"And sleep"
Jack's chin met his chest as Merritt gave a sly smile.
"I really don't think we should be doing this. It's not fair to Jack." Henley spoke up.
"Well, why didn't you say something before I put him in a trance?" Merritt asked mockingly.
Daniel rolled his eyes. Honestly, it was the kid's fault. The four of them had been playing truth or dare to pass the time (Henley's idea) and Merritt had caught on to the fact that Jack was lying about all of his answers. That had led to the situation they were in now. Of course Jack had tried to stop Merritt by saying he couldn't be hypnotized, but now poor Jack was hypnotized and Merritt was planning to have a little fun with it. It had been a shock to hear that Jack was lying to them. They were a family, and family doesn't lie. Or at least they shouldn't.
They hadn't thought about it much, but they hardly knew anything about their youngest member. Daniel and Henley knew each other more than they'd like to admit, and once they had found out who the fifth and final horseman was, Merritt had shared his life story with the group. But Jack never spoke about his life before becoming a horseman. Now was the time to find out.
"Whenever you are asked a question, you will answer it like you normally would. But when asked the same question again, you will tell the truth and say the real answer. When I snap my fingers, you will wake up and forget that you've been hypnotized. You will fall back asleep when I snap my fingers again." Merritt snapped his fingers and Jack's head rose as he looked around to find his friends surrounding him.
"What's going on?" Jack asked.
"Nothing." Merritt spoke. "We were just wondering how you're doing today."
"Fine" Jack said cautiously as he smiled a nervous smile. "You guys are acting weird." Jack said as he stood up and started to walk away. "Hey, Jack. How are you doing today?" Henley asked as she watched the boy walk into the kitchen. "Not the best. I have to finish this online course for collage before the 17th." Jack said without care as he reached into the fridge and grabbed an apple. Daniel and Henley looked over their shoulders at Merritt with disbelief. Jack hadn't even noticed that he had just answered the same question with two different responses.
Merritt just shrugged and smiled at himself.
Man, he was good.
"Now isn't this better than truth or dare?" Merritt asked. Henley just smirked and shook her head, turning back to Jack.
"Jack, you take online courses for collage?" Henley asked.
"Uh, not really. I just find old websites and just get information from there, ya know?" Jack answered. Henley nodded as Daniel asked the question again.
"Yeah, I never actually went to school for fourth grade through high school, so I'm just trying to catch up on everything I missed. But I've got to finish this report or I won't pass." Jack said as he took a bite of his apple.
"Why did you skip all those years of school?" Merritt asked.
"I didn't have time, and I didn't really care" Jack smiled.
"So, why did you skip school?" Henley asked. Jack walked forward as he answered.
"I was living on the streets, so I couldn't really go to school even if I wanted to." Jack said, walking to his room.
"I'm gonna take a shower, don't kill each other." Jack mocked as he closed his bedroom door. A few minutes later, the trio heard the water running.
Daniel was the first to recover from the silence.
"Merritt, you have to stop this. It's an invasion of Jack's privacy."
Merritt wasn't even phased as he smiled and spoke.
"Come on, Danny. Aren't you at least a little curious. I mean, he would never tell us any of this stuff if it wasn't for me." Merritt bragged.
"True, but I don't think he would want us knowing this stuff" Henley argued.
"All the more reason to do this. Think about it, if we continue we could help ourselves just as much as Jack. It would really help our group bond." Merritt persuaded in a fake sing-songy voice.
Henley seemed to contemplate this, but Daniel wasn't having it.
"No, Merritt. When Jack comes out, you are going to reverse the hypnotism and put everything back the way it was" Merritt nodded in surrender.
"Alright. One lying Jack, coming up"
"You know that's not what I meant." Daniel argued, "But it's what you're going to get if you want everything back to the way it was" Merritt retorted.
"I hate to say this, but Merritt has a point. Jack will just keep lying to us until we do something" Henley spoke up.
Daniel hated this. Merritt was a force to be reckoned with, but when his friends were involved it could get tricky. He wasn't in control of the situation and Daniel couldn't do anything about it.
"One day. After today, you put everything back to normal." Daniel agreed.
Merritt smiled in victory as the three heard the water turn off.
"What questions do we need answered?" Merritt asked slyly.
"Any questions we've ever had, I guess." Henley answered.
"Let's just start with some simple questions and go from there" Daniel spoke as Jack's door opened.
The boy in question walked out, wearing a dark blue t-shirt with black jeans and his trade mark leather jacket.
"You guys hungry?" Henley asked, walking to the kitchen.
"Always" Jack answered, smiling.
The three smirked knowing that they didn't need to ask that question again to get the true answer.
Henley stepped into the kitchen and opened the pantry. "How does...Spaghetti and garlic bread sound?" Henley asked. "Sounds great" Daniel answered.
"So Jack, what's your favorite food?" Merritt asked.
"I don't know, anything I can eat." Jack smiled, "What's with all the questions lately?" Jack wondered.
"Just curious" Merritt answered.
"So what's really your favorite food?" Merritt asked again.
"Chili. It was the only food I could get my hands on when I was on the streets. And it was usually the cheapest food I could find." Jack answered.
