by Mae Doyle
When she took a step closer to me, I looked back at her, not surprised to see her mouth pulled back in a grimace. “Rose, come on. You don’t need to be here. Let me take you back.”
I stiffened. There was no way that I was going to go with this woman. “Back where? To Taylor Prep?”
She shook her head. “No, honey, back home. Your mom misses you, I’m sure. You just need to go back home and finish your senior year at a different school, that’s all. We don’t want to hurt you, Rose.”
“Like you didn’t want to hurt me when you had someone run into the car that Brett and I were in? Like your daughter hasn’t wanted to hurt me since I came to Taylor Prep? I don’t believe you.” My palms were starting to sweat, but just then Jackie walked out from behind a tree towards us.
Never in my life have I wanted someone to protect me as badly as I did just then. He walked straight up to his aunt, completely unafraid of the way she was staring at him.
“What the hell are you doing with this trash?” She hissed. “Amelia told me that you had shacked up with this whore, but I didn’t want to believe her.”
“Stop talking about her like that,” Jackie replied. He looked so calm and collected, but I could tell how angry he really was. The way he stood, with his hands on his hips, and how he kept brushing his hair back from his face made it clear that he was really pissed. “You have no idea how amazing Rose is, so stop it. Leave her alone. Leave us alone.”
When she didn’t answer right away I scooted out from behind the bush and slid up next to Jackie. Without even looking at me he slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him.
It felt safe. I was safe.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” she warned, her eyes darting over to me before they landed back on her nephew’s face.
He shook his head. “Rose isn’t a mistake. Brett made one by getting you guys involved, but we’re all past that. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re here to take our friend back to school, and unless you’re going to stop me, we’re going to go get Brett.”
“The council won’t be pleased,” she snapped, reaching out for Jackie, but letting her arm drop back by her side.
“Great. Fuck the council.” Jackie turned me with him away from his aunt and back to the front of the house. I had to focus on my feet.
Left. Right.
Left.
Right.
Was she coming? I glanced back, terrified that I would see her gaining on us.
She wasn’t following us.
I exhaled, blowing the air out forcefully when I realized I’d been holding my breath.
“You okay, Rosita?” Jackie nuzzled the top of my head as we walked.
“I think so,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure if that was the truth. “Where’s Kaleb?”
The thought that we might make it here to get one rogue and lose another filled me with fear, but I hoped that he was waiting for us at the front of the house.
Jackie lifted his chin. “There. Look, Rosita.”
I did, and what I saw made everything worth it.
All of the fear.
All of the longing.
Running into Jackie’s crazy aunt.
It all fell away just then. Kaleb was standing at the side of the house and next to him was Brett.
I gasped, digging my nails into Jackie’s arm. “Is he okay? Is that him?”
“It’s him, Rosita.” Jackie gave me a little push on my lower back, but I didn’t need it. I was already running towards Brett. Towards my future.
“Rose!” His voice wrapped around me as I ran towards him.
Ten more feet.
Five.
All I wanted was to be near him. I needed him to hold me and kiss me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. The last few feet I cleared with a leap, landing in his arms and kissing him.
“My Brett, my Brett,” I cried, tears running down my cheeks and soaking into his shirt. “I knew that you weren’t dead! I knew that you were okay! I missed you!”
He couldn’t speak. His voice was choked and he held me tighter than I’ve ever been held before. “I’m okay, Rose. I have you now, so it’s okay.”
I needed to feel his lips on mine. My hands were on his chest and I pushed back, tilting my head up to his. He immediately cupped my cheek, stroking it with his thumb. “My beautiful Rose, you are the most lovely thing I’ve seen in weeks.”
Even though I was sobbing and could barely breath, he pressed his lips to mine, sending an immediate fire shooting through my core. It was like he had found all of the broken pieces of my body and was putting them back together with his kisses.
Reaching up, I wrapped my fingers in his thick, dark hair, pulling him so that he kissed me harder. He claimed me for his own and I didn’t even try to stifle the groan that escaped my mouth when he grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed.
I had him back.
He was alive.
Finally, I pulled back, breathing hard. As much as I wanted to stay wrapped in his arms for the rest of the day, we needed to get out of here. I had no doubt that Amelia’s mom would call the council as soon as she got the chance, and I didn’t want to be around for that.
I wanted to take my rogues and go back to school.
We’d be safe there.
“Come back with us,” I whispered, running my hands down his arms and then lacing our fingers together. “Brett, please, come back with us. Everything will be okay.”
For the first time since I’d seen him, he looked unsure of himself. Gone was the Brett who had so willingly wrapped me in his arms and pulled me in for a deep kiss. “Do you think, Rose? Do you think it will be okay?”
Images of Amelia and Kelly, the way Amelia’s aunt had just threatened me, and the dark look on his mom’s face at his funeral all flashed through my mind.
If I paid attention to them then I wasn’t sure that we would ever be brave enough to leave, which is why I nodded forcefully, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of my head.
