The Academy--The Bird and the Beetle

by C. L. Stone

  “And get a second chance to get shot at?” Brandon asked. “I don’t think so.”

  “But we can’t—”

  He reached out, grabbing my hand with his free one as he drove with the other. “Hey,” he said. His eyes tried to hold mine as long as possible, occasionally glancing to the road. “Look at me, sweetie.” He squeezed my hand. “We’re not going to let them keep it.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We do nothing,” he said.

  He had to be insane! “We can’t just assume he’s not going to look at it.”

  “No, I mean, we can’t do anything. If we go back there, we’re looking at a gun in our faces, or even the police chasing after us. Our team can’t get any closer right now.”

  The way he said our team was troubling. “You have another? That teenage squad I saw at the gun range? You’re going to send them after it?”

  “Or another group,” Corey said from the back seat. He had his face in his phone and he was pushing buttons in a mad wave of texting. “We need to call in a few favors.”

  “Do it,” Brandon said.

  “What favor?” I asked. “What’s this? Like in those mafia movies? Someone owes you a favor and you call it in?”

  Brandon released my hand to drive. “Not really.”

  “Then what is it? How can you just send someone else after it?”

  “We ask nicely,” Corey said. “Don’t ask any more. We can’t tell you anything.”

  I pressed my fists to my eyes to block out the light. This whole Academy thing was complicated and infuriating. It was crazy! We should be the ones to go and get it. I didn’t trust anyone else to understand why we needed to go back and do this now. Why would they risk their necks? They didn’t know who I was.

  When we got back to the Sergeant Jasper, I followed the twins back up to their room. I trailed Corey to his bedroom as Brandon took over the computer desks and put in a phone call. I washed up my cut palm and my knee. They weren’t bleeding anymore, though they did sting a little.

  Corey crashed onto his back on the bed. “Well that’s a dead end for us.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I sat on the corner of his bed, unsure what else to do and feeling like I should be doing something. “He held a gun at us to get off his property. Something’s going on.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Corey said. He nudged my side with a foot. “We’ve proved he’s a grumpy old man who doesn’t like people on his porch.”

  “He’s called Coaltar, who may be doing crimes, from a phone registered to an abandoned house that he guards during the day. He didn’t park in his drive or out front. He wanted it to look abandoned but then guards it anyway?”

  Corey breathed in deeply and then let the air out slowly. He stared up at the ceiling. “Odd.”

  I flopped back on the bed next to him. He made room by scooting closer to the wall. “Did we screw up?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We screwed up.”

  “Is Axel going to yell at us?”

  “Axel doesn’t yell. Marc, however...”

  I knocked my ankle into his. “Do we blame it on Brandon?”

  He rolled his foot against mine in a playful kick back. “We’ll still get yelled at.”

  “Yeah, but it just feels better if it’s at Brandon.”

  “Brandon’s not so bad,” he said. He nudged an elbow into my ribs.

  I grunted as I didn’t want to answer him. So far every time I ever talked to Brandon, we ended up in a fight. And now he was going to blame me for this mess. Still, there were moments, like when he held my hand in the car and promised things would be okay, or the hug at the party, where it left me in a weird position with how I felt about him. Maybe Corey was right and he wasn’t so bad and we just totally misunderstood each other from go. I gave Brandon a pretty hard time, and I didn’t listen to him, so could I blame him for being angry?

  I avoided thinking about it by stabbing my elbow back into Corey. Corey was fun; I liked him.

  “Ow,” he said, in a flat tone while still staring at the ceiling. He aimed his elbow at me, but knocked it into mine as I tried to block.

  That did it. I tucked my knees up, and then pushed at his side, trying to do the same thing I did earlier to Raven and slide Corey right off the bed. Except I was on the outside so he only ended up getting squished into the wall. I didn’t do it hard. Just playfully.

  “Oof,” he cried out. He spun around with a grin. He caught both my ankles and twisted.

  I had to flip around to relieve the pressure and the next thing I knew, I was dangling precariously off the edge of the mattress. I had to do a weird, twisty sit up to avoid falling on my head. I squealed loud and patted at his arms as he kept me trapped there. A laugh rippled from him, deep and mischievous. He was a nerdling, but he was strong and he knew how to defend himself.

  “No fair!” I yelped at him.

  “Say mercy,” he said.

  I knew how to win fights like this. Feign that you’re giving up and then when they let their guard down, go in for the attack. “Mercy!” I cried out.

  “Say uncle.”

  “I just said mercy!”

  Brandon materialized in the bedroom doorway. He spotted his brother first, and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he caught me on the bed. “Kayli?”

  “Hi!” I squealed, a little louder than necessary. I patted Corey’s arm. “Let me up.”

  Corey laughed, getting off of me, but hanging on so I didn’t just fall on my head. I wriggled onto my back but ended up spilling onto the floor and tumbling until I was sitting up. I swept back the hair from my eyes, laughing.

  Corey hovered on his hands and knees, looking over the edge of the bed. “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Brandon’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What are you two doing?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just playing.”

  Corey stabbed a finger at my head. “She started it.”

  “I did not!”

