Why?

After Ty had walked her back to her room, Sage's mind was plagued with a million different thoughts. She tried to sleep but her mind wouldn't let her. She lay awake looking out the round window above her bed that showed a gentle rain had begun outside. She finally decided to get up and get dressed. She put on her red crop top, black jeans and leather boots then headed out the door.

She decided to go explore the house a little bit and see if she could find the green house she and Ty had gone to the night before. She followed the map through part of the house. It was only around 5am and she guessed no one would be awake, but she was wrong. As she was passing a door, she heard voices.

"I don't understand why we can't tell them what is going on." Came Lyla's voice from behind the door.

Sage froze and listened.

"Lyla, how do you tell someone their whole life has been a lie? We have to wait until they are ready."

"But dad, what if they take it the wrong way? What if they think we are crazy and leave? Then we will never have the chance to get to the bottom of this"

"I know, but we can't risk telling them when they have just had their whole lives turned upside down. It could break them."

"They have already been through so much can't we just find another way?"

"No, Justin, it has to be them. They together are stronger than anything else we have tried."

Sage had heard enough. She threw the door open.

Lance lay awake, all night he had been unable to sleep. The night before he had heard a sound outside his room. He had seen Ty with Zmayah and followed them. Mixture of emotions were going through his head. He was jealous, angry and frustrated but he was also happy, happy that Zmayah had found someone.

He got up and dressed. It was still early so he decided to go to the library while he waited for breakfast.

"What the hell is going on here!" Sage screamed, undeterred by the four guns now pointing at her.

"Sage-"

"Don't you 'Sage' me! I want answers and I want them now! Who the hell are you people and what is the real reason Sean and I are here?"

"Dear, please calm down and we will explain everything." Molly said taking a step towards her and putting her gun away.

"Don't you dare come near me! I may not be able to kill all of you, but I will kill at least one before you take me down even with your guns. I want the truth, all of it!"

"Sage, calm down and I will tell you everything." Ty said.

"My name is Zmayah." she glared at him coldly.

"Will you follow me, and let me explain?"

Sage stared at him. Ty offered his hand. She didn't take it.

"Fine, I will follow you, but if you lie to me or any of what you have to say puts Sean in danger. We will be gone."

She walked out the door and waited for him.

"Let's go to the library, it's close by." he said.

They walked in stoney silence down a hallway. Ty held the Library door open for her as she walked in.

"Oh hey, I didn't know anyone else was awake yet. I was just chilling here till-" Lance broke off mid-sentence when he saw Sage's face. "What's wrong? What's happened?" he said concerned.

Sage's whole body was shaking in rage, her hands were clenched so tight, her knuckles were white.

"Zmayah, what's wrong?" he walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

She looked up into his eyes.

"Ask him." she said pointing at Ty.

Lance stared at him.

"What is this all about?"

"You may want to sit down. This could take awhile." Ty said.

"Okay, so before I was adopted," Ty began after they all had sat down in squashy library chairs. Lance next to Sage holding her hand to keep her calm. "My parents worked a mission with an underground society that was studying cell rejuvenation. They were trying to find away to protect the young population mainly children 12 and under from childhood diseases. They wanted to make something that the children could take once and never have to worry about life threatening diseases as children. I don't mean the common cold or anything like that. I mean something truly life threatening. My parents were helping develop "the cure" as they called it. They had been very successful on adults but they had not yet found a way to test on children."

"Why was that? Why did they not know how to test on kids?" Lance asked.

"Well the way the testing process went was, they would take cells from an unhealthy subject and mix them with cells from a person who has already had the sickness and now has an immunity to it. They did this to see if the good cells would fight the bad. If successful, they would then add more unhealthy cells from different diseases and more good cells, till they had a cocktail of good and bad cells. Now this is why they didn't test on kids. Because they would then take the new rejuvenated cells and inject them into a volunteer which can obviously be very dangerous. Because the volunteers blood cells could reject the new ones and even make them sick to the point of death. But, after the cure had begun to work on adults, and what I mean by work is that their bodies did not reject the new cells. The cure is not meant to work on adults so it doesn't keep them from getting sick because their cells do not reproduce as quickly as a childs. They just tested on them to see if the cells would work and not hurt a person's body. So anyways, one of my parents lab partners said they should begin tests on children. My parents quickly disagreed knowing the dangers of the testing and decided to stop the project until they could find a way to test on children that was safe. But this lab assistant, Mr. Mize, thought differently and secretly began to steal kids though the foster care network. He then began testing the cure on them. After my parents caught wind of what was happening, they stormed Mr. Mize's home but he had already gone, what they did find, was both of you."

"Wait, WHAT!" said Lance. "What are you saying?"

"Please, let me finish. I will explain everything."

Lance settled back down in his seat looking horrified.

"When my parents found both of you, they also found...." Ty paused, his eyes looked sad. "They found a small grave yard out in the woods behind Mr. Mize's house, containing five small graves. After my parents saw this, they wanted to adopt you, thinking that you might meet the same fate and that they might be able to save you. But since there were bodies, we had to involve the police though they never knew about the cure or the testing Mr. Mize had done because our people had erased that information before the police came. They were just under the impression that he was some sicko who kidnapped kids and killed them. So after the police found out about both of you, they soon put you back in the foster care system where you were eventually adopted. Your families were told never to tell you, you were adopted because of the whole murder thing."

