Chapter 12

“I can’t wait for the game on Friday, we are so gonna win,” Donna smiled at Chelsea, a girl whose life was all about popularity. Like all schools and teenagers to be popular you had to be mean. That’s how they become popular by intimidating the other kids. Donna was glad she had gone back into the high school life. It was easy for her to fit in. Teenagers were naive. She never had the whole happy childhood thing. Being around other teenagers helped her heal the scares of her past. Yet she wasn’t mean. The reason she was in that group was her own doing. Something she should have thought twice about. It was her fault, and she knew it. She broke a promise to herself. Now Dem’Say Woods would pay for her mistake.
They had warned her. They had cleaned up before. Blown an entire town to bits all because she had let her secrete slip. There was nothing left of that city or the people that once lived there.
***
Jenna hated Gym class. It was one of them things that she was never good at. She had two left feet and was clumsy. Here she was trying to volley the ball back over the net. Only to face plant onto the hard floor, or be hit in the face with the ball, tripping over her own feet now that was something she was good at. She had no coordination.
She stood up from her latest kiss with the floor and pulled her back straight. The other girls laughed and snickered, a sound that made her feel like a loser. She glared at the ball. It moved in slow motion. To her shock she hit the ball over the net, scoring points for her team. Finally, she had done it. She had hit the ball. She laughed; at the accomplishment she had achieved.
For the rest of class, she bounced on her feet. She leaped in the air. Jenna finally became a member of the team. She had become graceful showing skills she did not know she had.
“Wow, whatever you’ve been taking I want to know,” Jessica said as they made their way to the locker room. Jessica was the girls most athletic girl in school, captain of the volleyball team and exceptionally good at track.
She had the best time and held the record for the school. She was one of them girls that got along with everyone and flittered around different social groups.
Her hair was always cut shortly into a bob, and she sported new colors every other week. Today it was purple, a bright purple that gave her a pixie look. Jessica hadn’t been at Dem’Say High long. However, she always made a point to speak to Jenna. At times, Jenna thought she was odd. The things that Jessica would say would get Jenna’s back up.
“What! I am not taking anything,” Jenna was offended. Did others think that too? That she used drugs to better herself.
“It is a saying. Good game,” Jessica said. Jenna nodded. She had taken it to heart. That was her problem. She was too sensitive.
After she changed, she headed to the library. She loved the smell of the place, that musty smell that only books held.
Jenna was a nerd at heart. Books were her weakness. They were an escape from the harshness of reality. Being a teenager was hard. Reading about others struggles in the world helped. It made her feel she wasn’t alone.
Jenna read in most of her free periods if she had no homework left. But this time, she had research to do. Not average schoolwork, more research on her dad.
She typed her dads name into the computer. “Mason Jenson,” she clicked on the first tab. A picture of her dad appeared, plus some text. There wasn’t anything she didn’t know.
Except for one.
The place her father was born. Ireland. He had always said he was born and bred in Dem’Say Woods. Why did he lie?
She looked through all the information. But it was all the same. Mason Jenson finished top of his class blaa blaa and explains that he was a scientist.
Jenna typed in the name of the company he worked for. G.G.M. She didn’t know what the letters stood for. It wasn’t something that had never crossed her mind to ask about. Now she wished she had. “Government Genetic Manipulation,” there had to be some kind of mistake.
Maybe two companies had the same name. But when Jenna looked, there was no mistaking the address.
It was her dad’s lab. He had lied to her. Not only her, but her mum and sister too. Or did they know? Jenna didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. What was real and what was not.
One night had changed her life. Now she was swimming in a sea of lies. Those lies were quickly drowning her. She needed air. But most of all she had to find out the truth. Believing she was going crazy was not an option.