I sigh. It's in the bed, in the sheets, with almost no power. Of course I fell asleep clutching it as a comfort item.

I walk back across the hall to my room to find a shirt and actual pants. Jeans lying on the floor by the door, and as large a Bolts hoodie as I can manage. It's Cassian's of course. I take half his clothes. They smell like him. And they're more comfortable than mine.  Our mother hasn't given up on buying me clothes yet.

I splash my face, readjusting the towel I have hanging over the mirror. Our mother did give up on taking that down. I pull the hoodie up despite the warm summer day. I'll go outside and read my current book underneath the trees in the yard. Eventually Cassian will show back up to look for me. It'll be a fine day. Is it Wednesday? Damn it's only Tuesday. That means my mother will be home more than likely, she works from home on Tuesdays. I pick up my book, Of Time and River. It's all right. Cassian's dad gave it to me, or rather I picked it from a stack of things in his office. Yes, my twin and I have different fathers. Miracles of science that we are, my twin got the cool parent who day drinks and aggressively attends PTA things and remembers hockey games. I got the parent who rapidly left our mother and moved across the country and doesn't even know I died.

I sigh, walking down the stairs. Maybe my mother will not ask if I've eaten breakfast and let me go and sulk outside in peace.

"Creep."

"Nerd."

I walk nearly directly into my little sister, Bronte. Well. She's not my sister. She's Cassian's. Yes just his. As in his father had her with his actual wife. She's also not that much littler than us either. Three or four months or something like that, but we count it. We're in classes with her in school.

"What are you doing here anyway?" I ask, not letting her walk past me.

"Existing where I like," she says, folding her arms. She's about half my height, goth little thing. She's got on thick dark eyeliner, and is wearing a black and red leather coat, a corset outside of a frilly black shirt, high black boots with shiny silver buckles, and fishnet stockings underneath tragically ripped black pants. Her hair, dark like mine and Cass's, is greased back out of her face and not much longer than a boy's, barely reaching the nape of her neck.

"Putting evil things in my room more like, get out of my house," I growl, blocking her from going up. It would not at all be the first time the horrible girl put spiders in my bed.

"Still scared of spiders, Peter?" she asks, not at all sympathetically, tipping her head as huge icky tarantula crawls up her neck and across her face.

"Yes! I am---now what is it you want?" I ask, trying actively not to shudder as the thing stops on her forehead, tapping its horrible crawly legs.