"Wait, so you are telling me, we are both adopted?" Lance asked.

"Yes." said Ty. "But wait, there is more."

Lance looked at him in shock.

"More!"

"Yes, more. Just give me some more time to explain. You see, when you where found, my parents also found Mr. Mize's research journals which explained some of what he had done and most desturbing exactly how the other five children had died. His journals were very hard to read and most of the time sounded like mad ravings from a crazy person. But his last entry read 'number 7, success'. Which we think means-"

"That one of us, was a successful test for the cure." said Lance finishing his sentence.

"Yes."

"Wow." said Lance.

All this time Sage had been silent, staring at her hands in her lap.

"So, I want to know something." She said glaring at Ty. "We didn't meet by chance did we?"

"No." said Ty staring at her with a guilty expression. "The woman you met at the cafe Lance, Susan. We think she is apart of the research program and that she is in league with Mr. Mize. Lyla wasn't running from her, she was looking for her, but her cover got blown. She was then posted as your guard after that. You both have been guarded by one of our man since you were adopted. But anyways, Lyla knew it was only a matter of time before Susan found out who and where you both were. Because Lyla felt like she might have been tracked by Susan's man after her cover was blown. Up until the day you both showed up at the school, Lyla thought she had lost them and that you were both safe. But that day, Lyla saw one of Susan's thugs across the street and she knew it was time to bring you in. That is why everything went so smoothly and quickly when we met. We had already planned everything just in case. As soon as Lyla saw you both there and the man, she pressed the tracker behind her ear twice which was our signal if something went wrong and we had to bring you in. By the time you got to my place, our men had already faked your deaths and reported them to the police."

"Oh my god! What the hell is wrong with you people!" Why didn't you say anything till now!" Lance said angrily standing up and throwing his hands in the air.

"We were planning to tell you after your training was completed. Our hope is that Susan may still not know who you are but knowing Mr. Mize, I'm sure they do. So we wanted to keep you safe and prepare you."

"So why are we in danger exactly?" asked Lance.

"We believe, Susan and Mr. Mize want to experiment on you both again because one of you has the immune system to fight any life threatening diseases. In other words, he needs your blood so that he can reproduce the cure, but what he is unaware of, is that the testing was flawed. From his research, he assumed the cure would work on any child, but he was wrong. The successful child would be immune to those diseases but if their cells were to be added to another human it would most likely kill them from the sudden reproduction of healthy cells. We believe, and Lyla's undercover work has confirmed that they are still kidnapping children and experimenting on them attempting to recreate these successful results using a blood sample from one of you."

"Okay, I need to process this for a bit." said Lance pacing the floor. "So which one is it? Who's blood do they need?"

Lance looked at him hesitant to speak.

"Both of you." he said after a few moments. "We did testing on both of your blood while you were being erased and found that neither of you have the cure, but then we mixed your samples. Purely by accident actually, the lab assistant knocked over your sample Lance and it spilled on the dish of Sage's blood. The assistant took a look at the two samples mixed and found that they were rejuvenating so they added a sample of small pocks and the cells immediately attacked and killed it. They continued adding more and more diseases and the cells attacked and killed each one. We believe that Mr. Mize may have had a contaminated dish when he did your tests which is why he believes only one of you is the cure. I'm sure that when he tested what he thought was the cure on other children, he was shocked to find it didn't work and that is why he has been looking for both of you. Like I said, I'm sorry about all of this, I wanted to tell you earlier but we were worried about how you would take it. I'll let you guys talk, breakfast will be in the main kitchen across from the family dinning room we had dinner in last night whenever y'all are hungry."

Sage stood up, looked at both of them then turned around and left the room.

"I should go talk to her." said Lance following her out the door.

"Zmayah! Zmayah! Wait up!" Lance yelled catching up with her in the hallway leading to her room. "Hey, are you okay?"

"No, I'm not f-ing okay! I just found out I was kidnapped as a baby, experimented on and adopted! What the hell is this! Some sick joke! Oh, and I forgot to add the freaking maniac trying to kidnap me and experiment on me all over again!"

"I know, I know." He said, as she began to cry.

He gently hugged her.

"How are you so calm about this?" She said through sobs.

"Because, this means we have been friends for like, ever." he said sarcastically pulling her away and holding her at arm's length, looking at her with a small grin.

Sage laughed through her tears.

"You're a jerk, you do know that right?"

"Yeah, but I'm your jerk." He smiled. "I was upset at first but really, I like where I am, I like the adventure my life has spun for me and I'm happy I get to be here. I know that sounds crazy but, I kinda like all of this. Not the kidnapping and experimenting but where it brought us."

"You're right, I like being here too and, let's face it, my life sucked before all this. I guess this is a big up grade. I mean, how much more exciting could my life get then running from a maniac?" She laughed.

"And we get to be here together!" Lance said clapping his hands like a little kid.

"ha ha, yeah sure." said Sage smiling. "I don't know how I am going to forgive Lyla and Justin after all this though. I mean, they lied to us, not just a little lie but a freaking slap your mama lie, and after everything we been through..." She trailed off, looking at Lance.

Lance knew she was thinking about the night before.

"Give it time. I'm sure they will prove themselves. So what do you say, you want some breakfast?"