Chapter 24

Chapter 24

In the morning when Alexia woke up, she still felt exhausted.  She had spent the whole night wondering whether their experiment worked or not, which kept her from falling asleep easily anyway.  Besides that, she wondered about what she had emotion she had felt coming from Cheater the day before.  She had wondered about the love she felt radiating off of him, and it made it even harder for her to fall asleep.  So, between the two thoughts passing back and forth in her brain, she just couldn’t sleep the entire night.  She had only gotten a few hours total, no matter how hard she tried to sleep.  It was like she just couldn’t shut her mind off.

She rolled over to look at the clock on her bed stand and groaned when she read the time.  It was only six in the morning! She wanted to go back to bed, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to.  She would only lie awake for another few hours, until she was so bored that she couldn’t help but get up.  So, she decided that she might as well get up then.

She dragged herself out of bed and over to her closet, pulling out a random pair of jeans and a shirt to go with it, before going to her bathroom to take a shower.  After she was fully clean, dried, and dressed, she went into the kitchen to make her breakfast.  She ate a hearty meal of microwavable pancakes and milk.  After filling her belly, she stretched out on the couch to relax, watch TV, and hope by some miracle that she would be able to fall back asleep.

A while later, she realized that she must have fell asleep when she looked back up at the clock and noticed that it was around nine in the morning.  She hoped that it was a better time for people to be up, because she didn’t want to sit around watching TV by herself for the next few hours until someone woke up.  She got up from her position on her couch, and went outside her apartment to the living room in the common room.  She would rather be in there when someone finally woke up, hopefully it would be soon.  She settled down on the couch, which was almost identical to hers, just a different color.

A door opened around ten, when Alexia was sprawled across the couch in a wild position.  She was able to turn her head to see that it was Cheater, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  Sure, she wouldn’t mind it if anyone else saw her in that crazy position, but she would be extremely embarrassed.  With Cheater, it didn’t bother her as much.   In fact, it didn’t bother her that he saw her that way, it just seemed kind of normal.  He just chuckled at her as he walked into the room.  She smiled softly at him before sitting up and moving over for him to sit next to her.  He grinned at her and moved closer, sitting down and pulling his arm around her shoulder.  She smiled and laid her head on him.

“So, what are you doing up so early?”  Alexia asked with a smile.  Cheater grinned back at her before replying.

“I could as you the same question you know.  So what are you doing up so early then?”  He asked cheekily.  She couldn’t help but laugh at the crazy look he had on his face.

“I couldn’t sleep.  What about you?”  She asked, leaning back into the couch and unconsciously closer to him as well.

“Same.  It seems to me that I slept better than you did though.  Sorry about that.”  He said, hearing her thoughts about her sleepless night.  She made sure to only think about the experiment and escape keeping her up.  She didn’t want knowing about the other things that had kept her awake as well.  More than likely he knew already, but she didn’t want to take any extra chances.

“It’s fine.  I sorted my thoughts out enough in the end, which I’m hoping helps us all in the long run.”  She said with a slight laugh.  Cheater smiled and laughed with her.  Alexia realized that she really loved his smile, and his laugh.  His smile was warm and welcoming, when he smiled it made her heart melt and her eyes soften up.  His laugh was sweet, yet manly.  If she hadn’t already gotten to know him, she could tell just by his laugh that he had a joking and playful personality, which was one of the main things she loved about him.

“You also got to see me earlier than you normally do!  Be thankful!”  He said with a wide grin, and Alexia couldn’t help but grin back at him as well.  His good mood was very infectious.  But then his expression turned very serious, and hers quickly followed suit.  “Are you ready to tell anyone else yet?  They’ve got to know sometime, preferably before we escape.  They should at least know when we find out the results of your tests.”

“Well, I’ve decided to tell Damon, since we need to tell someone other than the two of us, and Damon is the oldest of the others.  But, I’m not going to tell everyone else unless the results are positive.  And if they are positive, everyone is going to treat me differently.  They’re going to be more careful around me, like they’ll be afraid that I might break.  I don’t know how I’d handle that Cheater.”  She said, her eyes starting to tear up.  She wouldn’t let them fall though; she was too strong for that.  “I can’t have everyone worrying about me all the time, especially after we leave here.  Everyone can’t baby me.”  She said, burying her head into his chest to hide the tears that were threatening to spill.  She knew that he heard her thoughts and her tears as well.  She knew she didn’t have to say anything out loud, but she felt that she had to get the words out.

