by C. L. Stone
I followed the boys down the stairs. Marie’s room was quiet as we passed.
In the kitchen, Gabriel opened the fridge door, peering into the shelves. Victor scoped out the pantry and some of the cabinets.
“We should make her eggs and like pancakes or something,” Gabriel said. He tugged out a carton of eggs and opened it up. There were only two left.
“Are you cooking?” Victor asked him. “Luke usually makes the pancakes. Or Erica.”
“Let’s go to Kota’s,” Gabriel said.
“No,” Victor said. “He’s got that tail watching the house still.”
“All night? Goddamn nosy bastards.” Gabriel shoved the carton back into the door and snatched up three bottles of Frappuccino. “Coffee and toast for us. I can fix the shit out of toast.”
“We could go out for breakfast,” Victor said.
“Not right now,” Gabriel said. “Maybe for lunch. We’re supposed to be lazy. Pajamas until noon and all that. Maybe we’ll order pizza early.”
There was only half a loaf of bread left, but Gabriel started heating some up in the toaster. Victor snagged me around the waist and then lifted me until I was sitting on the counter. He hopped up, sitting next to me. He popped open one of the Frappuccino bottles and handed it to me.
“How was dancing?” Victor asked.
“Awesome,” Gabriel said before I could respond. “You should have gone with us. Although Nathan was trying to kiss the shit out of her right in front of my face.”
Victor and I both popped our mouths open at the same time. Our eyes connected, his a fiery curiosity. “Is he serious?” he asked.
“Of course I’m serious,” Gabriel said. “He makes a big fucking deal about not kissing her in the car when she’s the one that started it, and then he up and starts kissing on her the moment Luke and I were out of sight. I think he’s been adamant about it from the beginning because he’s been hoping to snag her first.”
“You kissed Gabriel and Nathan last night?” Victor asked, with the strangest smile on his lips.
I nodded slowly, unsure how to deny it or even if I should. My heart pounded inside my rib cage. My finger lifted, hovering just over my lips.
Why did he look so happy with this?
Victor’s eyes lowered. He touched my collarbone and then traced up to my neck. “Is this your handiwork, Gabe?” Victor asked.
I clamped my hands down over my neck. The makeup! I didn’t know how the bruises looked by now, but they wouldn’t have disappeared overnight.
Gabriel looked up from buttering some toast for a moment. “Maybe a couple. North did the rest.”
Victor paused in his inspection. His fingers idled over my neck. “Did you talk to North?” Victor asked.
“Haven’t seen him since yesterday. He only dropped her off.” Gabriel licked his fingers clean of crumbs. He passed the plate to me. “Eat this.”
Victor released me and raked a few fingers through his wavy hair, pulling it back from his face. “We should probably talk to him.”
Did he not realize what the marks were? Did he already know they were bites? I thought if he did, he would have asked. And why did we have to talk to North? Was this important? Was it about the Academy rule? My heart was pounding way too hard right now when the rest of me was so dead tired. I didn’t have the strength to formulate the questions I needed to ask.
“No shit.” Gabriel stuffed two more pieces of bread into the toaster and stood back to wait. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the counter. “And if anyone was worried about her reputation at school before, she’s in for it a lot if he’s going to make her look like that. She’s lucky I found out.”
“This is bad,” I said quietly. I needed to do something. The Academy was going to find out, and then North would get into trouble. And then the others ... I hadn’t even thought of school yet.
“No, sweetie,” Victor said. He tugged at my hand and then kissed the back of the knuckles. “We just need to be careful.”
How? I didn’t even know what I was doing. But first thing I knew I needed to do was keep the secret as secure as possible. “I should cover them up before Marie or Danielle walk in,” I said.
“Good idea,” Gabriel said. “Or Kota. He’d kill us.”
“Or Mr. Blackbourne. Or Silas,” said Victor.
Gabriel grunted. “Are they kissing her, too? Who the hell isn’t kissing her? What the fuck are we doing here? Passing her around?”
“It’s not like that,” Victor said.
“Sure feels like it,” Gabriel said. He turned those crystal eyes at me. “Trouble, go cover your neck really quick and then come back and eat.”
This sounded more like he needed to say something to Victor. The tension hung in the air like the smell of toast around us.
I hopped off the counter and ran all the way up the stairs to my bedroom. Maybe I should have said something, or insisted on staying, but my heart couldn’t take trying to figure out what all this meant. I was willing to step back and let the boys figure this part out.
