The Five (on hold)

Chapter 3-Riley

When I first met Lucas, at the DEA, I always thought he was a little bit...... off. Certain subjects would make him upset, and he would leave for a couple hours. He would always come back, perfectly fine after. Little things like that would make me not want to tell him many things, or be put in a situation where I would have to trust him.

One more thing you need to know about Lucas, is that he is very protective of people in our group, but mostly Sierra. He has always thought to protect her more than the others. He really cares for her.

. . .

We met Hendrix in a small High school in Northern California. We were stationed there by the DEA because there was talk of a couple drug dealers being there. When we first met Hendrix, Lucas told us that we was the one. I did not believe him at first, But we tried to get close to Hendrix, because Sierra and Camden believed him. We learned later that he was a dealer, and to get him to trust us, we had to do a little errand for him. There was one guy, Jacob, who owed Hendrix some money. What we had to do was collect that money, and to do that, he needed a little......convincing. That was a job for me and Sierra. After that, Hendrix invited us to his house. We thought it was to try and sell us drugs, but we were wrong. Very wrong.

When we got to his house, he first brought us into his kitchen for some snacks. We know that you usually never accept food from drug dealers, unless you trust them. A lot. Sierra was always the first one to trust someone, and she took one of the cookies that he offered. Before she took a bite, Lucas pulled her back, to try and talk some sense into her. I saw her take a bite anyways, and then a couple seconds later, she passed out. This was not good for Hendrix.

Lucas was most definitely ticked off. He walked right up to Hendrix and started questioning him. He was asking him what happened to her and things like that. I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying as much as how he was saying it. As he was talking, he was moving closer to Hendrix in a very threatening way. I was scared for Hendrix, but oddly enough, he did not seem to be phased by this. He was confident and trusting in his answer, and said he had to bring us down to the lab to explain. So, Lucas picked up Sierra and brought her down with us.

When we got downstairs, I was in awe. It was the most sophisticated lab that I had ever seen. It was better and even more advanced that the lab back at the DEA. It was obvious that Hendrix was no drug dealer. He was a scientist who was creating a drug that was like no other.

He went into another room with Lucas, and showed him a spot where he could set Sierra down, and came back a minute later. When they came back, Lucas was asking Hendrix questions about why he chose us, and what the drug did. Hendrix explained that he had known about us before, and thought that we were the perfect test subjects. He also told us that when he found out that we were coming to his high school, he decided to pose as a drug dealer. It was the perfect plan, and we had fallen for it. Lucas was obviously angry that he had done that to us, and told him that we didn't want to be a part of this. He asked me and Camden if we agreed, and we had to nod our heads, for fear that he would be angry at us. I thought that this was actually pretty cool, and hoped that it worked.

Lucas went to go check on Sierra, and Camden and I stayed here. "So....what do you actually think about all this?" I asked him.

"I'm not sure...If it works, I think that would be great. Don't tell Lucas I said that." He replied.

"Do you honestly think that I would tell him anything?" I said, and we both laughed. "Did you notice how he has kind of taken charge or everything, and decides everything for us?"

"Yea, I did. I'm pretty sure he just likes to be in charge," he said.

"Well, he needs to realize that we have opinions too, and he needs to respect them."

"I agree, but are you gonna tell him that?"

"Heck no! I'm not that stupid."

"I'm not either."

"Well, how's he going to know then?"

"I don't know. All I know, is that I value my life, so I'm not going to tell him."

"Same" I replied.

After that Lucas came barreling through the door, right towards Hendrix. We stepped out of his way, in fear of being trampled. Shortly after he came out, Sierra came out and we rushed over to see if she was okay.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, trying to speak a little louder, so she could hear me over Lucas yelling at Hendrix.

"Yea, I'm fine," she told us.

Then she stared at me, very intently, and I didn't know what she was doing. I just let her continue to stare at me, until that was broken, when she started screaming and dropping to the ground. We helped her up and told her to take a deep breath, and explain what was going on.

"I can read your minds."

"What? How is that possible?" I asked her.

"I don't know, but I can."

"Then, why were you screaming?"

"There were voices, so many voices..." she said, and we were still dumbfounded.

Just then, Hendrix and Lucas came over and explained that the drug did in fact, allow her to read minds. Hendrix tried to convince her to try it out on him. She protested at first, but then she agreed. I thought that this was crazy, but cool. She stared at him, just like she had stared at me, and I realized that was what she was doing earlier. Not thirty seconds later, she replied to something that he must have been thinking. After that, I was convinced that I must try this. Luckily, Hendrix held out the cookies, once again, and Camden and I both picked one up. Camden backed down when Lucas rejected it, but I went ahead with it, and took a bite. Then the room started to spin. Then, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

. . .

Later when I woke up, Sierra was in the room with me.

"What's going on? Why do I hear voices?" I asked her after I was fully awake. I heard stray, quiet voices all around.

"Don't worry," she reassured, "you will soon be able to control the voices"

"How?"

"To control them, you focus in on one person, and try to block everything else out, then you will hear what they are thinking. Here, try it out on me."

I did what she told me, and I looked at her, and tried to block everything else out, but I just couldn't focus when I heard yelling and crashing from the next room.

"Sierra, I can't do it."

"Sure you can! I'll go get them to stop, ok?"

"Ok"

"I'll be right back"

I waited for her for a while to come back. I didn't think she would be coming back soon, because I hear Lucas yelling at her, and her yelling back. So, I decided to go and check it out for myself. When I went in there I saw them arguing, although I didn't know what about, so I decided to ask.
"What's the matter Lucas?" I asked him.

"You should go back and get some rest, Riley" he replied.

Thanks but no thanks, I can take care of myself. "I will go back if I please, now what's wrong?"

"Lucas thinks that he should continue being leader, and Sierra thinks there should be no leader, and you should consult things as a group," said Hendrix.

"All in favor of no leader, raise your hand," Sierra said.

All of us raised our hands. "No one asked you, Hendrix," Lucas snapped.

"Okay Lucas. It's unanimous. You are no longer our leader," she said calmly.

Oh crap. Lucas is angry. Really angry. Lucas turned around, and he knocked all of the glass beakers filled with various chemicals on the ground. Hendrix tried to stop him, but it was too late.

Everything went black.

. . .