Origin (Book 2)

Chapter 4

I don't know when I fell asleep. In hindsight, it wasn't the best idea, what with Jake trying to get my DNA sample, but I was just so tired. My brain refused to operate for another second.

Of course, when I woke up, I nearly had a heart attack when I looked in the room next to mine and saw Sage and Cassie sleeping soundly in their beds.

I zipped to their room. After taking a long, confused look at the two girls, I shook them awake.

"What? What's going on?" Sage asked groggily.

"What are you doing?" Cassie asked me, equally as unknowing of the situation as Sage.

"What happened to you guys?" I asked. "Where did you go?"

I took a quick trip to Blink's room and found him sleeping peacefully.

It was as if nothing had happened.

"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked them.

"Going to sleep last night?" Sage offered. "Why? Did something happen? It better have if you woke me up on a Sunday morning."

I looked at both of them, flabbergasted that they couldn't remember the events of the past twenty-four hours. At least.

If Sage and Cassie couldn't remember anything that happened yesterday, then that meant that Blink wouldn't either. And that meant...

I was the only one who knew about the van. Well, me, and possibly Jake. We were the only ones who knew that there were people after us, and now, I was the only one of us I could trust.

"We need to get to school," I said. "It's not Sunday, it's Monday. You must have forgotten yesterday." I didn't know how to put it any simpler without setting off some red flags in their heads. But I only knew a little more than they did as of that moment, so I would act like nothing was happening.

"Morning, guys," Jake said at breakfast.

"Morning," we collectively muttered back.

"Wow. Sleepy, much?" he said. He went to the fridge and pored himself a glass of milk.

"I'm really tired," I responded. "I kept having a horrible nightmare that someone was poking me as I slept. With a needle."

Jake choked on his milk. "Really?" he tried to say.

"Yeah. It felt so real," I said. I didn't know where I was going with this. "And the funny thing was, you were the one with the needle."

His face paled to the exact shade of the milk he was holding. "I think I need some rest," he got out. He hurried up the stairs, and I heard a door slam behind him.

Cassie and Sage kept looking at me quizzically. I took notice of their inquiring faces and changed the subject.

"Sage, do mind if I ask you something?" I asked.

"Shoot," she said.

"How much of your experience under Dad's control do you remember?"

She paused before answering. She stabbed her spoon into her cereal, as if she were playing out a scene in her head. "Unfortunately, every second of it."

"I'm sorry. That must have been awful," Cassie interrupted, giving me a mean glare.

"It was," Sage said. "Every-" She slammed her spoon in her cereal, splashing milk all over the table. "Single-" She did it again. "Death." She let the spoon rest in the remains of her corn flakes.