“We’re going to be just fine, Brett. We’re all together again. I have you and the rest of the rogues and nothing is going to come between us again, okay? I’m going to make sure that nothing will hurt you again.”
He smiled at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling and kissed me on the forehead. “You, Rose, are the most incredible girl I’ve ever met. I don’t know how you think you’re going to keep us all safe, but if you say that you can, then I believe you. Let’s go.”
Kaleb walked up to us and kissed me on the forehead. “You know that we’ll do anything we can to keep you safe, right, Rose?”
I knew that.
Looking past him, I locked eyes with Brett’s mom. She stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame. Her face was difficult for me to read. She looked sad, but I would have sworn that there was some other emotion there, as well.
Relief?
That didn’t make sense.
Chapter 13
We didn’t make it back to Taylor Academy for dinner. By the time Jackie’s driver finally dropped the four of us off at the front gates, they were locked tight, the attendant who had been waiting on us was gone, and we had to buzz in to Mr. Taylor’s office to get back in.
It wasn’t the joyful homecoming that I think we were all hoping it would be. All that mattered, though, was that we had gotten through the day and brought Brett back with us. It hadn’t been easy, and I was sure that the memories of the afternoon would stay with me a long time, but we’d done it.
That was all that mattered.
I kept telling myself that when we saw the dark form of Mr. Taylor walking towards us. He took long steps, almost like he was afraid that we were going to disappear before he was able to get to us, but the four of us didn’t move.
I gripped Brett’s hand so tightly that I thought I might break it off, but he didn’t pull away. Chances were good, I thought, that he wasn’t ever going to pull away again. We’d found him and brought him back to life,
and now I never wanted to let him go.
“What is this?” Mr. Taylor leaned against the other side of the gate but didn’t make any movement to open it for the four of us. I could see his key ring where he’d attached it to his belt loop. The key that we needed to get onto the school grounds was hanging right there.
“We’re sorry we’re late, sir,” Kaleb said, stepping forward in front of the rest of us. “We got caught up with some things that were out of our control this afternoon and we were late getting into the road. Would you please let us in?”
Mr. Taylor sighed. “As I recall, I signed forms for three of you to leave the campus, and yet there are four of you standing here right now. Care to explain, Miss Bennett?”
I wasn’t sure why he singled me out when Kaleb was the one who had been talking to him, but he’d never really liked me, so there was a chance that he just wanted to make me uncomfortable and feel put on the spot.
I cleared my throat. “Brett Cox is with us, sir. He’s alive, and we’ve brought him back to finish out his senior year.” Even as I told him this, I felt a little foolish. There wasn’t any way that Amelia or Brett’s mom hadn’t called and told him exactly what had happened today, but he looked more surprised than I would have expected.
“Is that so?” He asked, motioning to Brett. “Step forward, let me see.”
Brett let go of my hand and took a step closer to the gate. I watched as Mr. Taylor’s face darkened as he looked Brett up and down.
Is Mr. Taylor a part of the council? Is that why he wasn’t overjoyed to see a student he’d thought was dead alive and well in front of him?
“Sounds like there’s a lot of explaining that needs to happen,” he said finally, stepping back from the gate. My gut twisted, thinking that he wasn’t going to let us in, but then he took his keys and opened the gate for us. We all slipped through and stood silently while he locked it behind us.
When he finished he turned back to us and Brett spoke. “I think that my mom called you this afternoon, didn’t she, sir?”
If Mr. Taylor already knew that Brett was alive he sure wasn’t going to admit it. His face was stony and still and he just looked at Brett like he’d lost his mind. “I didn’t know anything about you still being alive, Mr. Cox, until I saw you standing here in front of me just now.”
“Well, I appreciate you letting me finish my senior year,” Brett said, nodding at the headmaster.
“I haven’t agreed to that. I let you in the gate so that you four don’t stand out here in the dark all night long. We have plenty of things to talk about in the morning, and I have a number of phone calls to make.” With that, Mr. Taylor turned and swept away from us, leading us up to the buildings.
“I guess we follow?” Jackie murmured, kissing my cheek. The boys grabbed all of Brett’s luggage and we started after him.
When it became obvious that Mr. Taylor was heading back to his office and didn’t care where we went, Brett called out to him. “Does it matter to you where I sleep, sir?”
The headmaster slowed but didn’t turn around. “Find a place to rest, Mr. Cox, because tomorrow you will be very busy proving that you are who you say you are and not an imposter. Like I said, I have phone calls to make, but I want the four of you in my office tomorrow morning. 10:00. You understand?”
“We do,” Kaleb called after him.
After that, the four of us just stood there for a few minutes. From where we stood, we could all see the light in his office. He paced in front of the window, but obviously had nothing else to say to us right then.
“Shall we sleep?” I asked, turning to my boys. Honestly, the last thing that I wanted to do just then was go to bed. Well…not alone.
But when I looked at my rogues, I could tell that they all needed rest.
