Chapter 26

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"Alright, so you're an insomniac that can sleep occasionally, and when you do you, have nightmares. What about exactly?" Toby asked, he was sitting in a chair in front of me, while I sat on the couch. He had asked me to come in so that he could try to work out the sleeping problem I was having. The only other person that was at the garage was Walter, and he was upstairs.

I didn't answer immediately, and Toby sighed and let his head loll back on the chair, obviously slightly frustrated with my hesitation, so I answered, "They vary. I don't even remember most of them after a day or so."

Toby snapped his head up when I answered, paying full attention to me once again. He looked me over slowly, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of mine, probably judging whether or not I was telling the truth.

After a minute or two of this he sighed, obviously giving up and just taking my word, "Is there something that these dreams stem from?"

Yes. The very thing I had told Sylvester. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through the hazardous retelling again, especially not after having relived it in my dream the former night. Lying was going to have to work for me for now, at least until I was ready to tell the truth, "No, I don't think so. They don't seem to be connected in any way."

Toby nodded, and bit his lip in a strange confusion. Of course I had stumped him, he was on the right track and I threw him off of it. "These will most likely pass, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. Let me know if they persist though," Toby concluded, drawing to the only conclusion that he possibly could at this point.

I nodded and hopped off the couch, grabbing my keys, phone, and wallet from the side table and making my way to the door, not allowing Toby to ask me any more questions. Hopefully my rush would be covered up by the fact that I had an appointment with my new apartment (hopefully) and my advisor, Paige.

As soon as I shut the door of my the garage behind me I let out a long drawn out sigh. I hadn't been counting on Toby to ever get back to me on my sleep issue, but the insomnia one, and it had taken me slightly off guard. I shook my head to try to rid myself of the images from the dream I had previously had and stalked to my car.

I checked my appearance in the rearview mirror. I had done pretty well at covering up the shadows that had begun to form under my eyes, and my usual ponytail looked neater than usual. Probably because I wasn't doing anything that involved risking my life today.

When I reached the apartment complex that I had been eyeing for the past week, Paige and the realtor were standing in front, undoubtedly waiting for me.

"Sorry, Toby needed me," I called as I climbed out of the car, and threw the lanyard with my car keys around my head.

"Leave it to Toby," Paige said as I joined them. I rolled my eyes in confirmation and turned to the realtor.

"I'm Taylor O'Brien," I said with a friendly smile and held out my hand. She seemed pleased with my politeness and grabbed my hand in hers.

"I'm Zoey Cerdena, shall we get to it?" She asked, and I nodded enthusiastically.

The next hour was nearly as painful as the previous one as I got to hear the usual banter about the neighborhood, renting price, the ups and downs of the apartment, and what to expect. The apartment itself held one bedroom and bathroom, plus a kitchen and a fairly large area that would be a living room. The entire place had light blue walls and simple dark wooden flooring. The apartment complex was fairly new, so I would be vthe second person to ever move into this apartment. As another plus, this apartment was the top floor, which meant I wouldn't have to hear the clicking of shoes over me all the time.

By the end of the tour, I knew I wanted this apartment. It was small, but in a comfortable way. It was also fairly close to the garage, which could be considered good or bad however you wanted to look at it.

"So Ms. O'Brien, is this what you're looking for?" Zoey asked finally. I took one more look at the apartment before looking at Paige. From her face I could tell she approved greatly.

I turned back to Zoey, "Yeah, this is it."

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"Congrats! That's a big step for only being eighteen for a week," Caine said, his fork full of salad hovering halfway to his mouth.

I shrugged with indifference as I prodded my own salad, "I don't really think that matters, but thanks anyways." Caine rolled his eyes at my answer and continued eating. He had called me literally two minutes after I had finalized the buying process of the apartment and suggested we went to dinner to catch up. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of catching up being done as we were acting like completely strangers towards one another.

"What exactly do you do for a living at the moment?" I asked, trying to open up the conversation more than the meager things we were saying.

He sighed before he said, "I am actually, get this, a nanny of sorts." I didn't say anything as I waited for him to add a 'just kidding' but it didn't come.

I realized he was being serious and I nodded in interest, "I didn't peg you as someone who would be around children by choice," I said with a laugh.

That got a smile out of Caine as he said, "Yeah, four of them, all under the age of ten."

"Seems like you have your work cut out for you," I responded sarcastically.

Caine put down his fork, having finished his small salad that couldn't have even put a dent in his appetite. "Oh yeah. Unfortunately it's not as eventful as your job, but that may be because you work for the government and all."

I tried to hide my shock and opened my mouth to ask how he knew that, but he cut me off, "I heard it from What's Her Face at the orphanage."

That shocked me for a moment. He didn't actually know anything else about Scorpion except that it was government based. Maybe he didn't even know I was a genius. Sure, I had been smart when we were kids, but that was a different kind of smart.

There was another stretch of silence before Caine said, "You never really changed, huh?" I was slightly taken back at that but Caine continued, "I mean, you were always looking for danger, so I guess it makes sense to go into a government based job."

That had confirmed my doubts, he had no idea about Scorpion or that I was a genius. Caine believed I was normal, like him. That shot my paranoia off and I was left thinking about what would happen if he knew.

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Author's Note

Hey guys!! I know it's been a while but I think my laptop got a virus and I'm just way too nervous to get on my Wattpad on it, so for the moment it's slow writing and updating from my kindle, which is completely uncoordinated.

Sorry that this chapter was a little slow, but I'm working on a big event that's coming up soon, and I need to do a bit more character development before it can happen.

I hope you guys liked this chapter, I'm loving all of your guy's comments on this story, they're some of my favorites! :)

PLUS THIS STORY JUST HIT 15.5K READS!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!

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