The Knight (Coleridge Academy Elites Book 2)

by Lucy Auburn

  I roll my eyes. "Of course you did. Here, give them over—before the rest are gone. I'm the sick one here, after all."

  As he gives me the bag, I slide a meaningful look over at Mom, and surreptitiously pull my phone under the blankets. With a glance and a few quick swipes, I send Wally a message, and he glances at his phone without tilting the screen so Mom can't see.

  "Got it," he murmurs to me, before heading over to where Mom has just taken a nap. "Hey, Mrs. Wilder, why don't we get you out of those clothes? I have your suitcase in my truck, and I got us a place to stay not far from here—a cousin of mine lives nearby, and she'll take us in for a bit."

  Mom shoots a worried look in my direction. "But Brenna—"

  "I'll be fine, Mom. They'll probably release me soon, even. And you look like you could use a nice shower and a nap in a real bed. Now that my phone is charged, I can call you as soon as anything changes."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive. Go take care of yourself."

  As Wally takes my mom out of my room, her purse slung over his shoulder and bag of food in one hand, I'm struck again by the fact that we're the ones who have to take care of her instead of the other way around. It makes me resent her a little, and hate my dad a lot—he should be here for her to lean on, to use his money to get a hotel room and a warm meal.

  Of course if he were here, comforting us is the last thing he would do. But he could send money home. Or call sometime.

  He never will, I know.

  So it's up to me to take care of Mom. At least I have Wally to help out. I don't know what I'd do without him.

  Grabbing my fast food bag, I pull the hospital bed tray over and lay everything out, mouth watering. There's no fast food at Coleridge—at least, not unless you can pay for off-campus trips and fast food delivery just to get it—so this is my first cheeseburger with fries in forever. I intend to enjoy it.

  Halfway through my burger there's another brief knock at the door followed by someone walking through. Yet again my heart jumps, but it's just the nurse on her rounds to take my vitals and note them on my chart. She smiles at my appetite and swipes one of my fries on the way out with a wink.

  When the third knock at the door comes a minute later, I don't dare to believe it's him. It's not until no one walks through the door that I know it must be—I have to call, "Come in," before the impeccably polite Lukas DuPont will enter my room.

  He no longer looks mussed and anxious. His hair looks like it's recently been cleaned and styled, and he has a fresh, clean shower scent to him. The uniform he's wearing is freshly pressed, its lines sharp and Coleridge-regulation. Unlike the other Elite, Lukas colors firmly inside the lines that the rules set out for him—even though he could gleefully break every single one.

  His blue eyes and gentle smile make my heart race like I'm about to go over a cliff. I wish that I was past this, that I didn't feel so much when I look at him, but just the way he carefully takes a seat near the foot of my bed makes heat flush my chest and arms. It's undeniable that he's attractive, but on top of that we have a certain connection—one brittle, frayed, and with an end date, yet undeniable all the same.

  I'll never forget the way he looks as he settles near me on my hospital bed, taking me in like I'm someone who matters to him, someone he wants to see whole and healthy. He doesn't seem to notice my messy hair or the ketchup I blot off the corner of my mouth, face roaring with heat. His eyes are taking me in like I'm a precious thing.

  "You look better," he comments. "Last time I saw you, you looked rough."

  "You too," I throw out. "I mean, that button-up looked like someone stepped all over it before they gave it to you."

  "That was from running in the rain." His voice is mild, soft and gentle. "Running to find you, that is. When we didn't, I... well, I assumed the worst. So imagine how glad I was to be proven wrong."

  "Why?" Clearing my throat, I clarify, "I mean, why be glad? It's not like we're friends."

  "Aren't we?" He glances over to the side, as if reflecting. "I guess we're not. Not even close, really. Isn't that funny? Not friends, not acquaintances, not anything else. Yet here I am, and you said you needed me."

  "I do."

  "So what do you need?"