“Yeah, sleep,” Brett agreed, pulling me to him and kissing me. His lips were warm on mine and I felt myself start to melt into him, but he pulled away before I could relax fully. “Tomorrow, Rose, I want to catch up with you more.”
“Tomorrow we all need to catch up some more,” Jackie interjected, leaning forward to kiss me. “But now we’ll all come tuck you in, okay? Make sure you get to your room safe and sound.”
They did that, all three of them waiting while I slipped into my pajamas and then each taking a turn leaning over me to kiss me goodnight. By the time they finally left, I felt like my eyes were going to close and stay closed.
But sleep didn’t come easily for me.
All I could think about was the day.
When Mrs. Cox saw us standing with Brett she hadn’t looked like I thought she would. For a woman who had lied and done everything she could to convince the world that her son was dead, she mostly looked…resigned.
She looked exhausted, which is exactly how I felt when we realized that we were really going to be able to bring Brett back with us.
Amelia’s mom had been pissed, and she and Mrs. Cox had gone into the house to talk, leaving the four of us out on the front lawn together. I couldn’t take my hands off of Brett. I knew that it was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help but think that if I let him go for too long that I’d never get him back.
We heard them yelling, but did our best to ignore them. Brett had a lot to say, and we wanted to hear what had happened to him.
“They must have pulled me from the accident at the same time they pulled you from the car, Rose,” he’d told me, cupping my face in his hands and kissing away my tears before he continued. “I woke up here with my mom and a doctor. They kept me in bed for a few weeks and told me that I needed to be a lot stronger before I could leave the house.”
I had sighed and leaned into him. The days after the accident when everyone told me that he was dead had been hell, but hearing his side of it was just as bad.
He kept going. “I thought you were dead, Rose. They let me think that for a long time until my mom finally let it slip that you weren’t. I know that you hate her, and I understand it, but she didn’t want this.”
Jackie got involved then. “What do you mean, she didn’t want it? Do you have any idea what it was like at school? We were told that you were dead, Brett, even though we didn’t believe it. It was hell, man!”
I’d put my hand on his chest to hold him back, amazed at the way his heart pounded through his shirt. Only Kaleb looked calm while the group of us talked. We’d all suffered, and there wasn’t any reason to put a price tag on who had suffered the most.
It wasn’t a competition.
Brett shook his head. “You got the note and the picture, Rose?” He asked, and when I nodded, he smiled, lifting my fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “That was from my mom. She felt terrible about the council and how they were attacking you. I think that she thought it was the least she could do.”
As I lay there in bed, I thought about his mom and what Brett had said. Was it the least that she could do – giving me the picture and the note to let me know that he was still alive? Brett’s mom was the reason that all of this had happened in the first place.
Even as I thought about that, I knew that it wasn’t totally true.
Yes, Brett’s mom turned me into the council.
But Brett had gone to her in fear about me being at Taylor Prep. He was terrified that I may do something to him and have him kicked out of the school. What he didn’t know back then was that I’d been in love with him since I was a little girl and that I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt him.
The council, on the other hand, was the real reason that my life was such a living hell. Sure, his mom had gone to them, but from what she’d said, she’d also tried to get them to back off and been unsuccessful.
If I was going to point the finger at anyone, the council was the one that deserved my ire.
Closing my eyes, I rolled over and pulled a pillow down over my head. I didn’t want to keep thinking when I was so tired, but there was one more thing that kept playing out in my mind.
After Amelia’s mom left, still raving and ranti
ng about how the council would not stand for this, Mrs. Cox pulled me aside. The rogues were packing up the car with Brett’s luggage and the two of us were standing on the porch together.
She was too close to me and I took a step back, but she followed, leaning in so that I was the only one who would be able to hear me.
“Rose,” she’d started, and I got goosebumps when she said my name. “This wasn’t me, Rose. It was the council. If you take him back, which I think you should, you need to promise me that you will do everything in your power to keep him safe.”
Her words had given me a shock and twisted my stomach. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
“The council doesn’t like to be proven wrong.” She grabbed my arm and gave it a little squeeze, making sure that she had all of my attention. “They hate it when people go against them and you have done just that. You think that I wanted to live here? You think that I wanted to pretend that my son was dead? They’re bad people, Rose, and they run the entire school, so be as careful as you possibly can.”
Her words gave me chills and I pulled my blanket up to my chin. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to keep Brett safe when I still wasn’t even sure who the council was.
It was something I needed to think about, that was for sure.
But not right then. My eyelids got heavier and heavier until I couldn’t fight to keep them open.
Tomorrow we would meet with Mr. Taylor. After that we could worry about what to do about the council.
Chapter 14
The look Mr. Taylor was giving us was one that I can honestly say I hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t amused, exactly, but he wasn’t pissed, either. It was a bit unnerving, to say the least.
It made me shift in my seat a bit, but when I realized that the rogues were all sitting still and hadn’t moved, I sat upright, lifted my chin, and stared Mr. Taylor in the face. He needed to know that we were all in this together, no matter what that meant.