“I can’t let them treat me like I’m breakable; it will only slow us down in the future.  I can’t have that.  I won’t let myself be the reason that we don’t escape, or the reason we get caught after escaping.”  She said, her face still pressed against his chest.

“Shhh its ok Alexia.  Just take a deep breath and calm down for a minute.  Let it all out if you want to.  You know, you really should stop holding in your emotions.  I’m here to talk whenever you want.  And just so you know, I won’t go into your mind without your permission, or when you go into the lab.”  He said, still holding onto her tightly.  She still let out no tears, but lay quietly in his arms.  Yet again, she could feel his complex emotions.  He was feeling compassion toward her, worry for her, and yet again the confusing emotion of love.

Even though she had figured out a lot of things the night before, she still didn’t know what to think of his love.  She wished she knew what kind of love it was; it would make everything easier for her.  It’s not like she could just ask.

“Thank you.”  She whispered to him quietly.

“You’re welcome.”  He said in the same tone of voice.  “So, how about we just lay here for a little while.  Nobody else is going to wake up for a little while anyway.  We can watch a movie, or play a game!”  He said with a wide grin while moving his arm away from her.  Alexia instantly felt colder.

“I don’t know… I don’t really feel like doing anything.”  Alexia said softly.

“Well, like I said we can just watch some TV or a movie.” He said, slinging his arm back around her.

“Ok.  Will you come with me when I go to tell Damon?”  She asked, going back to the subject that she knew Cheater was trying to change.

“Of course!  If you want me to be there, then I’ll be there.”  Cheater said, hugging her slightly.  Again, Alexia felt safe and warm, she loved the feeling and didn’t want for it to go away.

“Thank you Cheater.”  She said with a smile, and snuggled her head closer to him.

“You’re welcome Alexia.  I’ll always be there for you, remember that.”  He said, pulling her even closer if it were possible.

“I will.”  Cheater grabbed the remote and turned it to a channel that was sporting a movie.  Neither teen knew exactly what the movie was about, since they were both absorbed in their own thoughts.  Alexia was thinking about what she would say to Damon, and how she would explain the situation to him.  Cheater on the other hand, was thinking about escape plans.

About an hour into the movie, Damon’s door opened and he appeared.  Both Alexia and Cheater’s heads whipped around to face him.  They both had very serious expressions on their faces, and Alexia could feel the confusion radiating from Damon.  When he came closer to the couch, both Alexia and Cheater stood up.  Alexia motioned for Damon to follow her to her room; Cheater already knew to come along after all.

When they arrived in the room, Alexia sat on the couch, and the boys followed her example.  Cheater patted her arm slightly, knowing that it would be very hard for her to tell Damon about everything.  He didn’t say anything though, and she was very grateful for that.  She didn’t think that she would be able to handle it if he openly voiced his empathy.

“Ok Damon I, well we, have a lot to tell you.”  Alexia said slowly.  Damon’s eyes widened a little in confusion.  “First off, don’t be mad that we waited until now to tell you, it seemed best at the time.”  Damon nodded slowly; Alexia took that to be a good sign.  “Ok well, you know that they keep doing experiments on me right?”  She said, and Damon nodded again.  “Well, they did it again; this time it’s much, much worse.”  She said.  She and Cheater took turns telling Damon the rest of the story about her possible pregnancy.  When they were finally finished, his eyes were as big as saucers and his mouth was hanging wide open.

“They did that to you?” He finally got out after moving his mouth for a few minutes without any sound coming out.  When the words eventually came out, he leaned back as if it pained him to even say them.

“Yes, and now we can’t do anything but wait and try to escape.”  Alexia said, lowering her voice on the last part.