  His clear blue eyes are open completely. Whatever I say, no matter what I ask from him, I feel as if he'll agree in an instant. Yet there's still so much I don't understand about him—why he's friends with the other three Elites, how it is that he has a matching tattoo with Hass, a boy who couldn't be more his polar opposite when it comes to morality and general sensibility. Maybe it's just one of those childhood friendships that outlived its expiration date, but I find myself wondering if there's something dark beneath his surface, something I haven't yet found.

  Shaking off my thoughts, I tell him, "I need you to help me figure out why my brother was murdered."

  Chapter 7

  "That's... a lot." Lukas blinks at me, looking a little startled. "Why me? How can I help?"

  "This." I angle the laptop towards him so he can see the error message. "You said something about there being a partition on my laptop taking up most of the space. But I didn't put it there. It's... not actually my computer, either. Or it didn't used to be. It belonged to my brother when he was alive."

  "Oh." Sucking in a sharp breath, Lukas studies me. "I am sorry. About what happened to him."

  "Don't be. It's not your fault. He was murdered."

  A troubled expression crosses his face, and for a moment I think he's going to say something more, but he doesn't. Instead he reaches out and hovers his fingers above the keys, asking, "What makes you think that the reason he was murdered might be in this hard drive partition?"

  "The guys who took me were looking for it." I swallow, fingers briefly fluttering around my unbruised throat, then reach across to press down on my snake bite scar. It no longer aches as much as it used to, but something about the ritual habit still helps me center my focus. "They said something about it when they grabbed me. Apparently it was supposed to be destroyed, and they thought the tornado took care of that, but it didn't. I was thinking maybe whatever Silas put on the partition might be something to do with whatever got him killed—there's nothing on the rest of the laptop that anyone would kill over. It's just homework and video games."

  Lukas nods, his jawline hardening as he clenches his teeth, in concentration or frustration. "I'll help you figure it out. But I have to warn you, I'm no expert level hacker. If he put a password or some kind of work around on this, it'll take me some time to figure it out."

  "How long?"

  "Let me try to crack it and I'll tell you."

  Settling onto the bed, Lukas leans over the table I have pulled above my legs, staring at the laptop screen in full concentration. He's so close to me that I can feel the warmth of his legs through the sheets. It's enough to make me blush, and I have to look down to calm myself, conflicting emotions flittering through my chest.

  Maybe it's a mistake to trust Lukas with this. After all, once he cracks open the partition, he'll see my brother's secrets on the other side. I have no idea what they might be—I can guess that they have something to do with the drug dealing he was doing, but even then, the size of the files on the hard drive makes it seem like there's more there than I can imagine. And just a bit of drug dealing isn't something to kill over, especially when as far as I know he only ever sold to other high school students, maybe a few bored soccer moms at the most.

  No, if he was killed over these files, there are secrets there that could ruin his memory further and our family too. But I can't think of anyone other than Lukas who's willing to help me like this—especially not anyone who knows my secrets and doesn't seem to think any less of me because of them.

  Which reminds me. "Thanks for looking for me, by the way." His pale blond brows rise as he glances at me over the top of the laptop screen. "I mean, you didn't have to. But Holly texted me. I guess she was worried."

  "Of course
she was," he says, like he's confused why I would think otherwise. "Look, Holly may not be your roommate anymore, but she's a stand-up girl. She would never stop looking for you if you went missing."

  I have to swallow, because something about that makes a lump rise in my throat. I've had a lot of female friends in my life, including Jade, but almost none have stuck by me for the long haul. If there's something to be salvaged in my bond with Holly, I hope I can figure out what to do or say to fix the rift between us.

  Lukas adds, "She misses you."

  "I miss her too."

  "Then maybe reach out. Holly is the forgiving sort—if you earn it. The earning it part is key, though. She doesn't move on easily. But I'm sure you can figure out a way to make it up to her."

