PREFACE
I hate this. Ever since we lost the rebellion, polygraphs could ask you anything. Not just yes or no questions. My parents were lucky enough to sneak one out during the worst fight to help us practice our lies. They think they’re lucky and I think it’s rotten. They’re trying to train us or something, I guess. More on that later, though.
“Please state your name.” The detective said very firmly with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
I was tapping my fingers on the cool hard surface of the table. My polygraph tester was steadily beeping, indicating I wasn’t lying. What he didn’t know, though, was that I am an excellent liar. “Jenna Morgan.” That was true.
I had been trained to lie, my parents teaching me at a young age how to fool a polygraph. They never told me why, but for some reason as I started to get in more trouble, I put two and two together. They must have known that this day would come.
“What is your date of birth?” he asked not looking up from his paperwork, my file, or the polygraph. I have never had a rap sheet, but when I turned fifteen, my rap sheet started filling out. It was several pages long.
“My date of birth is April twenty first, nineteen ninety-seven.” That was another truth. I was off to a good start, but I knew I would have to start lying soon. “I am fifteen years old.”
“How many family members do you have?” He asked, still not looking up. He had a hint of steel in his voice and it irritated me that he could be as mad about something as pointless as a polygraph test. It’s not like they ever work. Well, okay, most of the time they do, but then again, most of the time, they aren’t dealing with me.
“I have two, excluding my parents. I have my mom, my dad, a brother and a sister. Those live in my house. Not many relatives outside of that are still alive.”
The first part was true, but the second was a lie that I have been practicing for a long time. Outside of my home in Minnesota, I have relatives everywhere. Pretty much in every state you can find someone that is related to me. Normally, this would be weird for a normal family, but for my family, it’s kind of important to have so many. I didn’t think much of it recently until I had found out what they do.
Thankfully, the polygraph didn’t move where it wasn’t supposed to. It stayed in a steady line as my heart did not stutter or speed up at all.
“Okay, thank-you. Now we’re going to move on to some more difficult questions. You might not want to answer, but if you don’t we will have more reason to suspect you.” He was very blunt and it took all of my self-control not to mock him. “First, where were you at 8:17 PM on Thursday, May 27, 2012?”
“I was at my house doing make-up work for school.”
“Ah, yes. It says here you had missed the past three weeks of school, but doesn’t give us a reason as to why. Please, enlighten me, what was that reason?” Wow, he wasn’t kidding. I can’t tell him why I was really gone. I would be in jail for sure. Or they would place me in the asylum to be brain washed and placed in a different home with no memory of my previous life.
“I got the flu. It was going around my neighborhood and it got to me. Apparently I got it really bad too, as I was out for three weeks. Everyone else who got it was back in within the week. While I was out I could do literally, nothing.” That was another lie and though I felt my heart speed up at the thought, the testing device was to slow and old to pick up on a tiny little flutter.
CHAPTER 1
I could feel the tension in the kitchen grow as walked in, still groggy with sleep. My parent’s hushed conversation stopped.
