f o r e v e r | lab rats | *EDITING*

c h a p t e r 3 ; fake friends

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After waking up, the first thing I can do is change into clothes for school, hurry downstairs to grab an apple from the fruit basket for breakfast, then move immediately to the elevator and down to the lab. Leo is already down there, sitting next to Bree on the cyber desk. I take a seat beside her. Adam lounges in one of the desk chairs, and Chase stomps around the lab with a box, angrily throwing things in it.

"What are you doing?" I tentatively ask.

"If Davenport's going to ship us off to some remote facility, then the office supplies are coming with us."

Of course that's the thing he's worried about.

"We just got our taste of normal life," Bree says to me. "I was this close to getting a curfew, which I was totally going to break."

"Ooh!" cuts in Adam. This better be good. "But maybe when we get to wherever we're going, we'll meet a sassy lab chimp named Bobo who will take us on adventures and teach us how to love."

Okay, that was good. After speaking, he goes back to eating his Chex Mix as Chase gives up packing office supplies and sits upon the cyber desk on my other side, leaning back on his hands.

"Or you'll make him angry and he'll maul you and snack on your fingers," he remarks teasingly. His siblings and I chuckle.

"Hey!" Adam yells, standing. "I create the monkey fantasies around here."

With an eye roll, Bree jumps off the desk and goes to the elevator, saying something about needing breakfast. Leo follows her to escape Adam, but unfortunately for him, the older boy is quick to join them hoping to eat something that isn't food pellets for once in his life. This leaves Chase and I alone in the lab, still laughing at the situation he had created with teasing his brother.

"Ignore him," he says. "He's a little out of it up here." He taps his temple as he speaks, earning another small laugh from me.

"Sounds like my brother," I reply. Then, I realize what I've said, and quickly move to shut myself up while immediately looking away from him.

"You have a brother?" Chase asks. "I thought Leo was your brother."

"Kind of. Tasha took me in a long time ago. It's not something I like to talk about often."

"Well, I'm here to listen if you every want to talk."

"No, you won't. You're being shipped off, remember?"

He sighs. "Aren't you just a little ball of sunshine? Fine, if you wanna be like that. I'm gonna get something to eat."

He makes a move to leave, but my hand seems to have a mind of it's own as it darts out and wraps my fingers around his wrist, keeping him at my side.

"His name was Jameson," I start, like my brain just wants to spit out my entire life story to this random boy I literally met yesterday. "We all called him Jay, since he hated the formality of it. My parents adored him, my sisters and I adored him. He was an idiot, but he was my hero.

"One night, my dad started drinking. We don't know what happened to rip a screw loose in his head. But he'd beat Jay every night when he came home. He'd go after me, too. Then one night, I was coming home from hanging out with a friend. My mom was out, my little sisters at a babysitter. When I walked in, I found my father with a gun, Jay on the ground with a hole in his head. He shot him."

My voice cracks ever so slightly at my own words. It's been so long since I've spoken about that night. I hear Chase take a sharp breath, feel his hand take mine ever so tenderly.