Curious Minds

Chapter 18

Dak

I waited till the next day to talk to the twins. Once Caleb had realized what I meant, he had left my room and convinced Paige to leave. I didn't know what he had said, but it had worked.

The twins were in the game room playing some kind of fighting game. Getting them to focus on something other thanthe screen proved to be more of a challenge. So I unplugged the TV, knowing they had somehow made the game console battery-operated.

"Hey!" they comlained.

Ignoring their sound of protest, I jumped right to the problem. "I want all the information you can find on her."

"What?"

"Who?"

"Paige. I need her records. All of them," I told them. Normally, I was telling them to not pry into people's lives.

The two of them glanced at each other before setting the game controllers down.

"We don't think it's right to go through someone's personal life," Josh said, sounding like me.

"Bullshit," I snapped. Now they wanted to listen to my advice? "Which one of you dug up the dirt on Alice Hoover when she set her sights on dragging Caleb down?"

Josh shook his head, "That was different. She was trying to get him mixed up with the bad crowd."

"This isn't too different from that. I have reason to believe Paige works for the government," I then told them of what I had found and the feeling she had given me.

After I was done, the twins just looked at me for a moment before Drake said, "No."

"What?" Did he really just disregard all that? "At least look up her current location."

Josh, who was closer, stood and came over to take the power cord from my hand. Plugging it back in, he turned back to me and said, "She's here Dak. We know where she is."

Were all my friends that dense? All of us could change shape for crying out loud! "Just real quick, okay? I don't need sealed documents, just background."

"She goes to college in Florida," Josh said, turning the TV back on.

"For a master's degree in business," Drake added.

"Grades are below average," Josh.

"Facebook is Paige Livingston," Drake said, looking me in the eye.

"There's a Snapchat, but the name changes regularly," Josh had just gotten the game back to the main menu. "Now you know what we do. So move."

"Pictures," I spluttered. They weren't helping much, but there had to be some way to get them to go back over their info.

"None," they said.

Staring at the genius twins, who were starting up a new match, I waited. When it became obvious that neither realized how strange that was, I said, "What kind of bubbly, ougoing, obsessive, college-aged girl doesn't have selfies?"

Slowly, the fighting on-screen stopped and the twins looked at me blankly before I saw the spark of understanding. "Shiiiiit."
******

"What took so long?" Caleb asked as I ran up to where he was waiting. We planned to go see the horses and have a semi-normal summer once I had convinced the twins to help out a little.

"It took longer to get around their random bit of honor than I expected. Who the hell thinks that no selfies is normal for a girl like Paige?" I was still stewing about that part.

Caleb laughed as we headed towards the open doorway of the stables. A brown-haired guy, slightly taller than Caleb was leading a chestnut colored horse with black spots from inside.

As my best friend stifled his chuckling, I asked the guy, "Would it be possible to have someone teach us how to saddle a pair of horses?"

"Sure," he responded, nodding when I motioned to the horse. When I patted it's neck, the man continued with, "This one's Shade. She's one of the prized brood mares. For what you want, Carlos can help. He should be near the last few stalls or in the tack room."

"Thanks," I told him.

With a nod, the young man continued leading Shade away and Caleb and I headed inside the barn.

"Smooth," Caleb murmured when we were out of earshot, near the stall of a white stallion three stalls from the door. Curiously, the horse approached and Caleb reached out, placing his hand on it's nose. "So, are we going to find Carlos?"

"Nah. Let's look at all the horses," I decided, spotting a horse named Zeus with the coloration of a pinto horse. Both of us touched this one.

After a few more stops, the two of us left the stables after having a serious conversation with Carlos about girth straps and saddle horns. Leaving the barn, we headed to the pasture the twins had given me vague directions to.
*****

Dramatically, Caleb collapsed onto the ground under the large oak tree the twins now reclined beside. "Why did you make us walk so far?" he whined in a manner that would've been pitiful if he had actually been winded from the walk.

"We had to be out of sight of the buildings,” Josh saside emotionless, leaning against a saddle.

Drake was currently tapping away on a phone that had obviously been altered by the them. “No devices out here. Go ahead you two.”

Caleb jumped up easily and pulled his shirt over his head, seeming to forget the long trek from the stables.

“You choosing mare? Or stallion?” I joked, walking around the tree.

Caleb called from where he still stood, “I'll be the stallion, if you're the mare!” then I guess he began morphing.

I felt my face beginning to heat and focused on morphing instead.

My size changed first. I grew taller and my legs change direction causing me to fall forward. Red and black fur covered my chest and arms that were now more equine than human. None of it hurt but I could feel a distinct popping and actually heard the crackling of my skeletal system as it rearranged itself. It was disturbing, to say the least.

I hadn't really thought about it while morphing, but now I was a fully grown stallion. Using my eyes, I noticed that the colors around me weren't as sharp but the sight wasn't as bad as I had expected. Smells were clear and told me more about everything though, and I could hear snorting in the paddock between the stables and houses.

A scent had my nostrils flaring and the animal instincts taking over before I could stop them. Whatever the scent was pissed me off and I charge from around the tree.

The silver stallion standing on the other side of it reared when he spotted me. It's mane and tail went from the silver of its body to a mahogany at the ends.

Two small shapes jumped from the roots of the tree as me and the enemy horse collided. I could hear them yelling, but my mind focused on the enemy. The look of anger in its eyes was just as focused on me.

We fought for several moments before my human mind finally reasserted itself.

Snorting and prancing away from the horse that had to be Caleb, I said, <Caleb! Get a grip. We shouldn't be fighting!>

The other horse snorted and reared like it was going to attack again before returning all fours and shaking its head. <That... Was not expected> Caleb admitted.

"Maybe we should have had each of you morph separated," Drake said. He looked out of breath and flushed. In his hand was a blue bridle. Josh still stood near the saddles.

<Probably would have been a better idea> I admitted.

Caleb headed towards the saddle and I followed him.