Chapter 32 - Nerves
I was wound tighter than a Twizlers Pull-N-Peel and was tapping my foot on the car's floor as the seconds passed. There was sweat dewing on the back of my neck. My eyes watched the other passing cars go with jealousy, longing to be with them, getting away from where I was going. With the way I was reacting you'd think they were shipping me off to Military School or a loony bin. I wish I could have been that lucky. Instead we were joining my dad at his place for a Thanksgiving meal. Sounds harmless enough, right? You'd be wrong.
Getting a hold of my nerves was like reining in a frightened horse. It shouldn't be so bad, I tried reasoning with myself. It's just dinner. It seemed a little unorthodox that I was so anxious, and yet I couldn't act any other way. My natural instinct was to run away from horrible situations, but like I'd tried telling my subconscious I had no idea what was going on. It might actually be good.
Just like murder and stealing might actually be good. Give me a break.
My comparison was harsh, but I was still on edge. All I had to do was think of the good things. My half-brother would be excited to see me. I only got to visit the kid a couple times a year and that made me feel horrible since we were related. I lived with Ella, and my other half-sibling is neglected. If I spent all my time with him today, it might not be so bad.
Mom and Ella, who were sitting up front in our sedan, were either unaware or ignoring my freak-out in the back seat. They knew without observing my nervous ticks that I wasn't excited about today. None of us were, really, except for maybe Mom. Fang and I were in the back, on opposite sides of the car. His head was leaning against window as he watched the passing scenery.
Oh geez, thinking of Fang made me remember what I'd promised him. We were supposed to go snooping through Jeb's house looking for clues about Itex. This wasn't something I was particularly fond of doing, if you didn't catch my drift from the last chapter. I thought he was crazy in pursuing an unknown company, but the Voice had said he was on to something. Oh God, now I'm listening to the Voice. What's coming over me?
I felt a hand on mine, which was resting on my lap, and I looked up to see Fang staring at me. His face was impassive as usual, but I was able to read what he was thinking in his black eyes. He wanted me to calm down, but he was also reminding me of why coming here was important. My eyes wandered back down to his olive-toned hand on mine, and I instantly felt my cheeks flush. It was such a stupid reaction. I shied away from his touch and he withdrew his hand automatically. Why did he do that? Why was I being such a weenie today?
Soon we pulled into a driveway. Jeb lived in a very nice, upscale, one-level home. It was very Mod with unique shaped windows and roofs. The place was very expensive and very cool. I almost wished I lived here, but then I wouldn't have Gale at my disposal at any time.
We all exited the car and walked up the stone steps to a chocolate brown door. Mom pressed the bell. A moment later a nanny (yes, I know, he has a nanny for one kid) answered and ushered us into the living room. Let me tell you it didn't look any different from the outside of the place. Crazy furniture surrounded a steel fireplace. A chandelier hung from the roof, its crystals dripping like frozen raindrops. Sitting on one of the sofas, playing with a Nintendo DS, was a cute little kid with blond hair and green eyes. He looked up and grinned. "Max!" he called, running up to me.
"Hey, Ari." I knelt down and hugged him. Did I ever mention that when we did see each other he was attached to my hip? He idolized me for some strange reason. I just realized how bad that would be when Fang and I went off on our own. Wow, that sounds really wrong.
"Hi, buddy," Mom said, ruffling his thin hair once he'd finally let go of me. "Where's your dad?"
Ari looked up at her and blinked as he thought. He was so cute. "Uh, the kitchen, I think." Mom nodded and walked off. He turned his attention from her to my sister. "Ella," he said happily, hugging her briefly.
"Hey, kid. How's it going?" She straightened up from their hug.
"Good, I want to show you guys my new video game…" His voice trailed off as he looked at Fang, who was hanging back in the veranda looking through hallways. He was like a shadow, very tall, dark, and intimidating. Sensing our gaze, he looked at the three of us. "Who's that?" Ari asked quietly.