"Why were you on the streets in the first place?" Henley asked from the kitchen.
"Just going where ever the wind blew me" Jack said.
"So why were you on the streets?" Daniel asked.
"Michael somehow got his hands on drugs and alcohol and Janet started smoking. Michael used to hit me until I just decided to run away." Jack answered.
"Who's Michael and Janet?" Merritt asked, a sudden impulse to find these people and make sure they never even thought about Jack's name again.
"They were my parents." Jack said.
"Why did they hit you?" Daniel asked, feeling the same anger as Merritt.
"I don't know. I remember Michael disappearing for a full day, then when he came back he was just angry. Janet didn't even try to stop him." Jack answered, remembering all of the insults that were thrown at him.
"What did they do?" Henley asked, the food long forgotten in the kitchen.
"Nothing too bad. They'd hit me a couple times then tell me I'm worthless. Say that I'm the most ungrateful kid in the world and take away any food in the house." Jack answered, his voice lowered to a loud whisper.
"When did you run away?" Daniel asked.
"Around eleven years old." Jack answered.
"And how old are you now?" Merritt asked.
"I'm 20."
"Jack, you lived on the streets for nine years?" Henley asked, tears pricking her eyes.
"Yeah, but I'm kind of glad. If I hadn't needed to know how to steal, I wouldn't have become a sleight." Jack smiled.
"Why haven't you ever told us these things before?" Daniel asked.
"I didn't think it was a 'need to know' kind of topic. It's personal, ya know?" Jack shrugged.
His sentence made the three remaining horsemen think about how they might be invading Jack's privacy.
"Jack, sit down for a second." Merritt said. Jack gave a quizzical look, but followed the order anyway. Once the youngest was sitting on the couch, Merritt snapped his fingers together and Jack's head fell.
"What are we going to do?" Henley asked.
"I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to confront him and let him know that he can't keep secrets like that from us." Merritt said, getting mad.
"No. Jack lived the first half of his childhood being yelled at. And the second half living without anyone. We're going to act like this never happened. Pretend we don't know anything." Daniel ordered. Henley and Merritt agreed as they both turned to the young horseman.
"When I snap my fingers, you will wake up and have no memory of ever being hypnotized. And you will go back to answering questions normally." Merritt said. A small pause of silence filled the air as Merritt raised his hand to snap his fingers, that's when Henley realized something.
"Wait a minute, you hypnotized Jack to answer truthfully only when asked the same question twice, right?" Henley asked.
"No, Henley. Jack just answers the same questions over again on his own" Merritt said, sarcastically.
Henley rolled her eyes as she spoke again.
"The last question we asked, we only asked once. The one about why he hadn't ever told us this stuff before." Henley pointed out.
The two remaining boys looked to the floor as they remembered that they had only asked one question at a time shortly after Jack had gotten out of the shower. "She's right. Jack gave his truthful answer after we only asked our questions once." Daniel agreed.
Merritt's head slowly lifted up as he glanced at the young magician sitting in front of him. Merritt lowered his position to get a better look at Jack's face and the mentalist smirked.
"Alright, Jack. You proved your point." Merritt smiled as he stood up.
Daniel raised an eyebrow as Henley's head tilted to the side in a questioning look. Merritt didn't say anything as he jerked his head in Jack's direction. The two looked at Jack as Merritt spoke again. "C'mon Jack, you're not fooling anyone anymore." Merritt said.
Henley and Daniel looked at each other, silently agreeing that Merritt had officially lost his mind. Ironically.
Daniel was about to say something before a small chuckle was heard from the chair Jack was sitting in. All heads shot in the direction of the sudden noise as Jack's head slowly lifted up to reveal young, mischievous eyes.
Merritt could see the confused looks of Henley and Daniel and laughed. "He was never hypnotized." Merritt explained, turning to the sleight. "That was good, kid. How'd you do that? I didn't even sense anything was wrong." Merritt asked. Jack smiled as he explained.
"Just like I told you before. I can't be hypnotized. I just decided to go along with whatever you guys were doing." Jack said. "Wait, so, all of those answers from before were fake?" Henley asked, hoping that Jack hadn't actually gone through all of those terrible things.
"No." Jack said, sadly. "Everything I said was true"
"Why didn't you tell us before?" Daniel asked. "Just like I said before, I didn't think it was a 'need to know' kind of topic" Jack said as he stood up from his chair. He didn't make it far due to Henley pushing him back down. "Jack Wilder. I don't ever want to hear you say that again" Henley said, "Whether you like it or not, we care about you. And it's important for us to know this stuff. Okay?" Henley said, her voice becoming a little more gentle than before.
Jack's eyes drifted down to the ground as he answered. "Okay."
"Good. Now, help me restart that spaghetti and garlic bread again." Henley said, smiling. Jack smiled back as he stood to follow Henley to the kitchen.
"Oh, one more thing guys." Jack said, stopping his path to the kitchen. "What is it" Daniel asked, hoping Jack had something else to tell them.
Jack smiled a triumphant smile as he said, "Told you I couldn't be hypnotized."