Curious Minds

Chapter 7

We ran until the sun began rising. How I ran so long is a mystery. My legs were rubber by the time we stopped.

Right now, though, we were resting. Caleb had stripped out of everything but his t-shirt, black cargo pants, and shoes and was lying flat in the dirt in a stand of trees not far from the road.

My jacket, shoes, and mask had been ripped off and I sat with my back against the trunk of one of the saplings, my feet buried in the night-cooled soil.

Once I could breathe, I said, with my eyes closed and head tilted back, "We have to go back for the twins."

"They'll be fine," Caleb wheezed.

"Their mother will kill us," I said, thinking of the crazy Latino that we had met before heading to California. "If something happens to them."

Caleb groaned, but sat up. "Give them a bit. If they don't show up, we'll head back."

"Okay. That's fine," I conceded, not really wanting to get up.

We sat in silence for a while. Once my breathing evened out, I remembered Caleb's partial morph suddenly.

"Did you already have the ability to morph?" I asked, staring at the sky.

"Hm?" Caleb said from where he now leaned against a tree across from me. "No, I didn't. Why?"

"It's supposed to take practice to control a partial morph like that," I looked at him.

"Oh. Uh, I don't know. Natural ability?" He said with a flick of his eyes towards the toes of his right boot. He was lying.

I rose to stand over Caleb, not without difficulty. "What are you hiding?"

With a sigh, he said, "I was out here last year."

"Yeah. And?"

"I mean I was out here at the compound," he said. I just raised my eyebrow and waited. "They were doing exercises to help the soldiers slated to get the morphing technology."

Now I knew. "You got in and did these exercises, didn't you?"

A nod.

I flung my arms out. "Why the hell didn't you teach me?"

He shrugged and glanced over my shoulder, moving to stand.

Missing the subtle hint, I opened my mouth to yell at him. Instead, two owls landed on my outstretched arms, startling me.

"Agh!" I flapped my arms crazily to dislodge them.

The owls landed roughly and began demorphing. At first I thought the owls were soldiers that had followed us. Caleb seemed to think the same since he'd jumped to his feet when I had screamed. Now, though he stood and stared at the growing birds.

It didn't take long for me to realize the owls were the twins. What respectable soldier would demorph infront of their target? Now the twins were bent over laughing, fully human.

"You assholes!" I shouted as my racing heart calmed I and got up from where I had fallen.

Before anything escalated, Caleb got our attention, "Hey! Now that everyone is here, let's head back to the beach house."

No one said anything, but I grabbed me shoes and other clothing and the twins stifled their laughter. Caleb went around and gathered up his discarded clothing as well. He handed them to the twins, who only wore their matching boxers.

We all knew this place was not the best to lower our guard. While we had rested, Caleb and I had been rather quiet. My shouting very well could have attracted attention.

As we headed towards the road, Drake remorphed the owl and flew back the way he'd come.

The bus stop was closer than I had expected, but should not have been surprised. There was no way we could have ran that far. No buses were expected for quite a while when we arrived.

Drake arrived not long before the first bus, walking fully clothed with the backpack we had stashed in a hollow tree before heading to the compound.

By the time Josh had gotten dressed and the unneeded clothing stuffed into the bag, the bus was pulling to a stop in front of us.

Other than us and the driver, there was just someone with a dark hood covering their face, leaning against the window towards the front. I could see cords snaking from their lap into their hood.

The journey back to the beach house was quiet and uneventful. Hopefully the rest of the summer would go as easily as this mission had.

**Comments are helpful, if anyone has one! I also would like to know what everyone thinks of this story.***