Super Secret | Half Hero Book 2 [ON HOLD]

Chapter 5: Frenemies

After a quick shower and perusing the few choices I had for clothes, I found myself with two and a half hours to kill. The ions in my bloodstream were humming, dangerously close to erupting into azure sparks.

To calm my restless legs, I was wearing a circle in the carpet while singing (badly) to an eighties station on the radio. Sadly, not even an epic power drum solo, complete with a keytar and brassy saxophone bridge, could shake my apprehension.

I didn't know what working with Varun included, but I'd seen the crazy equipment and freaky needles in the lab. I'd faced that stuff while in Hamm's clutches. Varun's brother had a hand in those (often painful) experiments. There was a tenuous line between progress and persecution.

Also, on a possibly (but not likely) unrelated note, my emo-stalker had mysteriously resurfaced last night at my mother's new house. I don't know how he found me or why he was creeping on my family, but as far as rude omens go, that guy was on par with crabs.

It wasn't until I'd gotten to the second chorus of Footloose that I'd realized Galen was forty minutes late, which was a total anomaly. That guy was wound tighter than a Swiss watch.

I bopped along to the last notes of the song to answer the door when he finally bothered to knock.

"We're late," he informed me, his cheeks flushed with fresh frustration.

"Well, whose fault is that?" I mumbled under my breath, following him out into the hallway.

"Let's just get this over with," Galen was in a mood, and I wasn't about to shoulder another person's emotional turmoil. I had enough of my own to cope with for the time being. "Glad to see you dressed up for the occasion. Are you wearing your pajamas?"

"What do you mean?" I cried, glancing down at my relaxed fashion. "Sweat pants go with everything!"

Niggling insults were the basis of our friendship, and it wasn't my fault I didn't have any ball gowns or tiaras lying around. After my fiasco in Malaysia with Mac, my mom had to give me a bunch of her old loungewear because I didn't have any clothes left. The only possessions I had were incinerated in the plane crash that left me a Scion.

I kept pace, trying to hold my shoulders back to hide any signs of trepidation. The electrons in my blood hummed along with the zing of my heart, which translated to nervous twitches during our elevator plunge into the belly of the building.

"What's happening here?" Galen remarked as I redistributed my body weight from foot to foot. "Why are you white-girl dancing?"

"It feels like the first day of school," I pulled a face, trying to ignore my own reflection in the shiny interior. "And there's going to be a test I don't know about."

"Yeah, I'm nervous too," he sighed.

"That's not helping."

"What I mean is," Galen eyed me. "When you're in that lab, I have less control over this project. This is a new team for me too, and I don't know if one of these procedures isn't going to harm you in some way, or do long term damage to other people."

"Dude, that's somehow worse," I complained.

"I'm not trying to make it worse, I'm trying to prepare you, Ella. Just promise me you'll tell me if something makes you uncomfortable," Galen replied seriously. The elevator subtly began to slow its descent, shifting my turbulent insides. "Officially, I'm going off their expert advice, but I'm trusting your gut, got it?"

I had barely enough time to nod my agreement before the doors whooshed open.

Turns out, scientific discovery is about as exciting as meditation, but it takes much, much longer.