by Sybil Nelson
Dr. Witherall nodded still holding the box up for me. I didn't want to take it. I mean four months ago this man had tried to kill me. Now he was giving me presents. For all I knew there could be a bomb in the box.
"I assure you it's perfectly safe. If I wanted you dead, I would've killed you a long time ago."
He had a point there. He was able to track us down and lead us to a meeting place through Josh. He could've killed me easily already. I doubted if he would now choose to do it with a piece of jewelry. I had to admit, I was a bit curious as to what was in the box. It wouldn't hurt to look, right?
I slowly took the box from his hand. "Thanks, I guess?"
Dr. Witherall smiled. "You're very welcome."
"Sir, we have a problem," Specimen U said, staring into what looked like a portable GPS computer.
Dr. Witherall took it from her and studied it as well.
"Priscilla, you and Josh need to get out of here immediately. Do you need help getting back to your jet?"
I shook my head.
"Well, hurry. And lay low for a few days."
"Why?"
"Just do it." Dr. Witherall and Specimen U started walking away quickly. Suddenly he stopped, turned back and said, "You might not want to tell your mother about this."
Chapter 4: Grocery Store
I wanted to stay and at least say hi to Kyle and Tai, but considering my brother was still unconscious and I apparently needed to "lay low" for a while, I decided it was best to get out of town. A million things ran through my head as I flew toward Missouri. Why had Dr. Witherall shown such an interest in me? Why did he not want me to tell my mother? And most importantly, what the heck was in the box?
I set the box on the console of the jet and stared at it from time to time letting my imagination run wild. I mean, what exactly does a mad scientist get the child of one of his creations? Maybe it was some sort of poison that turned me into a monster. I shook my head. That didn't make any sense. He really didn't look like he wanted to hurt me.
The further away we got from River's Bend the more Josh started coming around. Finally, he groaned and said, "What happened?"
"Dr. Witherall showed up."
"Aw man! And I couldn’t help. Did he attack you?"
"No. He, um... he gave me a birthday present."
"What?" Josh bolted upright then clutched his head and laid it back on the headrest.
"I know. It's crazy. But there it is right there." I pointed to the box on the console.
Josh reached for it and held it in his hand for a moment.
"Should I open it?" he asked.
I shrugged.
Josh slowly started to open the box, and then stopped. "Maybe we shouldn't," he said.
I was too curious to stop now. I had to know what was in that box. I put the jet on auto-pilot and snatched it out of Josh's hand. When I opened it, we both gasped.
"Whoa, do you think it's real?" Josh asked staring at the elegant diamond necklace with a huge L made out of rubies hanging from the middle.
"How should I know?"
"Why would he give this to you?"
"How should I know?" I said mesmerized by the gorgeous glittering piece of jewelry. I was picturing myself wearing it when Josh interrupted my thoughts.
"I don't think we should tell mom about this," he said.
Hmph. That's exactly what Dr. Witherall said.
Mom and Dad were surprised to see us back after just a few hours. We made up some story about Josh running into his ex-girlfriend Stefanie, or as I call her, Skank-anie. Anyway, we told them that Josh wasn't up for staying the whole weekend. Thankfully, they bought it without too many questions. But I guess that could have been Josh and his powers again.
***
On Monday, I decided to help my mom with the grocery shopping. She still wasn't feeling well and I thought she could use a hand. We tried to sneak out of the house without either set of twins realizing it, but...no such luck.
"Can we go too?"
"Can we, can we, can we?" Both sets of twins pleaded. Mom sighed. I rolled my eyes. Taking them out in public added a whole new level of complications. Charlie and Chester liked to run off and get into trouble. I suggested putting them on leashes, but mom thought that was cruel. Ryan and Peter didn't have full control of their powers and were known to start levitating at the slightest sense of danger which is quite hard to explain to normal people. Whenever we took them somewhere, we also had to take Katya.
"Please mommy. We're so bored in this house," Chester said.
"Yeah, we never get to go anywhere. And you let Priss and Josh go to River's Bend. It's no fair," Charlie added. Then they revealed their patented puppy dog looks complete with trembling lips. Ryan and Peter stepped beside them and copied the pitiful expressions.
My mother may have been an unstoppable superhero at one point, but now she was a normal mother completely powerless to her cute (and evil) baby boys.
"Okay, you can come. But Katya has to come, too."
"I'll go pick her up from the safe house," Josh said. Before my mother could say another word Josh had grabbed his keys and was already out the door. Something told me he had other reasons for wanting to see the beautiful blonde Russian girl that lived thirty minutes away.
I rescued twelve Specimens from the Selliwood Institute that night four months ago. The oldest were Katya and Marco at ages fifteen and fourteen. The youngest was still in diapers. My mom and Specimen W, the caretaker of the safe house, worked for months to get most of them placed in foster homes. Only Marco, Peter, Ryan, and Katya remained. Marco refused to be adopted again after his traumatic experience with his previous family. Ryan and Peter didn't want to be separated and since they didn't have complete control over their powers, it was pretty hard to hide the fact that they could fly. Katya agreed to stay because her unique ability was extremely useful.
