Chapter 15: A Furry Little Problem
"Ugh, what the heck?" Byron moaned as he lifted his head. His neck was stiff and it hurt to move it too much. He blinked and looked around the room. There were beakers and tests tubes sitting on the white counters around him. He tried to lift his arms but they were held down tight by his side. He tried to move them again but felt a weight pressing on his back.
"Easy, man! You're making these ropes cut into my arms!" Julius snapped, flinching at how tight the ropes were.
"What's going on?" Byron asked. "Where are we? Why're we tied up? Who–"
"If you shut up I'll be glad to answer your questions," Julius snapped. Byron bit his lip as his eyes darted around. "First off, my name's Julius Jackson. We–"
"Are you related to Riley and Rhuben?" Byron interrupted.
"They're my sisters, yes," he replied in a tight voice. "Anyway–"
"So that makes you Crystal's cousin too?"
"That's usually how it works," Julius growled through clenched teeth. "Now–"
"Maybe you can–"
"Will you shut up?" Julius shouted, causing Byron to jump. "Unless you want to interrupt again I'd be glad to answer your questions." Byron nodded rapidly. "We're in Dr. Denman's lab, from the looks of it."
"Dr. Denman?" Byron repeated. "You mean that girl who claimed that there were mermaids around here?"
"The very same," Julius confirmed. "Dr. Denman, I guess you could say, is a rival to my family. My dad and Dr. Denman work in the same field so they constantly tried to one up the other. Dr. Denman goes to great lengths to make sure she gets to something before my Dad."
"She she decides to kidnap you?" Byron asked in disbelief.
Julius shrugged. "She's always been somewhat crazy when she put her mind to something. This honestly doesn't surprise me. If she could stop my dad in any way, this would be it."
"You aren't even going to call the police?" Byron questioned.
Julius shrugged again. "No point. She'll find her way out of jail easily. She's done it before."
"Well…what's she looking for this time?"
"Super humans," Julius replied simply.
"Super what!?"
"Super humans," Julius repeated. "People who aren't normal like psychics and stuff like that. Although most psychics are fake, even though they convince people to believe that they're real." Julius rolled his eyes. "After the whole mermaid fiasco she wants people to know that she isn't some lame scientist. She wants to find something and it has to be really important to lock us in here."
"Where do you think she is?"
"One of two places: Mako Island or Harrison Bennett's house. Those two are known for working together." Julius sighed. "They hated how Dad works only because he works better and faster. I actually think it's because they get in each other's way which slows them down."
"Ok, so what're we going to do to get out of here?"
Julius stayed silent. He knew the fastest way to get out would be to use his powers, but he couldn't use them in front of Byron, not without him running to the media. The last thing he wanted was to make his family forced into the media spotlight again. 'C'mon Julius, think! Think!'
Julius looked around the room and his eyes rested on the broken beaker that lay on the counter. He nudged Byron and jerked his head in the direction of the counter. Byron nodded and the two rocked back and forth to get to their feet.
"Move slowly or else we'll fall over and it'll be hard to get back up," Julius commanded.
"Ok."
They took small, shuffling steps over to the counter. Julius made sure to pay attention to the sounds around him just in case he had to change his plan at the last minute. He reached out a hand as far as he could, which wasn't really far, and scrambled
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"We're dry, you can stop now!" Riley shouted over the wind that filled the tunnel. Rikki, Cleo, and Emma lowered their hands and stared. "What?" She snapped.
"We're waiting to see if you'll grow a second head or something," Patrick replied.
"Pat, you wouldn't want me to grow a second head," she said as she glared at him. Her voice was unusually calm which signaled that he better shut his mouth. "So you made me feel like a drowning rat for nothing?"
"I was sure that something was going to happen," Lewis muttered.
"Well, guess what? It didn't!" Rhuben snapped. "We came here for nothing and Dr. Denman could have police swarming our house by now!"
"If Dr. Denman doesn't have anything to do with it than our parents will," Emma said as she looked at her watch. "We're going to miss our curfews." She groaned. "And I still haven't talked to Ash."
"Who cares?" Rikki shouted as she threw her arms into the air. "We have some other matters to worry about."
"Relax, you two. Right now we should go home and get some rest. Tomorrow we can all meet up and try to find out what's going on and what we can do to make sure Dr. Denman doesn't get any closer than she is," Cleo spoke up, always the voice of reason. She stared meaningfully at Rikki and Emma who muttered their agreement. "After school at the JuiceNet."
"That's too dangerous, someone could over hear us," Noah said as he shook his head.
"Let me take care of that one," Sydney said as he lightly patted his brother on the hand and smiled his dimpled smile. Noah smiled in return and squeezed Sydney's hand.
After agreeing to meet up again after school the group split up to take different routes back to their homes: Cleo, Emma, and Rikki would swim out, along with Lewis who used his scuba diving gear to get in. The Jacksons and their cousin would take go out the other way and use their boat.
"Are you sure you're ok?" Sydney kept asking over the roar of the wind in their ears.
"Yes, for the last time," Crystal called back, keeping her hand on the rudder of the boat, directing it back towards the land. "We didn't sprout any wings or anything."
"From what Lewis said the water reacted to you the same way it did when it gave the girls their powers," Noah spoke up. "Why didn't it do anything to you guys?"
"Maybe it's a hidden power," Patrick said with a shrug. "Maybe we won't found out what happened until later."
"With our luck we'll probably transform in the middle of a science class," Rhuben muttered sarcastically. "Like we need any more attention."
"Just be glad that we haven't mutated or anything," Crystal spoke up. "Try having to explain that to the principal."
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Crystal woke up the next morning with the alarm clock ringing in one ear and Sydney's distant yelling in the other. She groaned and forced herself out of bed, slapping her palm on her alarm clock in the process. She was in the middle of swinging her feet over the side of her bed when her bedroom door burst open suddenly, causing her to yelp with fright and fall off the other side of the bed.
"Sorry," Christian chuckled at the thud. "I was just making sure you were awake."
"Next time knock like a normal father," she grumbled from the floor where she was tangled in her sheets. Christian merely laughed before closing the door behind himself and leaving the room. Crystal grumbled to herself a she struggled to get out of her tangled sheets. "Man," she muttered to herself, "I feel trapped."
No matter which way she turned she felt as if she was being tied down by ropes. Heat quickly rose in the confined space as she moved harder to try and get fresh air. "Last I checked my blanket wasn't this hard to get out of." She sighed after a few more minutes of struggling. "Nor were they big enough that I'm completely covered."
She struggled a little bit harder and finally popped out of the blankets, only to fall flat on her chest. Grumbling she used her paws to push her to her feet…wait, paws? Crystal tilted her head to look down. Where her hands used to be were black legs covered in fur. She tilted her head so she was looking upside-down and saw two more paws. Come to think of it, the floor was a lot closer than it was before…
"What the heck!?" Crystal moved, clumsily, around the bed before she reached her long, floor length mirror that hung on the wall. Her blue eyes widened at what was staring back at her: a jet black cat with bright blue eyes that held a shocked look. "What the heck is going on here?"