  Brandon sliced his hand through the air. “Okay, don’t care that much.” He jerked his chin toward Corey. “Axel wants you to do ... Academy things. There’s something on his computer.”

  “He didn’t call?” Corey asked. He pulled his phone out, checking it. “There’s no message.

  “I was just on the phone with him,” Brandon said. “He was checking in but asked...” He glanced at me. I got the unspoken signal that there was some business I wasn’t allowed to know about.

  I grunted, picking myself up. “What do you want me to do? Lock myself in the bathroom?”

  “Just go sit in my room for a minute,” he said.

  I sighed, crossing the room, sending Corey a small wave and a playful pout. Play time was over.

  Corey waved back, a smile caught on his lips.

  I crossed the apartment, and found Brandon’s bedroom door. I hesitated going in, wondering why I couldn’t just sit on the couch. It felt awkward going into his bedroom without him there.

  I twisted the handle, opening the door.

  If I wanted to say Corey and Brandon had polar opposite bedrooms, I wouldn’t be stretching the opposites far enough apart.

  Brandon’s bed was in the middle of the room. Against the far wall was a surfboard, leaning into the corner. There was a single short dresser near the foot of the bed, and a flat screen television hanging on the wall. That was it, Spartan.

  I moved to the bed that had a deep green comforter. I sat on it, eyeballing the rest of his bedroom. His closet was dark. Music was playing on the stereo system built around the television, playing a sad Mayday Parade song.

  I was about to start poking around his closet when Brandon materialized in the doorway. He looked in on me sitting on the bed and then quietly entered the bedroom, closing the door behind himself.

  My eyebrows shifted up on my forehead, as I felt suddenly claustrophobic. “What’s going on?”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” he said
. He leaned against his door, folding his arms over his chest. “What were you doing with Corey?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean the cutesy wrestling on the bed and all that. What were you doing?”

  I blinked rapidly at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We were just ... I don’t know. Horsing around.”

  “You were flirting.”

  I didn’t care if it was true, I didn’t like the way his tone was accusing me of it like I had done something wrong. I climbed off the bed to stand on the carpet. “Did you want to ask me what I was doing, or are you going to tell me? And why is it any of your business?”

  “Kayli.”

  “Corey and I were just hanging out,” I said. I felt the heat rising inside me. I couldn’t date Coaltar. I couldn’t flirt with his brother. Was I not good enough? Did he still see me as the mall rat stealing wallets? “I’m doing what I’m supposed to, staying here when I could be out working and earning enough for rent next month. I’m stuck here, because Marc gave the order I had to be. Now what? I’m not allowed to have any fun? I have to sit there and do nothing?”

  “Corey’s gay.”

  I had my mouth open with whatever else I was going to say and then choked. “Huh?”

  Brandon planted a palm against the back of his neck, rubbing. “I didn’t want to say anything while you were in there. My brother’s gay.”

  I blinked after him. I didn’t get that vibe from Corey, but then, I hadn’t known him that long. Still, in my head it didn’t make sense. He held my hand. He was the one that started half of the times we were fooling around. “He didn’t say anything.”

  “He doesn’t really tell anyone. I’m not even sure if he’s admitted it to anyone else yet. He’s never told me directly.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “Because I know,” he said. He moved to the bed, sinking, folding his arms in his lap and bent forward to stare at his feet. “When we were kids, our parents had us always on sport teams. They thought it was cute to pair us up like that. He’d walk around the locker room trying to look normal, but he’d get a hard-on when the team had to shower.” He rubbed his palm against his cheek, his faint stubble making a scratching noise. “I mean, I guess that’s not the only thing. There’s the way he looks at guys sometimes, staring at their bodies. When the guys started talking about him, I’d kick their asses just to get them to shut up. There’s other reasons I know, too, but I figured it out and went through a lot to make sure no one messed with him about it back then. Guys can be shitheads in high school.”

  “What’s the big deal now?” I asked. I sank back onto the bed next to him. “He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. And who cares if he’s gay?”

  He smirked. “Well, it is the South. I try not to just tell everyone.”

  “You haven’t asked him?”

  “I wanted him to tell me when he was comfortable.”

  “He’s good looking and fun,” I said. “But I still don’t know him that well. Maybe I was flirting, but I ... I mean I was just playing. I wasn’t really thinking...”

  He nodded slowly, his cheeks tinted. “I wanted to warn you before maybe you went too far and he wasn’t ... you know. If he didn’t respond back.”

  I waved my hand through the air. “No, actually, this is perfect.”

  A blond eyebrow shifted up in curiosity. Now that was very similar to Corey. “What’s perfect?”

  “Gay guys are awesome,” I said. “You can do all kinds of cool things together and it never goes into a weird zone.”

  Brandon huffed. “You’ve got strange ideas.”

  “Unless you’re telling me Corey and I can’t hang out together.”

  “No, no,” he said. “That’s fine. Hang out with who you want. I just didn’t want to see you disappointed later.”

  I stilled on the bed, watching him for a moment. “Are ... uh ... are you?”