As expected, the twins ran off in different directions as soon as we entered the store. Katya and I looked at each other and shook our heads. We just knew they were going to get into trouble and we'd have to bail them out...again.
"Priss, Katya, go round up the boys," my mother said, grabbing a cart. "I'll take care of this shopping list and meet you in the checkout in twenty minutes, okay?"
We nodded then started walking down the aisles to look for the boys. I know what you're thinking. How hard can it be to find someone in a supermarket? Well, you don't know my little brothers. They are sneaky little things. Once they climbed into a cart and piled boxes of cereal on top of themselves. I couldn't find them for two hours.
"So, Priscilla, have you heard of a film called ‘The Notebook’?" Katya asked with her thick Russian accent as we meandered around the store.
"Yeah, why?"
"Joshua asked me to watch it. So I did this morning and I just do not understand it. Why would the man live in that nursing home facility when he did not have to? And why would Joshua want me to watch that movie in particular?"
I had to hold in a laugh. After living in the Selliwood Institute for her entire life and being trained as an assassin, the poor girl had no clue about relationships.
"Katya, he probably wanted to watch it with you." There was no probably in it. ‘The Notebook’ was Josh's secret weapon. I'd seen him use it on his ex-girlfriend Stefanie. He'd turn it on and sit next to her and as soon as the tears started flowing he'd stretch his arm around her and then start the disgusting make out session.
Katya stopped walking and cocked her head to the side in confusion. "With me? Why?"
I shook my head. A chick flick was not going to work with this chick. I didn't want to think about my brother's love life anymore so I went back to looking for the boys. After ten minutes, we were back to where we started and we were still twinless (is that a word?). I know I wasn't supposed to use my powers unless absolutely necessary, but I think this qualified. I focused my super hearing and tried to locate them.
Just do it. No one will see. I heard Charlie say. Great. What
were they up to?
With Katya close behind, I followed the sound of Charlie's voice to the toy aisle. Ryan was levitating and reaching for a Super Soaker water gun that Charlie obviously wanted.
"Get down from there before someone sees," I said in a forced whisper. But it was too late. A big middle-aged woman spilling out of a not so big tube top came around the corner and saw Ryan flying.
After being frozen with shock for a few seconds, she then opened her mouth and let out a scream almost as alarming as her pink eye shadow.
"Ma'am, please calm down. This all has a perfectly good explanation," I said.
She kept screaming.
I turned to Katya."Little help?"
"Da," she said using the Russian word for ‘yes’. Katya approached the woman and touched her bare shoulder. She instantly stopped screaming then got a confused look on her face. See, Katya's power was that she could erase short term memory. Like I said, extremely useful.
"Everything alright over here?" a young store manager asked approaching us.
The woman stared at him for a second then said, "Oh, yes, everything's fine. Why?
The manager looked at her strangely."Because you were just screaming your head off."
"Oh, well, I guess I just can't believe how cheap these Monopoly games are."
Crisis averted.
Chapter 5: The Unsafe House
The safe house where the Selliwood kids stayed was located in Kansas a few miles away from our house in Missouri. From the outside it looked like a regular old rickety farm house, but on the inside was a pretty sweet setup. State-of-the-art everything including a fully loaded weapons room, training room, and briefing room in the basement.
I wondered why we didn't just live in the safe house with the remaining Selliwood kids, but my dad thought it was better to have a little distance between the two homes. That way if one was attacked, the people in the other house would have time to escape. Funny, a safe house wasn't safe enough in my dad's opinion.
After our eventful shopping trip, it was time for our weekly conference about Colonel Selliwood. Since all the Selliwood kids had some sort of psychic ability, they often felt it when Colonel Selliwood planned some sort of attack. They could even sometimes psychically (is that a word?) connect with some of the other specimens and find out some important information. We would then meet to discuss the details and figure out a way to try to stop him.
When my mother had her powers, she was the strongest psychic. Now Josh had replaced her in ability followed by Katya.
"What's the latest?" my mother said, sitting down at the table with me, my dad, Josh, Ryan, Peter, and Katya. Specimen W was usually there but he was off placing another specimen in an adoptive home.
"I'm still pretty sure Colonel Selliwood is planning an assassination in the United Arab Emirates Wednesday night or Thursday morning," Josh said.
"What do you mean 'pretty sure'?" my mother snapped. "'Pretty sure' isn't good enough. Get it together, Joshua."
I stared at my mother in shock. Her eyes were as fiery as her red hair. Why was she suddenly so angry?
"Quin, calm down," my dad said. He also sounded surprised at my mother's sharp tone.
"I will not calm down! This isn't one of his silly little video games. This is real life and people can get killed. If he's going to be a leader he needs to be absolutely sure not 'pretty sure’," she said mockingly complete with air quotes.
