by Rachel Angel
She touched her head with her hand, the same one I had sucked every finger from when she fed me pieces of her chocolate birthday cake that day we surprised her with one at Kingsbury.
I took a deep breath and said, “Sorry you lost your phone. Maybe you can get a new one. I know someone who could get one to you cheap.”
She smiled her special smile that lit up her entire face. “That’ll be great, Ori. I’d love that.”
I almost falter then. I almost let my guard down and gave in. I loved everything about her, but it was her smile that always got me. After getting her a new phone, I would tell Kaz and Hunter I’m done. I text a quick message to them about getting her a phone.
Hunter responded by saying he’d have one delivered to the hotel suite…a phone with a new account for her. No texts or phone calls from anyone from Kingsbury Prep. Nothing that would deviate from the story we were creating for her.
“I texted my friend, and he has a phone for you. It’ll be here in a short while.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking relieved. “It’s one less thing to worry about.”
“I’m glad,” I said, trying not to feel anything for her. I had to remind myself she deserved this. Making her think we were just a figment of her imagination was easier on her than the alternative. If she ever accepted or pursued the fact that she was at Kingsbury Prep, then she would truly have hell to pay. Not just from K3 but from so many others.
“You know,” Tempest said. “When I think about it, it felt as though being at Kingsbury Prep was like some kind of dream and nightmare at the same time. I couldn’t even tell you exactly where it was located. And the princes from K3, I couldn’t tell you which countries they were from, where were their kingdoms. The island of Arcadia? Sounds almost mythical. A crown princess like Veronica? She would be put into an insane asylum. Sounds like some kind of manga or graphic novel I had been reading that suddenly featured me as the main female character. I mean…I was like some kind of female Bruce Lee or John Wick, fighting off groups of guys and then girls who were bullying me. I turned into some kind of badass fighter called Tempest Storm and then beat them all up. Most of all, I must have dreamt it because I dreamt I had all of these princes in my reverse harem, and we constantly had sex. Reverse harems in real life and with crown princes? I must have been dreaming! Oh, and everything is told from my point of view so my narration sounded like me with all the conversation speak and so forth. I was wise-cracking, sarcastic, and always had convenient one-liners like a movie.”
I nodded. She had described everything about what had happened to us as though it was a manga or graphic novel. But the crazy part of it all…it did happened, and she did do something to us that forced Kaz, Hunter, and I to do this crazy shit set up. At the same time, if she ever figured things out, she deserved it.
Chapter 3
Tempest
Great. Just great. Not only did I seem to be whisked out of La La Land or Kingsbury Prep World with the K3s as my beloved crown prince harem, but now I have lost my phone…with all my photos, videos, contacts…everything I needed to remember Kingsbury Prep.
Everything at Kingsbury Prep seemed so real. I couldn’t have dreamt everything up. I couldn’t have hallucinated about it.
At the same time, when I arrived at Kingsbury, it was as if I became a different person. Everything was hyped up, amplified like some action film. Like I was acting out some kind of action fantasy. Tempest Storm was my alter ego. The amount of sexual action I was getting with the K3s was insane like I was in some erotic novel like Fifty Shades times three Christian Greys. Oh, actually, wouldn’t that be a good one I could sink my teeth into?
I looked over at Ori, who sat down on the blue velvet sofa in the suite’s living room. He looked very uncomfortable and unhappy. He clearly didn’t want to be in the same room with me. This Ori was different. Not the Ori I knew from Kingsbury World.
I looked around. I didn’t have luggage nor did I have a purse.
I was dressed in my own sweats, though. The one that Lily gave me for my birthday last year. Lily. I had to find her. She could tell me the truth.
I walked out of the bedroom, past Ori, heading to the door, when Ori stood up and blocked me. “Hold on, where are you going?”
“I’m going to find my sister,” I said.
Ori gritted his teeth. “You have a sister?”
“Yes,” I said. “She could tell me what happened.”
“Where would she be? Maybe I can walk you there since you still might have a concussion.”
“Skylark Academy,” I said. “For girls. She’s in middle school, though.”
“Strange,” Ori pulled up Skylark Academy on his phone’s search engine. “There doesn’t seem to be any Skylark Academy in San Francisco. Looked like there was one in Los Angeles, though.”
“She couldn’t be in Los Angeles,” I said. “Our home is here. Our parents’ company was located here.”
I sat back down. Nothing made sense.
Maybe if I found the Airstream trailer I owned with my sister, the home we moved into when we lost our parents and our parents’ company, 3 Kings Technologies; I could find out what happened.
But now, I had to ditch this Ori. He seemed like he was here to keep me in line.
I got back up again, walked briskly to the door, and opened it.
I had to blink several times to believe my eyes. Hunter was standing in front of me, looking gorgeous even just wearing jeans, sneakers, and a heavy metal rock band t-shirt which was tight on his wide muscular chest.
I almost had forgotten how hot he was as he looked me over and smiled. “Hey,” he said to me. Almost as though he knew me. “Ori, who’s this chick in your room?” he asked.
