Bionic Chaos [Leo Dooley]

Chapter Eleven

I knock a few times on the front door at the Davenport house before glancing back at my mother. She sits in her car, staring at me through the windshield. I know she wants to meet the Davenports, the people that her youngest daughter has suddenly been spending so much time with, but I wave at her, telling her to leave. I don't want her here to witness my downfall. 

Squaring my shoulders, I tell myself that I have to start getting evidence because Caitlin is getting on my back about not having anything ready for the world release of the bionics secret. It's a good thing I have an idea about what to get right now. About a day ago or so, Leo and I hung out together at my house because he wanted to show me the short film that surprisingly had Principal Perry in it. Anyway, in that film, I noticed that they filmed the majority of it in a lab, and I'm wondering if this lab is the one that the bionics live in. I plan on trying to find it and getting a few pictures of it to appease Caitlin.

No one answers the door after I knock again. With a sigh, I test the doorknob. It works, so I shove the door open, not wanting to be outside any longer. However, that is not a good idea on my part because loud noise spills outside toward me, making me blink hard.

The chaos that Bree told me about earlier sounded fake, especially with my reality of quiet house and quite family, besides when they're yelling at each other about all the mistakes that are actively being made. However, I know it's real now as I step into the Davenport house. Directly in front of me is Mr. Davenport, posing with a weird hand thing that is connected through wires. Some random dude holds a camera in front of him and is snapping pictures of Mr. Davenport while shouting, "Yes! Work it!" as annoying pop music blares around us. 

It doesn't stop there, though. No, through that chaos is the boys -- Leo, Adam, and Chase -- running around with some sort of ball, each throwing it to the other and shouting how it is so unfair that Adam keeps getting the ball, especially because he's the tallest person in the whole house. Their ball keeps flying over Mr. Davenport and the random guy's head, but they're still modeling and snapping pictures; I have no idea how they do not see any of this happening around them. I hold my breath as the ball flies directly toward the back of Mr. Davenport's head. Thankfully, Chase catches it before any damage could happen.

On top of all this, Tasha, Leo's mom, stands in the kitchen, busying herself with making lunch for the rowdy teenagers and strange, egocentric men. There's a crease on her brow as she glances at everyone in the living room before turning back to oven. I feel bad for her that she has to cook for all these people without any help. Why isn't Bree or even the boys helping her? It shouldn't just be her cooking since she has so many people to help her. Then again, my own family does the same thing where it's only my mom in the kitchen and my dad doing nothing of that sort, so I can't really judge them for it.

Bree suddenly appears in front of me, a strained look on her face. I feel bad for her, too, but I can never tell her that. "You can see why I need you to get me out of here," she says over the boys shouting and the music blaring. She pushes me toward the door, saying, "It's almost always like this, and I can't take it anymore."

We step outside, shutting the door behind us. Immediately the noise is stifled to where we can actually hear ourselves breathe and think. I'm glad that I'm out of there even if I wanted to find the lab. I only spent a minute or so in that place, but Bree has to live there every single day. I could not imagine living in that chaos like she does. 

"How do you do it?" I ask her as we start walking down the street. I really don't know why I told my mother to drive away. We have no ride to the mall. "How do you live there?"

"I really don't know."

"I wouldn't be able to survive."

"That's why I need you, Maggie. You'll make me feel normal when we do normal things together. And nothing we do will be that chaotic. Hopefully."