Searching for You

Answers

To say the Davenports were excited about what I had to say was an understatement. When I walked into the lab from the elevator, Adam immediately jumped up from his chair and rushed over to me, bombarding me with dozens of questions. I told him he would have to wait until the others got there for me to explain everything, and at that response he acted like a toddler and pouted. It was both kind of amusing but also kind of sad. 

Then the others walked in.

Chase was ecstatic, while Bree was just pretending not to excited, but she was. At any mention of a possible mission, the Davenport siblings always acted like they were going to jump out of their pants at any given moment.

"Bree told me you had something you needed help with," Chase said after regaining his composure. "What was it?"

"If you'll breathe for a second, I will," I sighed, rolling my eyes.

I explained to them the situation about my dad and what I was doing to search for him. They took it better than I thought they would; yet another display of how I can overthink way too much. You guys overthink, too, right? It can't just be me. If it is, I'm gonna have another talk with my therapist for lying to me.

Anyways.

Chase began to go over a few ways he could help look, and Bree offered to super-speed to New York and look for him, but I told her that was probably not a good idea, since New York was very populated and a lot of people would see her. She then began to pout like Adam and sit down with her arms crossed. I swear those people are like children sometimes.

"So, you saw him in the newspaper and then you saw the article about the plane crash?" Chase recapped. "Are you sure he's not . . . you know . . ."

"Chase, I saw blood," I reminded him. "That plane exploded."

"Okay, fair."

We looked over the files one more time, Chase deep in thought. It was so interesting to watch him work, like his mind was a computer. I sometimes wished I could open it up and see how each little part worked like you could with real life computers. I figured I could probably learn more from him in a day than I could with an entire lifetime of school.

That honestly probably has more to do with me not paying attention in class than anything else. Whatever, Chase is still really cool. You have to admit that.

It only took two seconds for Bree to surprise me. "When do you want to go looking for him in New York?"

I stared at her. "Are you serious?"

She crossed her arms and smirked. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

Chase sighed and addressed both of us. "You can't go while school is in session," he reasoned. "But, I think we can make a weekend trip of it and just do that for a few weeks until we find at least something."

"So, is your dad, like, super strong, too?" Adam asked from out of nowhere. He had a goofy smile plastered onto his face. "Can he transform into a cat? Or a dog? Ooo, what about a bear! Bears are awesome!"

It was always super fun when Adam got this excited. Either because he was about to break something or he was going to do a happy dance. He loved to surprise you like that. And what made it fun was watching Chase go through the five stages of grief every time.

Right now, he was going through denial.

I leaned into Bree to whisper in her ear. "How much you willing to bet that Chase is going to go into the anger stage in five minutes?"

She looked at me with a mischievous look in her eye. "Ten."

"You're on."

"Adam, I don't think that's how it works," Chase said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We don't even have anything to go off of for Abby's powers."

Adam didn't appear to hear him and just stood up, prancing over to the bowl of chips he had left on the holo-table and started munching on them. I hadn't even noticed they were there. Did he always have snacks hidden somewhere? It was kind of impressive, I'm not going to lie.

Unfortunately, it looked like Bree was going to get her money.

"Adam!" Chase shouted. "Can we please focus! Abby asked for our help and we need to take it seriously!"

"You owe me ten bucks," Bree murmured.

"Fine," I groaned, rolling my eyes. "You win this one."

The elevator door opened and we turned around to see Mr. Davenport walking in with a tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other. His brow was furrowed with deep thought as if something was bothering him. My heart began to pound as I remembered the blood test he had taken two days before. Could it be that he had already gotten a result?

Oh, I don't think I'm ready for this.

Mr. Davenport looked up at us and grinned, giving a little single-finger wave with his coffee hand. "Hey, guys," he greeted. "What are you up to?"

"We're helping Abby look for her dad!" Adam blurted. "I wonder if it's a situation like ours. You know, finds her dad but he's not actually her dad and then her real dad was the other dad's brother---"

"Adam!" the rest of us shouted at once. Chase looked as if he was about to turn into Spike and none of us wanted that to happen. Spike was a psychopath.

Mr. Davenport looked at us with his mouth hanging open slightly, his eyebrows raised in surprise. I had never seen that man so speechless in his entire life. He usually always had something to talk about---that something almost always being himself. Seeing Mr. Davenport speechless was like seeing a unicorn in the wild. Never happened.

But there we were, witnessing Adam Davenport make history.

He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again, shaking his head as if it wasn't worth it. He put his coffee down next to Adam's snack and waved me over to him. I complied, my heart pounding with fear and anticipation. This could be the answer about my powers. This could also help me find my dad.

If I could just get a sample of my dad's blood from the crash, somehow. . . .

The thought was absurd. There was no way in the world I would be able to do that. That was in a lab somewhere, completely unreachable. And why had I had that thought anyways?

Mr. Davenport showed me the tablet. There was an image of a double-helix, that much I knew. But the stuff down below that was just gibberish. I didn't speak science or math that well. 

I cleared my throat. "What does it mean?"

Mr. Davenport looked up at me, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "You have a genetic mutation," he answered simply. "Take a look at this protein here. You see how it's shaped differently? It's not supposed to be there at all. When I put this through some tests, I tried to put the blood sample through some situations that would be stressful---or at least simulate them in some way."

There was a bit of silence, and then I realized that the others were standing behind me, Chase at my right and looking intently over my shoulder. It was kind of uncomfortable to feel them there, but at the same time it was comforting. At least I wouldn't be going through this alone.

"What did you find?" Chase asked suddenly, startling me. He noticed my reaction and apologized, smiling sweetly. I returned the smile, punching him in the arm playfully.

"The blood changed almost entirely," Mr. Davenport said excitedly. "It switched from that of a human's blood to almost entirely being a tiger's blood, with a few modifications of course. Tigers aren't that strong and aren't that fast."

I nodded, understanding. I was trying my best to mask my excitement, but I couldn't help it. I was finally getting answers, and the answer was simply that I had been born this way.

And knowing this, it would be easier to track down my dad without the extra weight on my mind.

It was time to take the search more seriously. And now this time I had help.