"Oh, that's just Fang," I replied cheerily. "He's not as bad as he looks. Fang, come over here," I asked him, and he sauntered into the living room. He looked at Ari briefly and then me, comparing us mentally. "This is my brother, Ari," I told Fang.
"Yo," said Fang with a nod.
"Hi," Ari whispered, leaning on my side. "Why are you here? Are you Max's boyfriend?" Fang smirked and I got a little annoyed. I knew he was enjoying that comment a little too much. Then I thought of his gesture earlier and was greatly puzzled. Had he meant anything by it or was he just reminding me of what we we're going to do? I hardly understood him anymore.
"No, he's our foster brother," Ella supplied. "Didn't your dad tell you that we'd gotten one?"
He shook his head, and we three older kids shared a significant glance. Why didn't Jeb tell him about Fang? Was it something Ari wasn't supposed to know about? He knew that we wanted to house foster kids, right? We'd talked about it for a long time. But he didn't live with us so he had no idea what was going on in the Martinez home.
To save us from the awkward situation we were in, Mom and Jeb, the Spawn of Satan (Thanks Madeline Cullen!!), entered the room. "Guys, dinner won't be ready for a while. Why don't you sit down and watch some TV?" Jeb offered. He sounded so sincere. Too bad I didn't trust him at all. "Valencia and I are going to finish up cooking." We nodded and watched them leave again.
Fang and I looked at each other. "Uh, guys, Fang and I are gonna go explore the house a bit," I said awkwardly.
Ella and Ari looked confused. "Why? Don't you want to stay here with us?" she asked innocently, but I understood the implications behind her question. She didn't want to be left alone with Ari. I felt bad, but it was necessary. And it wasn't like he was a burden anyway. It wasn't like the one time when we'd babysat Gabe and Angel Moore. Talk about a headache.
"I just wanted to show Fang the view from the back room," I lied. "It'll only take a minute or two, tops."
"Okay," Ari sighed. "Hurry back. We can play Wii!" He didn't suspect anything from Ella's question.
I nodded with a smile as Fang and I headed for the main hallway. If you didn't know Jeb's home it would be pretty easy to get lost. It was definitely too big for a family of two and their nanny. I was hoping she wasn't wandering around. It would be bad running into her. I took a few turns and we entered a giant room that resembled a miniature library. Three of the four walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves which were mostly filled with books, encyclopedias, and periodicals. At the center of the room was a desk with a schmancy Apple desktop sitting atop the fine oak.
"I wish we had more time to look," Fang said, marveling the rows of books.
I nodded weakly. "Yeah, we really need to be quick. We don't want anyone suspecting we're up to something we aren't." What was happening to my bravado? It was me we were talking about. I blame Jeb.
"But isn't that the truth? We are doing something we shouldn't."
I shot him a cold look. "That wasn't funny. And that's not what I meant and you know it."
He grinned, a rare smile that lit up his face. I swore time had stopped for the instant he did it. I momentarily forgot that I was mad at him. "Back to business," he mumbled. He turned his attention to some medical textbooks.
I didn't want to hover over him so I checked the desk. A line of drawers dropped parallel to the legs, and I sifted through their contents. The top one held checkbooks, bills, and other various papers dealing with numbers and money. I didn't want to look at it anymore. The second contained what appeared to be paid bills, void checks, and more pointless papers that wasn't necessary to keep. All the other drawers appeared to hold similar crap so I moved on to the computer.
I wasn't very familiar with Macs but I knew how to work one well enough. Moving the mouse along the lower screen, I checked all the icons that appeared. It was the standard: Safari, Word, Photo Manager, Files. The last one was the only thing that looked promising. I clicked on it, and it took me through a bunch of Excel spreadsheets of taxes, a calendar list of appointments he'd scheduled (for the family and his patients), and visual books on new medical theories. It seemed so normal that it made me skeptical, but I didn't know what I was looking for to begin with.