Everyone stared at my mother in silence, except Josh. He calmly focused on his hands clasped in front of him.
"Fine, I'm positive," Josh said finally breaking the silence. "Priss needs to be in the United Arab Emirates to stop an assassination attempt against Sheikh Rasheed Al-Butam at 3:45 am Wednesday their time which is 6:45 pm Tuesday our time."
My head snapped around as I turned to look at Josh. Where did that come from? How did he come up with a prediction that accurate? I was totally confused.
"Now, was that too much to ask?" my mother stood and crossed her arms. "With a little extra effort you could actually prove to be useful." Then she stormed out of the briefing room leaving the rest of us completely in shock.
"Sorry, kids," my dad said. "She's not feeling well." He stood and went after her.
I turned to Josh and said, "What was that –"
He held up his hand interrupting me. "I don't wanna talk about it." Then he got up and left too.
"Kat, can you try to figure out what's going on?" I asked.
Katya closed her eyes and tried to focus. She was probably trying to read Josh's mind. Her white-blonde hair stood on end and started floating up toward the ceiling the more she concentrated. Finally, she shook her head and said, "He's blocking me. I can't see a thing."
It was pointless for me to try. If Katya couldn't pick up on anything there was no hope for me. I was pitiful at telepathy. I guess I'd just have to trust Josh. I took out one of Dad's laptops and started doing research for my upcoming mission.
I was actually looking forward to getting some action. It had been three weeks since my last mission intercepting a weapons delivery to one of Colonel Selliwood's satellite organizations. If you count destroying the Selliwood Institute I had five successful missions under my belt. I was extremely confident in my abilities. Not to say that I was invincible or anything. I mean I did get hurt in combat occasionally. But I honestly felt like I could tackle any challenge. And I felt like I could do it alone. But when Josh burst into my room the next day as I was getting ready to fly to UAE, all my confidence went out the window.
"You can't go alone," Josh panted. He looked absolutely terrified.
"Why?"
"You can't. You'll be killed if you go alone."
I wasn't about to argue with him. I might be stubborn, but I wasn't stupid. Josh was extremely powerful and all of his visions had come true. There was one vision I was hoping he was wrong about though. The vision that said I was going to be shot by my best friend. I wondered if he had somehow seen Tai in UAE. Was that even possible? I shook that thought off. No, it wasn't possible. And no, my best friend wasn't going to kill me. This was something else.
"Who needs to come?" I asked.
"Marco. Take Marco." Then he collapsed on my bed instantly falling into a deep sleep.
I tried to shake him back awake. "Why Marco? Anybody but Marco. Say Peter, or Ryan, or Katya. Anybody but Marco."
Josh didn't respond. I sighed and just accepted the fact that I'd have to take Marco. It wasn't that Marco wasn't completely capable and powerful. He was. It was just that he was so darn cute that when I was around him, I found it hard to remember things…like that I had a boyfriend.
Chapter 6: The Arab Sheet
I flew through the sky following the sunset in our invisible jet and thought about Kyle, my gorgeous best friend turned boyfriend who I missed like crazy and tried to ignore the Greek god looking boy sitting next to me in the co-pilot's seat.
I hated that I didn't even get to say hi to Kyle last Friday, but I tried to focus on the fact that we were going to get to have a real date this Friday. We hadn't been alone together since my birthday in December. Our only form of communication was through letters. Yes, letters. With pen and ink and paper and stuff. It was very weird and old-fashioned but my dad wouldn't let me have my own computer and email address like a normal person. And after our date on Friday, Katya was going to have to erase his memory...again. It was a complicated relationship.
Honestly, I didn't mind the letter thing too much. It was kind of romantic. It was so exciting to open the mailbox and see my name written in his adorable chicken scratch. As soon as I got one, I'd hold it close to my heart and run to my room. I didn't rip it open frantically, though. Once I was alone, I'd hold it in my hands for a few moments studying every crease and stain thinking that just a couple of days ago Kyle held the very same piece of paper in his hands. I'd close my eyes and try to imagine where he was when he wrote the letter.
Then slowly, careful not to rip the envelope, I'd
open it and gently slip the letter out. Holding it close to my nose I inhaled deeply. The letters always smelled like him, a mix of cherry lollipops and his father's Old Spice cologne.
Anyway, on our date this Friday, we were going to go see a movie. It would be our first real grown up date. Tai was actually going to fly in from River's Bend the day before to help me get ready for it.
It was going to be so awesome. But first, I had to make sure I didn't get killed on my current mission. I studied the control panel of the jet to make sure we were on track to arrive in United Arab Emirates on time. Apparently I had to go save this Arab sheet from an assassination attempt.
"Sheikh, Priscilla. He is a sheikh not a sheet." I turned and glared at Marco.
"How long have you been in my head?"
"Sorry, I -"
"You can't just pop into my head and read my thoughts any time you want to. It's not fair."
"Sorry, I -"
"I don't even know why you're here. I like working alone."
"I'm here because Josh said I needed to come."
