Instead of unpacking my clothes, I head down the hall to the bathroom. After an entire day of plane, and then car, travel, I'm feeling pretty gross. I lock the door and strip down and take a long, hot shower. As I'm drying up there's a knock at the door. "Yeah?"
"Uhm, Gemma?"
"Yeah. What?"
"Dinner is in 10 minutes and I'd like to use the bathroom."
"Okay, just give me another minute." The voice stops but doesn't move far from the door. I tug my clothes back on and open the door, coming face to face with a girl. She smiles when I catch her eye.
"Hi, I'm Tessa."
"Gemma. I'll just get out of your way." I side step her and head back to my room. I decide to change my clothes as well and brush my hair, braiding it to one side. When I'm done I turn to see Tessa standing in my door way.
"Would you like to walk down to dinner with me?" I'd decline, but I don't know where the kitchen is yet, so I nod in agreement. I've never really gotten along with females, or anyone really for that matter. Becca was a rare find. I should probably say something to Tessa, but nothing comes to mind, and I'm not one to fill silences with chatter. She seems content to stay quiet anyway.
As we come to the main floor I hear steps coming down the stairs behind us. Apparently I'm not moving fast enough because some guy, who I assume to be William, rushes past us and almost runs to the middle door on the left. I glance at Tessa. "That's Will." Thoughts confirmed. I feel an arm on my shoulder and turn to my right to see Zee in between Tessa and I.
"Yeah, Mr Personality himself. He can be okay most of the time, but don't get between him and his food."
"So what's with the nickname?"
"Don't be hatin' on the name, okay?" I smile.
"Never said I was hatin', just asking where it came from." Zee grins as Tessa slides from under his arm and walks a little ahead of us.
"Well, like I said earlier, I used to get beat up a lot. Guess most guys didn't care for such a sophisticated name. Anyways, the summer I was 13 I moved and decided to come up with my own name. I also buffed up and grew a few inches."
"But why Zee?"
"I thought Admiral sounded a little cheesy. And Z is the last letter of the alphabet and I was 13 and thought it sounded cool, all right." He opens the kitchen door and sits at the table, motioning that I sit beside him. I sit. "After that, it just stuck, so now I'm Zee."
"Huh."
"How'd your parents come up with Gemma?" He takes a bread roll from the centre of the table and bites into it.
"Well you nailed it before. My mom wanted to call me Jewel, but my dad hated it, so they settled on Gemma. I think he wanted to name me Francine after his mom. So glad they decided otherwise." Zee snorts into his bread.
"Okay, everyone, listen up for a minute." I look over at Liz. "I'd like to welcome Gemma Slate. You've already met Lawr.. Zee Golding, Tessa Packard, Samantha Que, and William Cedar." She points to each person in turn. "Tomorrow after everyone's rested up I'll give you a tour of the labs where we'll begin our testing."
"What kind of testing?"
"It differs for each ability. You'll learn more about that tomorrow." I take a small bite of my bread roll. Suddenly I'm not so hungry. I knew they were doing studies and research, but I'd never really thought about how they do those studies. Obviously, they test our abilities and study us. I wonder if we're being studied right now. "After dinner everyone can do their own thing again for the night. As always, lights out at 10 sharp." I almost groan out loud. We have a bedtime? How old do they think we are, 12? I catch everyone's faces and assume they've already thought this. Oh well, just because it's lights out doesn't mean they can make me sleep.
After that, Liz leaves us alone to eat. Zee and I do most of the talking, simply because both Will and Samantha retreat out of the kitchen as soon as they're done. Tessa stays a little to talk, but soon leaves as well. Zee turns to face me. "So, what do you do?"
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