“But how can we do that?  If you’re pregnant then we can’t take you out into the woods! We can’t have you exerting yourself!  You need to be able to rest, and you can’t do that on the run! This just won’t be possible!”  Damon yelled out, jumping out of his seat.  Alexia stood quickly as well and glared at him.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew that you would try to treat me like a little person marked with a breakable tag!  But I’m not! I’m not breakable; I can take care of myself!”  Alexia said.  Then she realized that she was yelling as well, and lowered her voice considerably.  “I don’t need you to watch out for me.  We need to leave here, and as soon as possible.  Even if I am pregnant, I can last a few months before it gets really hard to do anything.  Until then, everyone will treat me the same as everyone else.  I will not shirk any of my responsibilities because of it either.  Do you agree Damon?  Or do I have to continue?”  She asked him quietly, though with steel well-heard in her voice.  She sat down slowly, her eyes still on Damon.  Not a moment later he nodded slowly with a shocked expression on his face.  “Good.  Now, we really need to work on preparations more.  We have a week before they plan to do a type of pregnancy test, and I would love to be able to be gone by then.”

“But I thought you’d like to stay long enough to know the results of the test…”  Cheater said softly, trailing off at the end.  Alexia didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking.  He was curious about whether she was pregnant, but not because of the obvious reasons.  She believed he wanted to know if he was to become a father.  That was something that they could not ignore.  If Alexia was pregnant, Cheater was technically the father, although not in the normal sense.

“I think we should leave as soon as possible.”  Alexia said softly.  “We can stop somewhere small along the way to buy some pregnancy tests; it’s not like we need to go straight through.  We have a lot of provisions, but we still are going to have to stop and get more.”

“I agree.”  Cheater said slowly.  Damon nodded his agreement, looking like he wouldn’t be able to speak again even if he wanted to.

“Well, then we need to get everyone in here to finish getting together the plans.”  Alexia said quietly as she stood up from her seat.  Both of the boys nodded, and Damon went out into the common room to wait on everyone to wake up.  No one had spoken, but they had reached a silent agreement that Damon would bring kids in the apartment as they woke up, and Alexia and Cheater would stay in her apartment and greet them as they came in.

Cheater scooted closer to Alexia when Damon left the room.  “Are you alright?”  He asked softly with compassion openly showing in his voice and his body language.  Alexia could still feel the love radiating from him, but chose not to dwell on it yet.  She had too much going on in her life already to worry about things like that.

“Yes, I’m fine.  Or at least, I will be.”  Alexia said with a small smile.  Cheater smiled back quickly and brought her into his arms for a tight hug.  “Thank you for being here for me.”  She mumbled against his chest.  He must have heard her though, she felt his happiness and knew he was smiling.

“You’re welcome.  I’ll always be there for you.”  He said sweetly.

“That was corny.”  Alexia said with a smirk, raising her head up to look at him.  His laugh filled the quiet room around them.

“What can I say, I’m a corny person!”

Just at that moment, the door opened slowly and Jada and Trixie walked in, both girls rubbing their eyes.  Cheater quickly scooted away from Alexia to let the girls have room to sit next to her.  Jada went to Alexia’s left side, next to Cheater, and Trixie went to her right.  Both girls snuggled up to Alexia like they wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep.

Cheater turned on the TV and put it on a children’s show for the kids to watch.  A little while later, Adam stumbled through the door and curled up on one of the chairs to go back to a light sleep.  When he did, Alexia and Cheater looked at each other and had to hold in their laughter at his position.  Jared walked in as well, and he sat on the floor in front of Alexia and leaned back against her legs.  Damon followed behind him, and he took the other chair that was empty.

“Ok everyone, do you all know why you’re in here?”  Alexia asked, taking charge of the small group.  Everyone nodded slowly, most of them still half asleep.  “Ok so let’s go to the special room then.  Cheater, does anyone have any tests scheduled today?”

“Sadly yes, I have one at three and Jared has one at four thirty.  But we can just go out into the common room when it’s about time.”  He said softly, catching Jared’s eye.

“Ok, well until then everyone is here so let’s go.”  Alexia said leading the way to her closet and ultimately the hidden room.  They were going to spend the rest of the day plotting ways to escape from the evil place that had been dubbed The School.