The Anomaly Project

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TODD

Autumn's head is still on my shoulder when I wake up. Even in sleep, she looks angry, with her eyebrows drawn and her mouth turned down in a characteristic frown. The morning light filters in through the window. Nina and Liam stand over by a small stove, although I don't see Matias anywhere. The scent of cooking meat fills the house.

"Rise and shine, Mr. Anders," Nina calls to me. "Wake her up, and Liam will take you to find your friend."

I nod to her and nudge Autumn. "Hey," I say to her. "Wake up, will you?"

She groans, scrunching up her face, and then opens her eyes. She takes her head off my shoulder and rubs her face, looking very groggy and a bit grumpy.

I can't help smiling. "Morning, sunshine."

Autumn sighs. "Don't tell me you're a morning person, too," she says. Her voice is hoarse and scratchy with sleep. "Noah drives me crazy in the morning. How do you manage to be so cheerful right after you wake up?"

I shrug, suppressing a smile. "How do you manage to be so grumpy all the time?"

She rolls her eyes, stretches out her arms. "Trust me, it's not hard to be grumpy."

"We've got some breakfast here for you two, if you want it," Nina calls over, holding up a frying pan. "It's not much – just what's left of yesterday's rations - but it's better than nothing."

Autumn's eyes light up. "Food! I've never been one to refuse that," she says, and goes over to them. I follow her. Nina hands me the pan, and Autumn and I split the remaining pieces of bacon in it.

The door swings open and Matias comes on, looking worried. "The Karaton are making the rounds," he says. "They'll be here soon; in a few minutes at most. We've got to hide those two." He jerks his head in our direction.

Nina grabs several blankets and hands them to Autumn. "Go in the corner," she says. "Cover your whole bodies. Do not move. If we don't act suspicious, they might not search the house. Entiendes?"

"Understood," I answer, grabbing Autumn's shoulder. "Come on," I say to her. She follows me back to the corner where we slept and we sit down next to other, the way we did last night. I pull the blankets over us, several layers. I would have just turned us invisible, but I don't want to scare the others with the whole "superhuman" thing. Once under the blanket, though, I turn us invisible anyway.

We sit in silence, listening to the others shuffle around the house. After several suspenseful minutes, there's two sharp knocks on the door. "Open up!" shouts a gruff voice.

The familiar squeak of the door reaches my ears as it opens. There's the sound of footsteps as the Karaton enter the house. "How many are residing here?" the same gruff voice asks. The man speaking has a very gravelly tone, like he needs to clear his throat.

"Three," I hear Nina say, her voice quieter and more reserved than I've heard so far. "Myself, my brother Matias, and our friend Liam Reed."

"And your name is?"

"Nina Alvarez."

I hear the sound of a pencil scratching on paper. "Miss Alvarez, have you seen two unfamiliar people around? A male and a female, both around seventeen or eighteen years old."

My heart speeds up as I realize they're talking about us. They must have done something to Tessa and Haley to make them talk. Rage burns in my gut. If they've done something to hurt my friends, they will pay.