Many thanks to paquiot899, Glee Clue Rock 1251, Lady Cougar-Trombone, AllAmericanSlurp, Swiftie22, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, an unnamed guest, Fogfire, AlienGhostWizard14, 88keys, AngelGoneDevil69 and Jillie chan for your reviews! I know I still owe a few of you some responses. I'll try my best to PM you guys when things have settled down in my corner of the world. :)
Twelve.
At 6:38 PM, Leo found himself sitting impatiently at his desk in the empty lab. He waited with considerable annoyance as the script of a program appeared in clusters upon the screen of the tablet in front of him. Eddy had been whining endlessly for the past ten minutes. It started off with unkind teasing when he first got there. Leo ignored it with ease, heading straight to his desk to finalize a download. The teasing awkwardly turned into complaining before exploding into full-on whining. Apparently, Eddy had been feeling unloved. His best friend had been too busy for him, and he blamed everyone in the family and their 'knack of getting in trouble' for the over exaggerated gap between them.
His petulant attitude reminded Leo of a five year-old throwing a tantrum because he didn't get what he wanted, but he didn't tell him that. Instead, he indulged him. He apologized several times, even taking full responsibility, just to please the very emotional home security system. He did this only to increase his chances of being granted a favor he would ask later on.
However, Eddy had been unloading all of his thoughts on him in such a rapid and merciless speed that he was beginning to regret his approach.
Yet, even if the circumstances were not ideal, it was the only opportunity he could seize. He had been pondering all day how he could get fifteen minutes in the lab with Eddy without any of his family members looking over his shoulder when the answer came in the form of Owen. He said he came by to drop off Bree's portfolio project folder which he forgot to hand Adam Friday. He lingered uneasily at the doorway, glancing back and forth between an overjoyed Bree and a lightly scowling Donald.
Leo quickly formed a plan. He set it into motion by walking up to his mother, who was preoccupied with preparing dinner in the kitchen, and whispering, "Mom, Big D's kind of in Bree and Owen's space." His mother looked up, saw what he meant, and then nodded. She called her husband to the kitchen, urging him to help her cut up the salad. After an exhausted sigh, his stepfather obediently rose to his feet (he doubted his stepfather ever realized he was in the way of something) and joined them in the kitchen.
Bree waved Owen over. He took the invitation to sit with her only after her stepmother gave him permission through a knowing smile.
Leo asked his parents soon after if they could have their visitor stay for dinner. He did this, not only because it would buy him the time he needed, but because the teenage boy's presence cheered his sister up. She hadn't smiled as much since the poisoning restricted her to the house. She looked happy, and it made him happy, too.
His stepfather disfavored the idea at first, reasoning that there was still a threat hanging over them. Leo assured him that nothing bad would happen; if they stayed at home, they should be safe.
"I guess," Donald had conceded. "I could always tighten the security."
They offered Owen a seat at the table for dinner soon after, and he gladly accepted.
His family had increasingly become busy chatting with and entertaining their visitor that Leo was able to sneak out easily under the pretense that he was going to grab something from the lab. Thankfully, even after twenty minutes of absence, no one had tried to search for him yet.
"You're not even listening to me."
Leo sighed. "I am, Eddy," he said listlessly.
"I doubt it," Eddy said.
The last of the script appeared on the screen. Leo minimized it before standing up. "You said you feel underappreciated. That Big D's been asking so much of you since the letter came," he said.
"Stupid letter. I said stupid letter," Eddy beleaguered. "How could you have left that out?"
Leo placed the tablet on the cyberdesk. He walked towards one of the drawers in the corner, and then slid it out to retrieve a cord. After grabbing what he needed, he stopped. The light dust that veiled a few of Donald's usually frequently utilized tools and devices severed something within him.
This is all my fault.
Leo shut the drawer quickly and then walked back to the table with the cord.
Unknown to him, Eddy had noticed his strange behavior. "Not that it's my business," he prefaced, "but you seem more dazed than usual."
Leo frowned as he plugged the cord into the tablet. "What do you mean?"