  Thinking of the dress I wore to the Blind Ball, the one the paramedics cut off me, which I bought with Georgia's stolen credit card, I wonder if there is a way to make it up to Holly. What I did to her was so much worse than just stealing—if we hadn't lived together I wouldn't have been able to take that credit card offer and get the card in her name. She trusted me implicitly, and I broke that trust.

  But Lukas knows her better than me. Maybe he's right. Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a place where I can be the kind of girl who has friends. The kind of girl who gets forgiven.

  I watch him peer at the screen, typing around, moving his fingers on the trackpad. He spends long moments typing something into a black screen, then makes a frustrated sound.

  "Your brother is good," he says, then his eyes fly up to mine, and he flushes at his cheeks and neck. "I mean was good."

  Swallowing, I glance over at the screen, trying not to think about what the world is missing now that Silas isn't in it anymore. "What did he do?"

  "I'm not quite sure yet. The error message is definitely a smokescreen—a little bit of programming I think he cooked up himself. But underneath it there's more than just a folder with a password. I'm afraid that if I poke at it too hard, I'll fuck something up." Something about the bluntness of Lukas cursing makes me lean towards him, feeling like we're two people on the same wavelength, headed in the same direction. "I want to ask someone for advice about this before I move forward. I won't mention the details—just the big picture. If that's okay with you."

  "If you trust them, I do," I tell him, which seems impossible after everything, but is somehow true. "The sooner I figure out what he had on this laptop, the better. It's the key to everything."

  "Of course." Reaching out, Lukas squeezes my hand, and my heart does embarrassing, unwise things. He pauses as he takes his hand away, pressing his palm down on the edge of the hospital bed like something is worrying at the edges of his mind. "I just want you to know, Brenna, that I never meant to hurt you. At least that wasn't the plan. What we wanted... what Cole wanted was for you to leave Coleridge. He was obsessed with it. But I just wanted you to stay away. Your brother, he dug into things that he should've stayed out of. That's probably why they killed him."

  Leaning forward, I sense that there's something he wants to tell me. A secret that's been brimming under the surface of every interaction I've ever had with the Elites. Something that's the key to everything. "What did he dig into? And who is they?"

  Lukas shakes his head, and I wait for him to say that these are Cole's secrets, not his. That's usually what causes him to clam up. But instead he murmurs, "I can't tell you without endangering your life. All I ask is that when you find what's on this laptop, you tell me about it first before you go to anyone with it. There are people who can be trusted, and people who can't."

  "What people? Why can't they be trusted?"

  "Let's just say that not everyone in a position of authority at Coleridge, or in Great Falls, deserves to be there." His smile is humorless, his expression bleak. "That includes a lot of the big donors who gets buildings named after them and sweeten up the administration. Publicly elected officials who are supposed to serve the city but instead serve the rich who bribe them to keep their mouths shut. And even people further down the ladder, who follow orders from up top without knowing why."

  Glancing out into the hallway, I ask him, "Are you telling me not to trust the officers on this case?"

  "Maybe you shouldn't mistrust them, but... just don't go to them with one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable evidence until you've come to me. Just in case they're... not who they should be."

  I study him. "Okay. I'll be suspicious." Pausing, I find my mouth dry as I ask, "Is all of this really that dangerous?"

  "Maybe. Yes. I hope not."

  "And you won't tell me what I'm up against."

  He looks down at his hands, fingers curling and uncurling into half-fists. "With any luck, you'll never need to know."

  So I'm in the dark, and there's nothing I can do to change that without someone's help. That feeling of helplessness is new to me—and I don't like the way it settles inside my chest. It reminds me too much of being prone in the trunk of the kidnapper's car, unable to even scream for help. And I refuse to let myself feel that way again.

  I have to find a way to get to the bottom of all of this, no matter what Lukas says. After all, it can't be that dangerous if four teenage boys who've never had a callous on their palms are involved in it.

  I'm released sometime in the afternoon, Mom and Wally at my side. He's taken care of everything, as usual: he picked up a change of clothes for me from the local general store, got me a coat that doesn't have holes in the pockets or worn seams, and he runs out to his truck as Mom and I are leaving the hospital so he can sit in the cab with the heater on before we get there.

