Curious Minds

Chapter 14

Drake

I jumped out of the truck to get away from everyone, not really to tell my dad that we had arrived. He already knew that. If he had cared, he would've met us as we pulled up.

Josh was still the only one who knew about hte dead soldier, mainly because he had been there when it happened. There was one thing he didn't know, though. I was having horrible nightmares. The kind where you wake up in a cold sweat and are terrified to go back to sleep.

Every night since the mission I had woken from them with a scream on my lips that was barely withheld. Whether anyone had learned about my night-flying yet, I didn't know. It was obvious that Josh was worried about me, but I constantly reassured him that everything would be fine.

Being my twin, he didn't buy it. He had even tried digging into my mind, but I placed a wall between our minds, effectively shutting out my twin. The only person who really understood me.

<Dak is getting suspicious,> my twin now informed me.

Ignoring him, I climbed the stairs to the porch. Before I could knock on the door, a young girl pulled it open. We stared at each other until Jack, my 25 year old cousin, came up.

"Hey, ummm..."

"Drake."

"Yeah! Drake. Uncle Jeremy said to give you these. He's gone to Gardiner right now," Jack tossed me a ring of keys after he had fished them from his pocket.

"Thanks," I said, turning to head back to the truck.

Climbing back inside behind Caleb, I announced, "We get one of the rental houses!"

I studied Dak's reaction. His brow was furrowed from before I had announced the lodgings, as if he hadn't heard. He looked as if there was some kind of puzzle he was having a hard time figuring out in the dash. Unfortunately, I had seen that look before... right before he had busted Josh and I for playing with his computer while he did school work. The day we had become friends, actually.

Josh took over telling Caleb which way to go to get to our rental house. It was the one we had stayed in the last time we were here.

Our step-mother was there. Not what either of us had expected, but she was definitely friendlier than our father. It looked like she had cleaned the dirt and dust from everything, if the state of her hair and clothes was any indication.

She had come out the door as we pulled up and now bounced down the steps towards us. "There you are!" she chirruped. With light brown hair, brown, friendly eyes, and a pale complexion, she appeared plain. Her personality, though was very friendly and bubbly. This woman was impossible to dislike, but the way Dak tensed told me he did. "How's Veronica?"

Veronica was Josh and I's mother. "Mom's fine, thanks," Josh said. He sounded as uncomfortable as I felt. Neither of us could dislike our step-mom like our mother wanted, but we tried to act like it. It would be a bad idea to piss off the crazy latino.

Caleb stepped forward. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Caleb. This is Dakota."

"Aren't you handsome? I'm Susan, the twin's step-mother," the 'evil step-mother' gushed.

"Call me Dak," Dak said, shaking Susan's hand and throwing Caleb a glare.

"Red-heads are so adorable," Susan said. Dak's face proceeded to turn the same shade as said hair, causing his freckles to stand out vividly.

Turning back to the door, Susan called, "Paige! Where did you go? The twins brought friends."

Light footsteps were heard on the stairs as the stepsister we'd only heard of came down. "Good thing I just cleaned up the spare rooms."

As she appeared in the doorway, I thought my heart had stopped. Through the twin bond, I felt a similar reaction from Josh.

The young woman now standing in front of us had long, straight, blonde hair. Her eyes were a blue-gray color and sparkled with laughter. Her skin shone with a bronzed tone from the Floridian sun. Josh and I had been curious as to what the rarely-talked about college-aged daughter of the woman who stole our dad. Naturally, we began hunting through the internet. We had found birth certificates, addresses, and, finally, where she was going to college at. There had been a surprising shortage of pictures, though.

<You see this, too?> Josh asked.

Instead of formulating words, I sent the feelings I was currently experiencing.

"Hello!" she called, bouncing over to stand next to Susan.