Chapter Two

Chapter Two

 

Katie walks into the office and hands me a large folder. “This is all your paperwork and the stuff you missed during training last week. I’m so glad you decided to apply.” She smiles at me before flipping her blonder hair unnecessarily.

“Okay and when should I turn all this into you?” I ask her as the other RAs come pouring into the office together, laughing and joking around. I know they had the previous week to get to know one another and they look like the best of friends.

“Uhm, tomorrow!” she smiles before turning on her heels with a smile and walking into her office leaving me with a dumbstruck look on my face. 

“Tomorrow?” I say to myself.

“Don’t worry about it.” One of the girl RAs walk up to me.

“What do you mean don’t worry about it?” I laugh. “I have to read all this crap and sign it and understand it all by tomorrow?”

“Well, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll catch you up on all the important stuff…if you take my duty this weekend.” She stretches her hand out for me to shake.

“Deal.” I shake her hand and suddenly I know I’ve made a new friend. “I’m Kent.”

I know maybe I shouldn’t have made the deal so I could have a weekend off to hang with Nick but if I think we need to branch out and kind of make new friends other than each other so I accept her offer to help.

“Tiara.” She says. “Now let’s ditch the duty phone and go get some lunch. You drive?”

“Yeah.” I laugh while sitting the ancient AT&T flip phone on the desk.

“Me too!” she laughs. “I drive the tiny green 2013 Spark. Her name is Apple. So, McDonalds or Burger King?” she says as I follow her out the office door.

“McDonalds.” I say while following her to the green car in the parking lot and hop into the passenger seat.

We drive for about fifteen minutes and I sit back and listen as Tiara tells me all about her life, how she has an older sister and how her father’s a pastor. She’s also studying Criminal Justice so she can be an FBI Agent which makes me cringe a bit seeing as though I was in government facilities for most of my childhood.

I don’t say much about Nicolas and I, but I do tell her that our parents are a part of a traveling circus. It’s always been out story since we first broke out of the facility. I remember the first morning we were free and I asked Nick what our story was when people asked us. He wanted to us to be brothers and our mother and father were a part of a traveling circus. Most people bought it seeing as though we were both so talented.

“So you’re mom and dad are circus clowns?” she asks as we climb out of her small car and walk up to the McDonalds door.

“No,” I laugh nervously. This was Nicolas’ story and I always had him tell it and now it was pretty hard to remember what he came up with. “They perform; they dance and sing and do everything else in between.”

“Oh that’s cool. So you guys were homeschooled them?”

Geez this girl has a lot of questions.

“Sometimes yes and then other times we stayed with family and friends so we wouldn’t have to keep changing schools and stuff.”  I answer.

“Oh cool. So where are you guys coming from now?”

“Chicago. We were there just him and I for the past year and a half.” I smile, thinking about our huge home in Chicago.

Nicolas and I were leaving Vancouver when we decided to go to Chicago. I was looking through one of the databases for homes and found the perfect three bedroom house in a huge gated area. I had my own bedroom and so did Nick and we used the third bedroom as our study. We have close to about two hundred or so books that both Nicolas and I have read either once, twice or even a few dozen times.

The books are the only thing that stays constant with us when we move. They’re one of the main things we pack up when we leave. We usually pack a couple outfits so we could have something to wear, then we just go on a huge shopping spree and buy ourselves new wardrobes " the perks of having these powers.

“Oh cool. So what school did the two of you graduate from?”

“Uh.”

“Welcome to McDonalds can I take your order?”

I let out a huge sigh. Thank god she interrupted us. I turn to her and smile, “Can I get ten large fries, seven Mcdoubles, five four piece nuggets, three McChicken sandwiches and two sweet teas please.”

The girl behind the counter stops and smiles at me as if I’m joking and I can see Tiara mouth is wide open. I can’t but laugh and I nod at the girl who nods back and places my order. I hand her a hundred dollar bill and after she hands me my change I stuff the tens and twenties into the children’s donation box and step aside.

“Generous much!?” Tiara laughs before stepping up to the counter. “Forget generous…you and your brother must be loaded!”

“Nah,” I laugh. “My mom and dad are, and they try to spoil us by sending us all this money. Do you know a good bank that my brother and I can go to? I rather not keep carrying around a bunch of money.”

“I have an M&T bank account. It’s just down the road.”

“Can you show me tomorrow?”

“Yeah sure, no problem.”

Tiara orders her food and after they give us our orders we go back to the Residence Halls where most of the crowd has died down. The parents with tears in their eyes are all beginning to pull off in their cars as their kids wave goodbye to them with sadness but excitement in their eyes. We pull in and the moment I get out the car I see Nicolas walking out of Laker Hall (the apartment styled halls) with a boy carrying a sack of lacrosse stick and a duffle bag.

“Hey Nick!” I call out.  “I bought you food!”

“A heck of a lot of it too!” Tiara laughs.

“I’m going to play catch with Mason.” He looks back at me and smiles. I smile back at him and walk into the building with Tiara by my side.

“So that was the infamous Nicolas Burgetta?” she says while holding the door to the office open. “You two really don’t look alike.” She adds.

“We get that a lot.” I laugh before tossing Nicolas’ food into the fridge.

I’m about six foot one with curly black hair and caramel mocha skin while Nick is around five foot four with milk chocolate hair and short, black bushy hair. I have dark brown eyes; so dark they almost look black while Nick’s eyes are almost a light brown that you can make out perfectly…especially in the sun. I don’t care if people don’t believe if we’re brothers or not because of our appearance but we’ve honestly been through so much that we’re close enough to be family.

The hallways are getting quieter and I assume everyone had probably moved in already so Tiara and I’s job are done for the day. The rest of the RAs are gone to their rooms probably and Tiara and I just sit and talk for an hour or two before the RA duty phone rings.

“I’ll get it.” Tiara says before picking up the phone, opening it and pressing it to her ear. “Laker College RA phone, how can I help you?”

Her voice trails off as she walks out of the office and I start looking around in folders and drawers to make sure I know where everything is so that later I don’t seem like an incompetent RA. After a few minutes I look out the window to see Nick getting into the car with the blonde boy from earlier. I rush out the office and out to the parking just in time to stop the car from pulling off. Nicolas jumps out the car and runs over to me smiling.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask with my arms crossed.

“Out to the Walmart to get a bunch of stuff, Mason said he’d take me and I’ll have tons of room since he emptied all his crap out.”

I look at the large red pick-up truck and Mason waves out of the window at me " I wave back. “I was going to take us later on tonight.”

“Well we can go tonight.” His smile fades away. “If that’s what you want.”

“Nah. I’ll just go with Tiara, go have fun.” I say before he looks at me weirdly.

“Sure thing, dad.” He says before running around to the passenger side and hopping in.

Have really been acting like a dad lately? I mean, I know being on the move constantly has made us…well me, harder and more mature, but have I been acting like a dad? The first two years we were fine. We stayed in Nevada to be in plain sight; we were playing in a park when the government agents swooped in and tried to take us. I couldn’t believe it and I thought we were going back to the facility but Nick was ready. He wasn’t going back. He was well experienced with his electricity power by that time and shot one of the helicopters from the air and took care of half the guards before I snapped back into my head and joined the fight.

It was hard but we made it out " barely. We were scratched and beat up and the next morning Nick could barely move. It was then we started our lives on the run, moving and training ourselves for the encounters to come. They wouldn’t stop looking for us…they never will. Nick and I were two of their most prized possessions " and they want us back.