My heart fell. Of all the K3s, Hunter and I had such an easy-going bond. He was the one who saved me from Veronica and Sabrina, the Q2s. He was the one in the music room who had pulled me to safety.
“The girl fighter I beat in the tournament, Hunter,” Ori said.
“Oh?” Hunter said, pushing past me into the room, without further acknowledgement. “Here,” he said to Ori, handing him a phone. “You asked for a phone.”
“For her,” Ori said.
“A phone’s a phone,” Hunter said.
My eyes couldn’t stop watching him. He was that good-looking, like a K-pop rock star. He was my artistic prince at Kingsbury. He was also the one I composed a song for. I started humming the song, called The Chase.
“Hunter,” I said. “Thanks for the phone.”
Hunter looked over, his eyes acknowledging mine for a brief second.
I continued humming the song. Did he know it? If he did, I didn’t dream about Kingsbury Prep.
“That song,” Hunter said. “Sounds familiar.”
“It’s called The Chase,” I said.
Hunter looked confused. “No, I think it’s something else.” He took out his phone and came over to me. We were standing so close together, I could feel the heat between us, like the first time we met. He showed me a website from the 1990s and played one of the songs on there. My mouth dropped. There it was…my song The Chase. Only it wasn’t called The Chase, but Victory Lap.
“It can’t be right,” I said. “I composed The Chase for you, Hunter. During music class. You loved it so much, you played it with your band Tenacious during the Concert at Kingsbury.”
Ori and Hunter exchanged looks. “I’m sorry, Miss, but I don’t recall being in any music classes with you. I’m a tech guy. Not someone artsy fartsy. A rock band maybe but that’s every guy’s dream, isn’t it?”
I stepped back. Who was this Hunter who seemed so cold? I almost cried remembering how talented Hunter was and how sexy he had always been especially that night of the concert when he rocked the concert and won over the hostile student body.
“I miss you, Hunter,” I said out loud. “I miss you so much my heart’s breaking.”
At that, I thought I saw this Hunter’s hand clenched slightly as though it
wanted to make a fist.
Ori’s jaws did clenched.
“I don’t know where to go,” I said. “My home isn’t my home anymore. My sister is now hours away from San Francisco…”
Ori came over, and I thought he was going to hold me like he always did when I needed it. Instead he handed me the phone and said, “Take it, on me. Until you get settled again, you can have it.”
Hunter didn’t look at me, but said, “Ori, you’re sending this girl off without a single dime on her? In San Francisco? Don’t be that cruel.”
Ori came over and handed me a crisp $100 bill. It was so new, I knew he had just exchanged it or gotten it from a bank. Ori was the crown prince of a country from Europe.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling dejected. Now that I had my phone, I walked over to the door. “You may not be the Princes from K3, but it was nice meeting you.” I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me.
Chapter 4
Tempest
As I walked out of the hotel and into the bright morning sun of San Francisco, I breathed in the salty air. I was near the pier, a place where I once had a good delivery route as a bike courier. I was at Kingsbury Prep for months, entering at the beginning of the Spring semester of the Senior Year. I haven’t been able to get back to San Francisco in a while.
“Great to be home,” I said to myself. Great to be free from the royals and all their bullying just because they didn’t want a commoner student in their royal school.
I walked to the Pier and watched the seals before heading to one of the food stands to grab clam chowder in a bread bowl. As I was sitting near the Pier, eating the warm New England chowder, a popular treat at the Pier, I called Lily.
For some reason, I kept getting an error message.
I tried texting Lily but kept getting error messages.
Now I was worried. Where was my little sister Lily? I found the phone to Skylark Academy and called it.
“Hello?” a friendly woman’s voice said. “How may I help you?”
“Hello,” I said, “I’m looking for a girl name Lily Ryan. She’s my little sister, and she isn’t responding to my calls.”
“Let me check. I’m sorry, Miss, there isn’t a student here name Lily Ryan.”
“No, that must be a mistake. Lily is enrolled in your school.”
“Are you sure this is the right school?”
“No, do you have a campus in San Francisco?” I asked.
“We did, but it was suddenly shut down. Most of the students were transferred here.”
“Then Lily should be at your school,” I said. “If not, where could she have gone? Where did the students who didn’t transfer go? Please help me find my little sister.”
“Miss, we are not allowed to disclose student’s contact information without authorization.”
“But I’m her legal guardian. I’m her sister, the only blood relative she has. You have authorization from me to tell me where she is. She’s now missing. Please help me.”
“Can you send over a form of identification so we can get an authorization?”
I checked my phone and found nothing. Of course, it was a blank new phone. And suddenly, it seemed as though I didn’t have an identity.
But I had a strong memory. A photographic memory which comes and goes at times. What were all my numbers?
I concentrated hard, trying to remember numbers that I had always just pulled up from my records. Suddenly, I remembered the number to my bank and called it.
“Hello?” a friendly male voice asked. “This is Sutter San Francisco Bank. How may I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Tempest Ryan, a banking client.” I gave him my account number. “How much do I have in my account?”