  He smirked, shaking his head. “No. I thought maybe I was when I was younger. Probably because he is and I thought maybe it was genetic or something. But I’m not interested in guys.”

  Just to be clear, I had to ask. “Are you interested in girls?”

  He scoffed. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry. I... yeah, Corey and you said you’d had girlfriends before. Forgot.” I combed my fingers through my hair, pulling it back away from my face.

  An uncomfortable silence started between us. I stared at his blank wall. I realized that again I had jumped the gun on assuming what he was talking about and he had not only been looking out for his brother, but also looking out for me. I felt stupid.

  Brandon looked at his feet. The music played on his stereo, now a slow Breaking Benjamin song.

  “So ...” he said.

  “Is Corey going to be busy for a while?”

  He shrugged. “He’s probably going to be working late in the other apartment.”

  I nodded. “What do we do? It seems like everyone’s working but us.”

  “I’d be working,” he said, “except I’m supposed to not be.”

  “Is it because of Coaltar?”

  “Yes.”

  “And me?”

  “Yes.”

  I twisted my lips and sighed heavily. “I messed up.”

  He let out a breath, reaching to plant a hand between my shoulder blades and started rubbing. “I think we both did. I let Coaltar see he was getting to me. There was a rumor that he’s been known to tick off a few husbands, cause divorces, and ditch the wife after a week.”

  I blinked, shaking my head. “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I was reading about it in the gossip columns.”

  I huffed. “You read those? Aren’t those about old lady rose-society types, and old farts pretending the war is still going on?”

  “I was doing research on Coaltar,” he said. “I needed an in, so I found one by studying where he went. I showed up at some local country club he was hanging out at.”

  I sighed. I leaned back to sprawl out on the bed. “Is he really that bad?”

  “We don’t know,” he said. He leaned on his side on the bed, his head held up by his hand, looking down at me. “That’s the problem. There’s rumors about people on his staff disappearing and never being heard from again. There was one about some gun program he was involved in offshore.”

  “He said he did forensic testing on bullets a few years ago.”

  Brandon nodded. “He’s weird. Eccentric. And I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  I sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “What do we do?”

  “We wait until we’re sure,” he said. He drifted a hand out, slipping his fingers across my brow to draw back a lock of hair stuck on my cheek. “Think we can get along until then?”

  I smirked. “Maybe I should stay here with you. I end up getting bruised over in the other apartment.”

  “If you want Raven to back off, come talk to me.”

  “I can handle him,” I said.

  “He’s not from here,” he said. “He hits you back. You know that doesn’t usually fly around here. One day he’ll do it to you in front of someone else and he’s going to get his ass kicked. I may not stop it when it happens.”

  I turned my head to look at him. “Isn’t he your friend?”

  He nodded slowly. “He is. I don’t always agree with him, but the only reason why I let him touch you is because I know if you really said stop, he’d stop. Or I’d make him stop.”

  “We were just having fun. I’ll tell him to stop if I need to.” I paused, gazing at the depth of those blue eyes. “You act like an older brother, you know.”

  The depth of Brandon’s blue eyes softened. “Yup. Born a couple minutes before Corey. Maybe it doesn’t really count, but I guess I was always the one looking out for him.”

  “I’m the older sister,” I said. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  He laughed a little. “He used to get on my nerves a lot worse. I think it’s because of the comic books and vi
deo games. He was always wanting me to play with him, and I didn’t really like those.”

  “What do you like?”

  He shrugged. “Normal things, I guess. Movies. Surfing.”

  I leaned my head back, looking at the surfboard against the wall. “So you do use that thing?”

  “I wouldn’t have it if I didn’t use it.”

  “Where do you surf? I didn’t think the waves at the beaches were high enough here.”

  “Usually, I’m out at the North Shore. I get a chance every now and again,” he said. “And when we travel, I like to go to the beach when I can.”

  “How often do you guys travel?”

  “Seems like a lot,” he said. “Along the coast, to Europe, or Africa. Depends on a few things.”

  I propped myself up again, looking at him. He was on his back now, looking up at the ceiling. “I’ve never been outside of Charleston,” I said.

  He turned his head toward me. “Do you want to leave?”

  I bit my lip, not wanting to admit it. “I used to love it here. Now, I don’t know why,” I said. “Ever since... I guess a few years ago when...” It was hard to talk about. It was something I didn’t talk about with Wil as much. Like if I didn’t say it, it was easier to deal with.

  He propped himself up again on his hand. “What?”

  I swallowed. “I guess after my mom died, I just never felt the same. I wanted to run off a hundred times just to get away and couldn’t.”

  His face softened. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  I felt the pang in my heart at his words, felt the sympathy he was trying to share. Accepting it, however, hurt. I tried to hide my desire to scoff at it, because I knew he was trying to be nice. Instead, I fell back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Want to watch a movie?” he asked after a few minutes.

  “Yes,” I said, eager for a distraction to get me out of this conversation.

  He picked a movie he liked, a western. I followed it for a while, sitting on one side of his bed, propped up by pillows. He sat on the other side of his bed. After a while, I was sinking lower on the bed.

  Before the movie was over, I was dozing. It wasn’t boring, it was just a really long day.