"Any luck?" I asked Fang, rising from the desk.
"There are textbooks on DNA theory," he said. "And genetics. Even something about recombinant studies. Did you see something about Itex?"
"No." What Fang had found was similar to what we saw at my home. I wondered if it meant anything. What would my Mom and Jeb be doing with genetics and recombination? Mom was an animal's doctor and Jeb a people's. Did that mean something?
I noticed a stack of newspapers and started leafing through them. Somewhere in the back of my mind was alerting me that Ella and Ari might be getting suspicious, but I was entranced by the old dates on the periodicals. They ranged from 1987 to as recent as 2001. I pulled out an old one and flipped the pages. Inside the 'Local' section was a picture of a young-looking Jeb. It claimed that he'd graduated from Johns Hopkins University for medicine. The next one I grabbed was from 1993, and it was only of the advertisements in the back. It had job listings to home and car sales to missing kids. I didn't know what this had to do with the others.
"Fang, come here," I called over my shoulder. A few seconds later I felt his presence behind me even though I didn't hear his approach. He looked at the newspapers. "I think this is more of what you want. I saw one with a picture of Jeb. Maybe they'll mention something about Itex."
He looked through some others still stacked on the shelves. After reading through a third, I saw his eyes widen. He zipped open his jacket and stuffed the paper into his inner pocket.
"Are you crazy? You can't take anything from Jeb's house!"
He raised an eyebrow. "Consider it borrowing, then. I saw a heading about Itex. Stuff some in your coat. It won't be too obvious because he only took out certain sections."
"It'll be obvious if most of his newspapers are missing."
He rolled his eyes. "Just find ones that we need."
We sped through stacks of papers. I eventually found a few interesting articles and folded them into my pockets. He had one opened fully, reading the article with fervent interest. "Holy shit," he whispered. "I just hit the jackpot." Right when I was about to look, his head snapped from the paper to the door. "I hear footsteps," he said.
My ears strained, but I could hear them faintly, too. He expertly folded and stowed the paper away in his jacket, zipping up quickly. Seconds later the door opened and of course none other than my beloved father entered. "Hey, I was just showing Fang your library," I lied smoothly. "He really likes books."
Jeb's eyebrows rose. "Really? What do you enjoy reading?"
Fang shrugged. "Science fiction, fantasy, action. The supernatural, I guess."
"Well, I don't have too much of those books, unless you like Lord of the Rings, but I'm sure you read that already." He either had no idea that we were snooping or he was really good at hiding it. "I wanted to let you know that your mother wants you to wash up for dinner. It'll be served in about ten minutes." His penetrating glance was directly on me, and I broadened my shoulders to show him I wasn't intimidated.
"Okay, I think we're done anyway," I told him.
He nodded. "Yes, well, I'll see you shortly. Feel free to borrow anything that looks interesting, Fang." It was like he was giving us an invitation. I didn't trust him at all. Why was he being so kind? He walked out and Fang and I looked at each other. We had no idea what Jeb was up to but it didn't look good.
So, I just wanted to say that while the past few chapters have seemed kind of pointless, they have all given some important piece of information for the story, so be aware of that. I thought this was a little more interesting cause there was another hint of Fax. :P I promise it will come, but you have to be veeeeery patient. Also, I promise more action will be coming soon. I'm pretty excited because I came up with a new MR fanfic that I think will be awesome. It'll be called "Deception", and I'll start posting once I finish Ghost of Me.
Even though I only had 7 reviews last chapter I need to send a huge thanks to fangfan5 for giving me 30-something reviews!! :D You rock! Glad you're enjoying so far. BTW, the type of homes I was referring to that look like Jeb's are like these: http:// www dot costaricaoceanviewlots dot com slash mod underscore homes06 dot jpg
Do the new poll if you haven't. Review. I'll post the mini-summary for the second book in this series next chapter. Review. Uh... I guess all I have left is REVIEW!