Caught

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I laughed nervously. "Yeah, you know, my parents made the decision. To keep me... safe, you know?"

"You're brother graduated from high school here though," He said. When he saw my confused look on how he knew, he added: "Older sister told me."

"Well..." Family, why couldn't you have come up with a better story?

The boy patted me on the back. "Don't worry, Lauren. I'm just playing with you at this point. I'm glad you're safe and okay."

"Me too. Now if you could-" My sentence was cut off when Cole kissed me on the cheek all of a sudden, then walked away casually with the other boys following him.

I was startled, touching my cheek. I looked up at the boys. "What was tha-"

"Never mind him," Tyson said. "Lets go somewhere a little quieter and with less people."

We followed him out the ballroom, away from the music and all that dancing. We stopped near the front entrance of the palace, where Tyson pulled out his phone and dialed Alyssa. He put it on speaker phone.

Instead of the normal 'hello', Alyssa greeted us with screaming. "Get us down from here! We're freezing!"

"How in the world did you get up there!" I asked her.

I recognized the next voice as my cousin's. "We jumped out of a jet. But more about that later, you have to stop them!"

"Stop who?" Aidan asked. "Were you being followed by Institute guards?"

There was a long pause and a lot of shuffling from the girls at the other end. "More like we got a ride from them," Alyssa responded. "A few of them are already there, some are on their way. There's supposed to be a bomb in the cake - one that won't harm Aidan and Lauren because they're evolutians. Everyone else is done for."

The three of us looked at each other in shock. After Jessica said 'hello' three more times after we went silent on then, Tyson spoke. "Alyssa, why didn't you just call and tell this information?"

Jessica responded. "Well, none of you - or, Tyson, you weren't answering your phone. Spencer answered me once but said something about being mad at Lauren and not answering again."

I bit the inside of my cheek. I was right. Mom was attacking on the palace tonight.

I really didn't want to be right. I didn't want this future telling thing.

"Okay," I started. "Listen. Tyson's going to get you two off the roof - you do know how to do that, right?" When he nodded, I continued. "Aidan's going to defuse the bomb because he's good at technical stuff. I'm going to get Spencer and see what we can do about these guards."

Aidan gave me a look asking you-sure? He knew that things were still rough between us. I nodded, assuring him I'll be fine.

"Okay, lets do this," Tyson said. "The Institute ain't getting what they want today."

It was impossible to find Spencer in the crowd.

The dance ended and now, people were setting up for the actual party part of the night. Friends were now talking with each other in small groups. Princess Taylor stood at the top of the stairs where her dad's throne was sitting. She looked uncomfortable as Bethany asked her several questions.

At one point, I met her eyes. I could tell there was a part of her that really wanted me to come and save her, but somehow she knew I was busy.

I finally found Spencer with a group of people his age. They all held glasses of champagne and were laughing.