Chapter 23

It has been 2 weeks since Nick got home from school, since they were still in the middle of the school year, and he and Miley missed a lot days from the school, they had been swimming in a sea of books and homework, with Demi who missed days less than them! Joe was in a different year, so he was studying alone.

"Oh, I can't stand this anymore." Demi said closing the history book. "Why do we need to know about the past when we have the future?"

"Ugh, just to torture us." Miley said closing the algebra book her and Nick had been studying in the last two hours. "I finished 20 equations, what about you?" she asked Nick.

"Just 15." He said, "Let's have a break."

"Oh, I need that one." Demi said as they all went out of Miley's room and headed towards the one which Joe was in.

In the room Joe was laying on his bed chewing a gum, and humming to the song he was hearing on his IPod. He heard a knock on the door. He quickly paused the song and opened the first book next to him.

"Come in." he said trying to figure out what was the lesson talking about, with no point.

"Uh, hey Joe. Are you studying?" Nick asked him as the three of them entered the room.

"What do you think? I'm holding the book." Joe said.

"Oh, good, what's the title of that lesson?" Miley asked him trying to hide a smirk. Joe looked at the book and saw a picture of a something looks like a colored circle.

"It's about circles." He answered.

"Joe, it's a geography book." Nick said as they all laughed and Joe frowned. Joe looked at the shape again and figured out it was the earth.

"I knew that." He muttered before joining their laughs. "How did you know I wasn't studying?" he asked after the stopped laughing.

"Your music was loud Mr." Demi answered him.

"I studied a lot today, I'm just exhausted." Joe said.

"Oh yeah, that's why we are here. Do you want to hang with us?" Nick asked him.

"I can't believe you're even asking me." He said standing up. "Let's go." He said.

"Ok, you go, I'll follow soon, I just have to change." Nick said. When he finished he walked out of the room and was about to go downstairs when he heard something brought his attention.

"I don't know yet… I'll try… okay… I just need them to full-trust me first… No, I don't think it's here… Okay, okay. Don't worry… bye." That was Miley's aunt Mary, he didn't know what did she mean by those words, but it didn't look something innocent, she was whispering, and she sounded annoyed. His head filled with a lot of thoughts, he wanted to know if there was something wrong.

"Hey, Nick what's taking you so long?" Joe yelled from the front door.

"Coming." He yelled back and started walking again, he tried to push the thought of the words he just heard, at least for now.

"Let's go." Demi said when he approached them. "Where are we going to go?"

"Uhm, may be some restaurant or café," Joe suggested.

"I prefer a restaurant." Miley said and Demi shrugged, "What do you think, Nick?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, anything." He replied.

"Are you okay?" she narrowed her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." He smiled. 'why am I giving it that attention? It may be nothing at all, I'm just giving it too much thinking.' He thought to himself.

When they came back home, Jackson and Kevin have been already came and had dinner with Mary. "Hi guys. Did you have fun?" she asked them.

"Oh, yeah, we did." Joe replied. When Nick saw her he remembered what he heard but he shrugged it off.

"Where's Demi?" she asked Miley.

"Umm, you know that she has a home, right? She can't sleep here every night." Miley replied as Mary chuckled.

"Oh yeah, I know that." She said. "Hey Jackson, I need to talk to you and Miley about something."

"What thing?" Miley asked.

"Uh, I prefer it if we were alone." She said as the three brothers started walking out.

"No, they're my family too, I'll tell them anyway." Miley said stopping them, as Mary sighed and nodded.

"Ok, umm, do you know that case which your father was a witness in?" she started and the nodded, "Well, I heard that he have some papers that prove the crime on the man even more." She said.

"Didn't that case finished and the man is in the jail now?" Jackson asked.

"Oh, yeah, but those papers are proving more crimes on him and some other people."

"And your point is..?" Miley asked.

"I wanted to know, if you know where he kept those papers."

"No, it's the first time I hear abo- wait, how did you know about those papers?" Miley asked.

"He told me." She shrugged.

"Told you? You weren't even talking to him." Miley said.

"Miley, he told me, drop it here." She said obviously annoyed.

"Sorry, aunt Mary, but she has a point." Jackson said as Mary sighed.

"Ok, I once talked to him to apologize and he didn't accept it, but I told him that I miss you guys, so he accepted it and told me that if anything happened to him I must take those papers to the court."

"Oh yeah, and he didn't tell you where are the papers, how genius!" Miley said sarcastically.

"Yes, that's when he was at Hawaii, and the line was breaking up." Mary replied.

"Oh, and why didn't he tell us? Dad was trusting us at everything." Miley said.

"May be he was trying to protect you." She replied.

"From what? He knew that this gang may do anything to reach their aim." Miley challenged.

"I don't know. I don't know why didn't he tell you. He just didn't, okay?" Mary said annoyed.

"Anyway, like Miley said we don't know where those papers are." Jackson said stopping their soon to be fight.

"Ok, do you think you can help me searching about it?" she asked as Jackson nodded.

"Yeah, sure me and Miley will help you."

"Thanks guys, well, I'm going to sleep now." She said and stod up and headed to the stairs.

"Whoa, Miley there was no need to be rude to her, she didn't do anything now." Joe said as soon as she was out of hearing zone.

"Joe, dad never hid anything from us, he told us everything." She said.

"I don't know Miles, but why would she be lying?" he asked.

"I don't know, she's evil enough. And besides, if she really called dad he would have told us about that, because he was always telling us stories about her when they were young, he was missing her.

"May be he didn't have enough time Miles, you don't know when exactly she called him!" Kevin said.

"And besides, if you know that your dad was missing her, don't you think that you should be nice to her for your dad?" Joe said and she sighed.

"Alright, you're right about that one." She looked at Nick to see that he was thinking deeply.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?" she asked him.

"About what she just said." He said still gazing at nowhere, then he looked at them. "I have to tell you that."

"Tell us what?" Jackson asked confused.

Nick looked at the stairs to make sure that she wasn't there, then he turned to them and started "I heard her talking to someone on the phone today. She was whispering annoyed. She said something about gaining your trust and that it's not here. I wasn't comfortable with it at first, but then I thought that I was over thinking about it, and now I'm confused." He explained.

"Aha, I told you there was something wrong." Miley said.

"No, I'm not sure who she was talking to, I just thought that I should tell you." Nick said.

"No, I know that she's planning something." Miley argued.

"No, Miley. What I'm saying that if I understood the conversation right, then there's someone else know about those papers." Nick said. "But then again, maybe I got it all wrong." He added quickly.

"You're right, Nick." Jackson said. "You heard her wrong." He finished. "And Miley, why can't you understand that she's sorry, don't you see how is she treating us even though you're mean to her?" he said.

"Ok, Jackson. I said that I will treat her well, but we should take care from her. I'm not comfortable with the idea that she loves us and missed us. I think that there's something wrong, but I just can't figure it out."

"Whatever, Miley." Jackson rolled his eyes. 'I can't understand why he believes her. He's always on her side.' She thought to herself.

"I'm going to sleep." She said as she stood up.

"Me too. We have another day full of studying tomorrow." Nick said standing up as well.

They headed upstairs and when they were half away from their rooms they noticed that Mary's room light just turned off. They looked at each other a knowing look. The same thought in their minds 'Why did she just went to bed? It's a long time since she went to her room.'

Sorry if it's short, but I wrote it half asleep, actually I'm the one who swimming in the studying sea :D but I make my best to update the FIVE stories, and I'll try my hard to update this and the others soon, you can expect an update for any of the stories on Thursday or Friday but please review

Thanks:D

I'll go to sleep now ;)