Van Houten Rising by Jessica Michelinie

Author:Jessica Michelinie [Michelinie, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Superheroes
Published: 2019-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

I wake to the smell of bacon. Strong coffee. Smells like Saturday. I’m starving. Feels like I haven’t eaten in forever. I keep my eyes closed despite my mind’s insistence that it’s time to get up. My body slowly catches up with my mind and ow ow ow what the hell ow. It suddenly occurs to me that today isn’t Saturday.

I feel like one giant raw nerve. Every part of me is aching like I had a Tae-Bo party with Billy Blanks all night long. I roll over onto my back and my eyes open up a crack. I take a breath, and the whole night comes flooding back to me.

Casey. Van Houten. Shit. I sit up a little too quickly and am met with a faceful of sunlight streaming in from my window. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I scramble out of my bed, tangling myself up in my sheets. Wasn’t Alex in bed with me last night? Where is she?

Throwing my bedroom door open, I stumble into the kitchen, still sleep-blind, “Casey...?”

When my vision fully returns to me, I’m met with a few different stares from the length of the kitchen. Shia is at the stove overseeing the production of that lovely smelling breakfast and gives me a knowing wink. Alex, sitting lazily on the left side of the card-table with her knees tucked beneath her, offers me a warm ‘everything-is-alright’ gaze. And across from her... oh, thank the fucking lord. “Casey! You’re alright, you’re–”

“...alive and well?” My sister looks concerned for my mental and physical health. I probably look like a total fucking mess. I dive forward and wrap my arms around her shoulders in a rare show of familial affection.

“You... I just... you’re phone... last night... I didn’t know, I thought...”

“Casey’s phone died while she was at the downtown library. Took her a little while to get home without Google Maps.” Alex explains.

“And you got mugged. Makes you a true New Yorker now, doesn’t it?” Casey asks, pulling away a little to examine cut along my forehead.

“What?” I murmur. From behind Casey, Alex gives me a pressing stare, nodding very seriously. “Oh... right. Yeah. Mugged. That’s why I’m...” I let my voice trail away as relief shoots through me like a drug. Casey, Alex, and Shia are all safe from that Van Houten maniac. At least for now. I lower myself into the last chair at the card-table and try to relax. “Hey, wait, why aren’t you two at work? It’s... Thursday, isn’t it?”

“We,” Shia points to herself, Alex, then Casey, “decided it’d be best if we all played a little hooky today. It may not actually be Saturday, but we’re sure as hell are going to act like it is. Alex, go fire up that TV.”

If I wasn’t already aware that I have the most supportive best friend and girlfriend in the world, I definitely am now. For the next several hours we feast on a seemingly endless supply of breakfast and melt our brains with a stream of cartoons.

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