"You look like your brain's detached a bit more from your spine," Eddy explained. Leo shot him a quizzed glance. "Like the elevator is not going all the way up there."
"Are you calling me crazy?" Leo asked, offended.
"No," Eddy said. "I usually call you incompetent and untrustworthy. Crazy is what I call your mother behind her back, along with psychotic and manipulative."
"Eddy. Has it ever occurred to you that if you stop calling Mom names, you and Big D might actually get along better?"
Eddy scoffed. "Yeah, right. Like I would," he said. "Because of her, Donny's cut off time he used to spend with me! And lately, you've been stealing my spotlight, too! You and Tasha are making my life miserable!"
Leo fought off the urge to roll his eyes. "I already told you I was sorry," he said. "Are you ever going to cut me some slack?"
"Not until you're dead!" Eddy fired.
Leo surrendered. Any more attempts to appease the borderline sociopathic program would be too superfluous and would only result in his own mental distress. He double-checked the script instead to make sure nothing was amiss. He took a strictly measured amount of time, used it to the fullest, and then marched towards the motherboard where Eddy was situated. "Okay, Eddy. I have to load this up," he told him.
"Load what up?" Eddy asked suspiciously. He gasped when he saw the tablet and the cords. "You better not touch my circuits!"
"I'm not! That's why I'm asking your permission first," Leo said. He tapped on an icon then showed the screen to Eddy. "See? Big D's tablet, his program. It's all for security."
Eddy scanned through the commands quickly. He detected no harmful viruses. "I didn't hear Donny tell you to upload anything," he said.
"But you did hear him wanting to tighten the security, right?" Leo asked.
Eddy stubbornly refused.
Leo held a hand up. "Fine," he said. "If you want to, I'll tell Big D to come down here and do it himself. But I'm telling you right now, you're sticking your neck out for this one. He's tired, and when he hears that you've refused a simple systems update, he might get upset."
Eddy deeply thought about it, especially considering the plausibility of that scenario. Leo didn't speak any untruth in alluding to Donald's volatile temper that he seemed to have developed recently. He had snapped at him twice already for refusing to cooperate, and it had been admittedly unsettling. "How do I even know that's his tab?" he persisted.
"Come on. Who else would use a shell casing with a huge logo of their name stuck on the back?" Leo asked.
"I can name a few."
Leo sighed. "Okay. What if I let you read through the program first before I do anything? I promise, I won't hit any buttons until you give me a go signal. If I do, you can tell Big D I'm doing an unauthorized update," he suggested.
"Wouldn't that get you in trouble?" Eddy asked.
Leo hitched his eyebrows and his shoulders.
Eddy grinned. "Count me in!" he said.
Leoopened the metallic box. He promptly connected the cords to the appropriate dockets, making sure each was attached correctly. Then, he stepped back. "Alright. Your turn," he told Eddy.
Eddy skimmed through the algorithms pensively. "Uh-huh. Yep. Yep," he muttered to himself.
Leo waited for another minute before speaking. "What do you think?" he asked.
"As much as I want to rat you out to Donald, I can't. Everything's just a basic security update," Eddy said. He groaned. "I hate it when you're right."
Leo smirked in amusement. "So can we start the upload?"
The usual smile on Eddy's face turned upside down in distaste. "Fine. Just get it over with," he sulked.
Leo turned his attention back to the tablet. He pulled up a minimized tab, and then tapped on the bar that began the upload. Another bar appeared underneath. Consulting Eddy's screen, the same bar appeared there, too. Green gradually filled it, depicting the progression of the process.
He smiled when a thought occurred to him. "You know, it just came to me," he started, "this is the fourth time someone's tried to off me."
"You sound disappointed," Eddy noted disinterestedly.
Leo laughed a little. "No. I… It's just an observation," he said.
The upload reached fifty percent completion.
"If you think this conversation will suddenly make us friends, you're more delusional than I thought," Eddy expressed brashly.
