Chapter 275: Loops and Laughter 1

LUMINA I was halfway up the stairs, carrying a plate of sliced apples and oranges, when I heard something that made me freeze mid--step. Laughter. Real, genuine, childish laughter echoing from the boys' room----and it was coming from Riley. Not the polite, controlled sound he sometimes made when Ollie said something funny. Not the brief exhale that passed for amusement in his carefully blank expression. This was full, unrestrained laughter. The kind of sound I'd been wondering if Riley even remembered how to make. I climbed the remaining stairs quickly, curious about what could possibly have broken through Riley's emotional walls so completely. The door to the boys' room was partially open, and what I saw through the gap made me stop in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt. Lake and Riley were wrestling on the floor between the beds, a tangle of limbs and undignified scrambling that looked more like puppies playing than the coordinated movements of enhanced children who'd been trained