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“Blind Within The Shadows”


“Don’t know Where she belongs, where she belongs. She wants to go home, but nobody’s home. It’s where she lies…broken inside. There’s no place to go, no place to go, to dry her eyes, broken inside. Open your eyes and look outside, find the reasons why…you’ve been rejected. Now you can’t find, what you’ve left behind. Be strong, be strong now…” - Avril Lavigne, “Nobody’s Home”


Chapter Eight: Only a Shadow

Jessica sat up on her bed in the hotel room. She had to share one with Brian and Kevin due to their short limit on money. She sits in the darkness, typing into Brian’s laptop, the light coming from the screen being her only illumination in the room. She’s hoping that until tomorrow comes and she can actually try to find her old orphanage once more, she could track something down on the internet. Brian was more her person for that with his computer skills but she doesn’t wish to wake him. She sighs with frustration. Nothing. The closest she can get is where she was adopted from. All other records were locked for the orphans’ protection. Just perfect. She didn’t notice Brian was awake until he sits beside her and puts his arm around her in a brotherly way. Her short locks sway about her face as she turns to face him, slightly grumpy with frustration, and with his interruption. She closes the laptop with defeat.

“You should get some sleep Jess.”

“I can’t.” she looks at him with sad blue eyes.

“Bad dreams?”

“I don’t have those old dreams anymore.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Maybe,

“Tomorrow we’ll pick up a few things, let Kevin sleep so he doesn’t become a monster.”

Jessica laughs softly. “Yeah. So we’ll maybe try to go to Sparkling Waters tomorrow?”

“Maybe, lets just lay low for a couple days, Mike might decide to care and look here first. The orphanage you were from would be the first place.”

“I know, hence the false registration names here. Glad Kev’s eighteen.” Her gaze goes to the window, wishing she had never been adopted to begin with. “I want to know where he is, is all.”

Brian hugs her with a small smile. “I know, and you’ll find him, I promise. I just can’t promise anything about what’ll happen after that…”


****************


Brian follows Jessica through the grocery store. “Jess, we’re not going to be here that long, we don’t need to get everything. All we have is what’s in mine and Kev’s accounts from those evil summer jobs.”

She smirks, tossing some red mountain dew into the cart she was pushing, that was already almost full with unnecessary groceries. “Aren’t you glad you did them now? Where’s Kevin?”

“Still looking for the allergy meds he needed I think.”

“Must suck to have those.” She turns down another aisle quickly. She thrusts the handle of the cart towards Brian, going off ahead.

“Yeah well not all of us have your perfect bill of health Jess.” He sticks his tongue out at her playfully; glad her mind for once isn’t worrying about finding her twin.

“Perfect bill of health?! Yeah right, that explains the pass out spells right.“ She declares with a big roll of her baby doll blue eyes.

“”Well I can’t remember you ever getting sick…“ Now that he thought about it, it was a little odd. Jessica had never gotten sick growing up. Not once. Even when surrounded with contagious Kevin and Brian when they had had the chicken pox. Or when they were sick with flu. She came over and entertained them till they were better, one house at a time, running next door when one cousin she felt was properly entertained. A spunky little girl she had been, but never getting sick despite the exposure.

“Eh so I’m lucky.” She dashes down the cereal isle and he groans. They would have no money left after Jessica spent it all on stuff she doesn’t even need! Kevin walks down up to Brian with a chuckle.

“Having fun cuz?”

Brian smirks. “Yep, and guess what? You get to cover the grocery bill.”

“Why?”

“Cause you’re the oldest that’s why!” He says in a little kid voice. Brian chases off after Jessica playfully with Kevin on his tail. Now acting like the teenagers they are for once. Jessica glances back, making teasing faces at them. She didn’t see the two teens also in the aisle and triples into the younger one, causing them to fall into the large display of cereal boxes, built up into a pyramid of sorts. The boxes tumbling about them.


****************


Nick groans as he follows Alex through the store. “I can’t believe mom made us go shopping.” He pushes the shopping cart along grumpily.

AJ rolls his dark coffee eyes as he checks the list their mother gave him before she left to put in extra hours at work. “Could be worse considering you burned your door down.”

“I didn’t set the fire!” He pouts indignantly, still having no clue how that happened. Every time he tries to remember, nothing comes to mind.

“Howie found you on the floor next to where it started.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Who did then?”

He sighs, tucking a golden lock away from his eyes. “I don’t know.”

Alex rubs his arms and takes over the cart as he goes to find a certain cereal. “Just be happy she was more relieved than mad.” He had been as well. He had walked in that night to find Howie hovering over Nick trying to figure out what happened. Alex called their mom and she had rushed home, just happy her youngest was alright. Then she lectured Nick, but not as harshly as she should have. The idea they came up with for what happened was a chemical fire, which explained the color Howie claimed it was. How Nick could have started a chemical fire, none of them knew. So it became one of the many unsaid and ignored questions within the McLean home. The hear someone walking by and taking no notice of it until someone trips over Nick causing them both to tumble into a pyramid of cereal boxes that crashed on them both. Alex turns to make sure his brother’s okay, laughing at the incident, until he hears a surprised gasp.

There was a young girl a bit slimmer and more muscular than Nick sitting amongst the mess. She stared at Nick with amazement and Nick frowns. And her face although more feminine and a bit slimmer, was eerily similar to Alex’s younger brother’s. One you examined the two there were plenty of differences though.

Jessica couldn’t help but stare. There it seemed was the picture of her twin, aging before her eyes. But was it Nicky? No, there were differences she saw. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him more closely. Differences between his face and her own, many more than just the gender ones. She knew when they were younger they were almost completely identical. It wasn’t him. Just someone who had the right type of face and coloring of eyes. Only a shadow of her or her twin. Someone who looked about Brian’s age reaches down to help the boy up, and he checks the one she tripped over.

“You alright bro?” He asks.

“Yeah yeah Alex I’m fine.” He whines annoyed.

Alex looks to Jessica. “You okay?”

She shakes herself out of her reverie. Also, the two were brothers, she could tell by how they acted. Blood related brothers; she had seen enough adoptees at her school to know the difference. There was always a closeness with adopted ones that couldn’t quite be achieved like with the blood related families. The lights within the ceiling flicked and burst one after another around them. Only the ones directly above them did not do that. Only the ones that if did, would harm them did not burst. All the teens jump at the noise.

Brian raises a brow at the exploding lights around the store. “That’s weird…short fuse maybe…” he muses, heading to Jessica.

Kevin helps her up as Brian is left to bring the cart over. “I’m good. I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry about that.” She gets up and hurries out of the store. Brian and Kevin quickly following her, Nick watches the three go. Alex shakes his head.

“Strange ass people.”

Nick stays silent, lost in thought.

“Yo, Kaos! Let’s hurry up and get the rest. Mom’s gonna kill us both if we’re late for dinner.”

Nick nods and the two continue their shopping as employees clean the mess up. As soon as the three left, the lights stopped bursting around them. Still, he looks back and his eyes follow her close as she leaves. There was something about her that stuck a cord in his mind…


***********


He stands outside the store as one of It rushed out with two oblivious teenaged boys followed her out. He smirks as he pulls out his cell phone, seeing the blue of her eyes glimmer unnaturally even from the far distance between them. He dials a number quickly and waits till someone picks up.

“I found one.” He says briskly to the two men who answered. The two who had argued frantically when It ran off before.

“Good” One says eagerly.

“Where.” The other demands.

“A store in Huntington Beach.”

“Watch that one.”

“Await further instructions.” Then the phone clicked and there was nothing but a dial tone.