Absorbed in his own thoughts, Leo ignored him. What he said was true. He didn't realize that the letter had been leading towards the fourth direct attempt on his life. The first three had been Marcus' handiwork. He had locked him in a car to soon drown, used a machine ten times his size to pummel him, and had blasted him with enough electricity to permanently stop his heart. Each of those instances brought varying degrees of fright and anxiety. Yet, facing an anonymous person and truly seeing, for the first time, how it affected everyone else brought out a different reaction. "I guess I'm just tired," he said.
"Tired? Tired of what?" Eddy asked.
Eighty-seven percent complete.
"Running away. After a while, you just get tired of it." He smiled. "Maybe it's not so bad to let it catch up to me this time."
Eddy's eyes narrowed. "Uh… You're kinda talking funny, kid," he said.
Ninety-six percent complete.
Leo grinned weakly. "I thought it would amuse you?"
"There's nothing amusing about you acting all emo," Eddy snapped. "It's very disturbing!"
Ninety-eight percent complete.
"Believe it or not, I like that about you, Eddy," Leo said. "You speak your mind. Even if your speaking usually consists of insults and terrible singing."
"You're just saying that to make me feel better," Eddy dismissed him.
"No. I mean it."
Ninety-nine percent complete.
"You were wrong about what you said earlier, though. By talking to you, I'm not making a friend," Leo said. "I think what I'm making is an enemy."
One hundred percent complete.
Another bar appeared, its load time much shorter than the first.
"What?" Eddy asked, panicked.
"You should have gone with your instincts," Leo said as the second bar filled up instantly. He looked up. "You shouldn't have trusted me."
"Wait. This is not the program you showed me—" Eddy protested but was cut off when the electricity in the house went out. The generator kicked in the lab a few seconds later. A crash rang upstairs, followed suit by a loud yelp and the sound of feet sprinting across the hallway above. It didn't take long for the house to recover power, but the brief outage already stirred a number of the occupants into a mild frenzy.
Leo unplugged the cords from the tablet and from the board then wrapped it around his palm. He stared at the darkened screen on the wall. "Eddy?" he quietly called out.
The screen lit up. Eddy's featured slid in as he materialized. "What do you want?" he asked in an annoyed tone.
Leo looked on remorsefully. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Whatever."
Leo walked back to the drawer where he took the cord to deposit it back there. He pulled out another drawer, one that was barely used, and then put the tablet in it. He heard someone's footsteps behind him just as he was standing back up.
"You okay, Leo?"
Leo turned around to face Chase. "Yeah. What was that, anyways?" he asked, feigning cluelessness.
Chase shook his head. "We have no idea," he said. His brows lightly furrowed. "Why are you down here by yourself?" he asked.
"I was…looking for something?"
Chase sighed. "Please don't tell me that power outage was because of you," he said.
Leo looked away.
Chase's eyes widened. He opened his mouth then closed it. He closed his eyes and took a calming breath in an attempt to cast a bridle on his building frustration. "Leo. How many times does Mr. Davenport have to tell you not to touch anything?" he asked pointedly.
Leo held his hands up. "It was an accident!"
"Do you know what you could have done? Adam's system is connected to machines that need electricity."
"Oh," Leo said. "Is—Is Adam okay?" he asked, though he well knew beforehand that his older brother would be fine.
"I don't know," Chase said, much calmer that time. "Mr. Davenport's checking on him."
Leo thought about it. "I didn't mean to. It really was an accident," he said apologetically.
Chase looked at him with a frown. He sighed, seeing the sincerity of his little brother's words. "Just get back upstairs and help us," he said.
Leo nodded. "Of course," he replied. He walked out ahead of Chase, heading straight to the stairs that would eventually lead them back into the kitchen. He wanted to take one last glance at the lab but opted not to. One small break in the façade he was putting up could make Chase suspicious. He had already reached a crucial point in his plan, and to jeopardize that now with an unnecessary act would be wasteful and reckless. He had so many things to do, and only very little time to lose. He knew he should be nervous, but he was not.
What he told Eddy about his view on the attempt on his life was a lie. If he was to be honest with himself, the threat didn't make him tired. In fact, it ignited the wheels of his mind into motion. It lit up every fiber in his system. When it reached his core, it set his heart ablaze with no regrets.
It made him calm. It made him ready.
It made him brave.
to be continued.