Afflicted

"Wow," Lacey said, raising her eyebrows and I laughed.

"Let’s spend this money." I grinned as the queue started moving and we made our way inside.

Chapter Eleven

Kaitlyn

Sunlight spilled into my room the next morning, rousing me from a deep sleep which had made up for the previous night. I smiled as I heard the telltale sound of my mom cooking downstairs and hurried to find out what she'd been making.

My dad and Reese were already sitting at the table and eating a huge pile of scrambled egg and toast.

"At last," Mom said with a grin as she spotted me. "I thought Reese was going to eat yours if you hadn't appeared."

"I'm sure he would have." I scowled at my brother as I took my seat opposite him.

"You snooze you lose," Reese said around a mouthful of egg which half fell back out of his mouth.

"Ew." I turned away from him to watch my mom cooking so that I wouldn't lose my appetite.

"Did the store get a delivery then?" I asked.

"They did," Mom hesitated before continuing. "They still didn't have a huge selection but at least I could get the essentials."

"And is the water back on?"

"Not yet." She placed a plate of eggs in front of me and I dug in hungrily.

"I need to run a few errands today," Dad said. "They want me back at work this evening and I'm not sure how long it will be before they let me leave again."

"You're barely home these days," I complained. "When will they stop treating you like a slave?"

"A very well paid slave," Mom reminded me.

"Yeah I know but that doesn't mean they should own your whole life." I couldn't remember the last time he'd been home for longer than twenty four hours.

"I know sweetheart but it really won't be much longer. They just want everything completed before this trial run of the isolation process. They don't want anything left to chance and that means working me as hard as they can until the big day."

"Are you going to be taking part in the trial?" Reese asked, still not bothering to swallow before he spoke.

"Well..." Dad looked at Mom awkwardly as she sat down beside me with her own plate of food.

"They have offered us a place in the trial," she said. "All of us-"

"No thanks," I said before taking a mouthful of my breakfast.

"They're making history you know," Dad said seriously. "They'll talk about this in years to come as the first time-"

"Blah blah blah, the answer is no. If I miss two weeks of school, I'll miss two weeks of cheer practice and Demi will kick me off the squad."

"Same for the football team," Reese piped up. "We'll be fine here on our own." He gave me a wide smile and I sighed. No doubt he was planning a huge house party as we spoke.

"I know we've been alright leaving the two of you alone here for the odd night but two weeks is too long." Dad placed his knife and fork down and I geared up for an argument.

"You

know how hard I worked to get on that squad," I said. "All of my friends cheer, if you take that away from me then you're basically taking away my whole social life too."

"You're at school to get an education, not focus on your social life," Dad said irritably.