Make Way for the Spiders

Nineteen

-_-_-_-Peter's POV-_-_-_- 

I was running late, and should've been at Rayne's house ten minutes ago. By the time I finally made it to her door, I was breathing heavily - the elevator was down, and I'd had to sprint up the stairs. 

I knocked lightly, and waited a few minutes, but no one answered. I checked my phone to make sure the girls hadn't tried to contact me, and saw that I had no new messages. I knocked again, louder this time, and I could faintly hear the sound of shuffling, and a couple bangs. 

The door flew open, and I was greeted by Rayne and Gwen, both rubbing their eyes, and in their pajamas. Rayne's hair looked like a rat's nest, and Gwen's was in loose braid, with fly aways hovering around her head. 

"What?" Rayne mumbled, rubbing her eyes. 

I raised my eyebrows at them. "Did you two just wake up or something?" I asked them. 

Gwen nodded, her eyes drooping. They moved out of the way, and I stepped through, chuckling at them. 

"Gwen stayed a little later than expected last night," Rayne explained, closing the door, and trudging over to the couch. "So I convinced Mom to let her stay the night." 

I looked at the two girls dead on their feet, and smiled. "How late did you stay up?" 

"I don't know," Gwen sighed. "Maybe four? We were looking at some of the video diaries, and lost track of time." 

"Anything I should know about?" I asked, sitting down on the recliner. 

"No," Rayne huffed. "It's nothing but equations and stuff. Some tests on animals, but nothing to do with Tempest." 

Rayne and Gwen were both sitting on the couch now, and were falling back asleep. I rolled my eyes, and made my way to the kitchen. I grabbed two cups and filled them with water, before coming back and tossing them on the girls. They sprung awake, gasping and soaked. 

"What was that for?" Gwen demanded, wiping her eyes. 

"How else were we supposed to get anything done today?" I asked, only to be hit over the head with a pillow. 

"Meanie," Rayne griped, still clutching her weapon. "Now we have to go change." 

Both of them glared daggers at me, before shuffling out of the room and down the hall. I just rolled my eyes, and plopped myself down on the recliner, flipping on the tv. 

It took a while, but I finally heard a door open, and the two came back down the hall in sweat pants and baggy t-shirts. Gwen had a laptop in her hands, and Rayne held an armful of files and papers. 

"This is everything I could get access to," Gwen informed me, sitting down at the coffee table. She opened her laptop, and went through some files, while Rayne thumbed through the papers in her hands. 

"Gwen said you worked with Dr. Connors," Rayne said, pulling out some papers. "So we assumed you would recognize some of these notes. Like the mice and lizard combination." 

She handed me a small stack of papers, and I went through them. "I wrote some of them," I noted, glancing over my own (admittedly messy) handwriting. 

"There are some emails here, too," Gwen added, turning the screen around so I could see. They were all to or from Dr. Connors. 

"When I was doing my intern, Kim was always texting people," Rayne sighed. "I wish we could get a hold of her phone." She stood up, and made her way to the kitchen, and started pulling pans and mixing bowls out.