  "If that boy weren't gay, I'd say you should marry him," Mom remarks as we walk up to his car, making me sputter with indignation and embarrassment. "What? He takes care of you."

  "He's just a friend."

  "I know that." She pats my hand. "I'm just suggesting that when you do find a boyfriend you want to bring home, make sure he lives up to the standard Wally has set."

  That's hard to imagine. Not many teenage boys are the gentlemanly sort, getting out of the car to run around and open your door first. They don't walk to the drug store to get a replacement toothbrush for you when your brother uses yours to clean the toilet bowl, or get you the perfect birthday present just because. Wally is one of a kind, and I'm glad that he's my friend—and nothing more.

  Mom and I climb into the truck, her in the middle, me on the passenger side. Wally helps us stuff our bags into the back. Then he puts the truck in reverse and looks over his shoulder, frowning.

  "There's someone there."

  "Just wait for them to pass."

  "I don't think he's going to. He's walking up to your window, Brenna." He shoots me a worried look. "Does he look familiar?"

  The officers said that I should be safe for now, as long as I didn't go anywhere alone at night and stayed firmly on Coleridge's campus, inside the circle of safety the security guards bring, but now I find myself wondering how true that could be. My heart skips a beat, and I look into the sideview mirror expecting to see an intimidating, strange face.

  Instead I meet the eyes of the detective on my case. He flashes his badge and knocks on the window.

  "Don't worry, I know him. It's an officer—the detective, in fact." Reaching over, I roll down the window, which takes a while given that Wally's truck is all manual, from the transmission to everything else. "What can I do for you, Detective Lyons?"

  "I just have a few more questions for you, if that's okay."

  Mom looks at me worriedly. "Do you need that lawyer of yours?"

  I consider Lukas's warning, but shake my head. In a low voice, I tell her, "If he asks anything I don't want to answer, I'll call the lawyer up. But until then, I'm okay."

  She nods, clearly unable to deal with this kind of stuff—the scary stuff. "Whoever is helping you pay for that lawyer, thank them for me. And be careful. Don't say anything you shouldn't."

  I wonder what she thinks it is that I've done, or how muc
h she knows. "I'll be careful."

  Hopping out of the truck, I follow the detective a few feet away, so we can get some privacy. He doesn't look like he suspects me of anything, so hopefully his questions are just more about the men who took me.

  "I just have one question for you, if you could bear with me."

  "Of course."

  "What is your association with Peter LeGrand?"

  Chapter 8

  I blink at him. "Who?"

  "You don't know?" Detective Lyons arches a coy eyebrow. "LeGrand is the man who gave you the social security number you used to enroll at Coleridge Academy—an act of fraud I've been instructed to ignore by my captain for some reason."

  Trying my best not to let the shock and anxiety show on my face, I tell him honestly, "The person who helped me enroll at Coleridge was anonymous."

  "So you let a complete stranger give you a social security number without even asking for his name?" The detective narrows his eyes at me. "Interesting."

  "Do I need to call my lawyer?"

  "You're not under arrest, Ms. Wilder. Despite your offenses."

  He taps his pen against the pad of paper he's holding in one hand, which he hasn't written any notes on. It's clear to me that this is some kind of fishing expedition—he doesn't have anything yet, but he'd like to get something, and is hoping I might be loose tongued, alone and confronted like this.

  Well, I'm not falling for it. "Does Peter LeGrand have anything to do with my kidnapping?"

  "No," he admits, grudgingly. "At least, not that I know of. I'm still trying to figure out why you were taken—what motivated the men who kidnapped you."

  "Well, maybe you should work on that," I point out, feeling intimidated despite the brave tone I try to put in my voice. "Last I checked I was the victim of a kidnapping last night, and no matter what petty offenses I may have committed, that's what you're supposed to be investigating. Or am I wrong about that? Is there an investigation into me, or someone associated with me?"