“Ms. Ryan, it appears you don’t have an account with us any longer. You closed your account a couple of days ago.”
“That’s impossible. I did not close my account. I would have remembered.”
“There was a Ms. Ryan who closed the account. Had your photo and numbers…”
“But I wasn’t here to close it!” I shouted.
“You don’t have to be. It was closed over the phone.”
“Where did the phone call come from?” I asked. “You do have a record of that, don’t you?”
“We will have to get a security specialist to comb through all the records for that, and that could take months.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, our records are handled by a security company outside of the bank. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you further with that. Is there anything else I could help you with?”
“What’s the name of the security company then?”
“I’m afraid I cannot tell you,” the man said.
“Look, I had a large amount of money held at your bank, and…”
“I understand that, but I could not give away any security information. It would be detrimental to the bank. We simply can’t give that information away, and…”
“Thank you for your time,” I said, hanging up.
I was adding it up, the only other person who had authorization to the bank and to the information about Skylark Academy was my sister Lily. But she was only 11 years old. How would she be able to close an account and change schools without an adult authorization?
She must’ve been the Ms. Ryan who called the bank.
No matter what, I had to find my sister.
She was the one who sent in an application for me to Kingsbury Prep when they made the announcement they were looking for an extraordinary student to be the first non-royal to attend the prestigious and high exclusive school only for royals.
Lily was also the one who gave me information about the K3s, which I couldn’t find anywhere. She also found out we were descendants of Kingsbury himself.
And, she told me about the $5 Million dollars that were wired to me…the amount plus the prize money I remembered winning from the underground fighting tournament. It was enough to buy all the shares of 3 Kings Technologies, the company my parents started, and I was a part of…the company their partner Sloane stole from us when my parents died and left Lily and I penniless, homeless, and orphans.
So…what was going on? Why was Ori and Hunter messing with me? Were they? Did I really attend Kingsbury Prep? Did I really win the fighting tournament? Did Lily really attend Skylark Academy? Most importantly…where was she?
With just a phone in my hands and nothing else, I was now homeless, penniless, and without any real identity. I needed to get things squared away fast, especially since Lily was missing.
I called Mr. Nichols, my parents’ longtime attorney and the one who handled the takeover of 3 Kings Technologies. He should know what happened. He was reliable and someone whom my parents trusted.
The phone kept ringing and finally went into voicemail.
I tried texting him, but he didn’t answer.
Not Mr. Nichols, too.
It was as if my entire existence was wiped out. My past at least.
This doesn’t change the present or the future, I told myself.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to give in to despair. But I couldn’t. My fighting spirit in me was too strong for that. Survival. It was my primal instinct.
It was what helped me survive the streets when Lily and I first became homeless. I could do it again.
I walked over to the nearest consignment store and bought a used bicycle for $10. It needed a paint job, but it was still in working order. For now, it would be the way I could get around town.
I rode my bicycle to the trailer park where Lily and I had our Airstream trailer, which was our pride and joy when we lived in it. Helen, our neighbor who acted more like a close aunt to us, said she would watch our trailer for us while we were away.
As I rode in, I prayed the trailer was still there. It would be my shelter while I figured out everything that was going on.
I turned the corner on the familiar route and sighed a breath of relief when I saw Helen’s trailer. Stil
l the same with the garden in front and the yellow and white stripe awning that jutted out from the side to provide cover for the little table and chair porch set she had in front. Helen, who always had a smile on her face, was the aunt we always wanted. She had left her country years ago, because of some family dispute, came to America to find independence. She was happy living on her own at the trailer park, but had embraced Lily and I when we moved there. If it wasn’t for Helen taking care of Lily, I wouldn’t have been able to work all the jobs I needed to provide for us.
Helen was outside watering her garden when I pulled up.
“Helen?” I called.
She looked up. Her long grey black hair pulled back into a pigtail fell over her shoulders. “Tempest?”
I got off my bike and ran to her, pulling her in for a tight hug.
“Oh my goodness, Child,” Helen cried, “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” I said. “So much. I thought I’ve lost everyone I loved and was close to when I woke up today. It had been a strange crazy day.”
“Your home,” Helen said. “I’ve kept it just as you had it. I couldn’t sell it as you’ve instructed me to do. It reminded me too much of you two. You and Lily are like my granddaughters, you know.”
“I know,” I said sniffling.
“Come inside and take a look at your place,” she said. “I kept it clean because I knew you would be back. If not for the holidays, but soon.”
“I was only going to be at Kingsbury Prep for the rest of my Senior Year,” I said. “Just months there until I graduate.”
“Oh yes, Kingsbury Prep,” Helen said, suddenly frowning.
My heart started racing. It did exist. I didn’t make it up. “You’ve heard of the school?”
“Of course, silly,” Helen said. “Lily and you were so excited for you to go.”
“I did go,” I said. “It just wasn’t what I thought it would be.”
“Royals,” Helen said. “You never could expect them to be normal. But then again, they have their personal problems too. Only louder.”