Curious Minds

Chapter 16

Caleb

The twin I chose was sitting on the bed with a book in his hand. He looked up as I closed the door behind me.

“What?” he asked, then stopped as I made a quieting motion. As his eyebrows drew together in a frown, I took out a drawer of the nearby desk and looked at the bottom. What I was looking for was right there.

Pulling it off I showed him. “You know, if you had walked into Drake's room like this he'd be pissed,” the twin, Josh, said, getting up and taking the bug from my hand. “Luckily I'm the lenient twin.”

He dropped the bit of technology to the floor and crushed it with the heel of his shoe. That was the beginning of our search.

We kept up a jovial conversation for much of the time it took to remove the bugs squashing, or similarly breaking, each one as it was found. In the end we found 24.

“That it?” I asked when Josh sat down in the chair next to his closet.

This room was set up much the same as mine and Dak's, like every room was created to be identical, like the twins.

“Far as I can tell,” he said. “What made you look for them?”

“Dak found one on the back of a picture frame in the living room and the TV was on with no image,” I told him sitting on the bed next to the book Josh had tossed aside. “PTSD and how to help. Since when do you read about this stuff?”

“Since it became interesting,” Josh snapped. “We should debug the whole cabin, not sit here.”

The door opened and Dak slipped in with a pile of crushed bugs bundled in his shirt. “22. Debugging the whole house would set off alarms. I say we leave them and pay attention in those areas.”

Dak's eyes landed on the book. When they flipped around the room and bounced off me, the bugs on the floor, the book, and Josh, I became a little worried. The amount of information bouncing around inside of  Dak's mind was intimidating to say the least.

Finally he fixated on Josh who was now under the scrutiny of his piercing green eyes. “What's wrong with Drake?” he left no room for arguments.

Josh immediately looked elsewhere and didn't answer.

I stayed quiet but looked down at the book. There was a piece of paper sticking out of it.

Josh must have realized it at the same time because he launched himself from the chair behind the bed towards the book. Dak was faster than me. He had the book off the bed and open before I had time to grab for Josh. I did have to restrain the the twin from lunging at Dak when I did grab him, though. Whatever was on that marked page was definitely important to him.

“PTSD. Psychological trauma. Traumatic events tend to cause nightmares, lack of sleep, and jumpiness,” Dak read off. He pulled the paper out and start it unfolding it.

Josh struggle harder.

After he read through what was written, he handed me the paper. By now Josh had returned to his chair and was now twisting his fingers nervously instead of trying to fight the pages away.

On the page were scribbles of nearly intelligible handwriting. I made out the words B. Roskam; blocked out, and suffering. None of it made sense to me.

“What's this stuff mean?” I asked the others in the room, putting the paper back into the book.

Dak sat down on the bed across from Josh. It's nice to be ignored. “Josh, look at me.” Once he did, I could see the tears in his eyes. "That's why he's acting strange isn't it?”