Maybe Gabriel and Victor would be able to piece together what had been going on, and then tell me what I needed to do. I cared about them. All of them. In an effort to stay with them, to feel a part of something when I’d been lost, something changed in me and I felt it echoing in each one of them when I was with them.
At first, I’d thought it was that family feeling that Kota was stressing would happen. I let it happen, doing whatever they told me to do. I trusted them to know.
Now with Nathan and everything else going on, trying to figure out kissing and boys was terrifying. I wanted someone else to figure it all out for me.
Coward.
Still, my heart was breaking. I was terrified they’d figure out I was doing this all wrong and we’d have to go back to what we were before. Holding hands. Hugs. I wanted those, but I was on the cusp of something better. Something my insides had been craving and I didn’t know until one of them had pressed his lips to my skin.
I waved off the thoughts. The moment I was upstairs and out of view, I wanted to hurry and get back downstairs with them.
This was how bad off I was: too terrified to talk to them and too scared to not be with them.
I stood in my bedroom for a moment, trying to recall where Gabriel had left the makeup last night. When I finally focused, I realized he’d left it in the bathroom.
I crossed the hall, and found the door locked to the bathroom.
I paused, listening. The air was still. The shower wasn’t running. If she was in there, she would have heard me.
I knocked gently. “Marie?”
Silence. Eerie.
I knocked again, louder. “Marie?”
Still nothing.
I returned to my room, found my phone in my bed and went back to the hallway. I paused, gazing at the button that would allow me to look through the cameras of the house. I didn’t want to snoop. Maybe the lock was snapped by accident. I just didn’t want to break in if she was doing something and ignoring me.
From my past experience, I didn’t trust silence.
After the loading screen faded away, I studied the image. Odd because there was someone inside, but she was lying on the floor, unmoving. I saw legs and hips only, and they were so still. The camera didn’t extend that far.
Horrors filled my mind. She was dead. She was dying. We were too late.
I raced for my bedroom door, finding the pushpin.
But when I got back to the bathroom door and aimed the pin for the knob to unlock it, I realized this knob didn’t have that little hole; it was a solid knob. There wasn’t a way to unlock it from the outside.
“Gabriel!” I cried out. My voice broke midway through. I swallowed, calling as loud as I could. “Victor! Gabriel!”
A thundering of footsteps erupted through the previously quiet house. I wasn’t waiting for them, though. I twisted the handle, shoving my body into the door several times. The door rattled, but never bud
ged.
The boys materialized in the hallway. They stopped for a split second to watch my struggles.
“Sweetie? What’s wrong?” Victor asked, moving forward to tug me away from the door.
My shoulder ached and I clutched it. “Marie,” I breathed out. “She’s on the floor. She’s not moving.”
Victor pulled me further down the hall. His hand moved up to my shoulder, starting to massage it, but I cringed at his touch. It was too much so I floated my hand protectively over it.
Gabriel took my place at the door. With lips skewed, and eyebrows hunched together, he rattled the doorknob, and then shoved his shoulder into the wood. The door cracked a little, but wasn’t giving up yet.
Gabriel stepped back, lifted a foot and karate-kicked close to the door knob. There was a loud clank of metal on metal scraping together and then another crack of wood and the door flew open, smashing against the wall.
The three of us stepped forward, gazing inside. My mind had hoped that whatever I had seen had been a mirage; that perhaps the cameras had been lying.
They had been, or at least not told the whole truth. There was someone on the floor, but it was Danielle, not Marie.
The smell got to me first. Acidic. Rotten. Like leaving meat several days in the trash and not taking it out. The toilet bowl’s liquid was discolored. Danielle had vomited and then passed out. Her pale face was oddly slack and her lipstick smudged. Her hair was a mess. She was wearing nicer clothes. But how long had she been like this? We came in last night and hadn’t heard anything.
Gabriel leapt forward and crouched, testing for a pulse. Then he ducked his head down toward her chest. “She’s breathing. She’s alive,” he said. He started shaking her, trying to get her to wake up, but no response. She was a lump on the floor.
When the shock of realizing this was Danielle had worn off, my eyes bugged out when the next thought came. “If that’s her, where’s Marie?”
Victor released me, dashing toward Marie’s bedroom. He knocked quickly, called her name. When there wasn’t a response, he eased the door open, peeking around the corner. He paused, and then shoved the door open wide, rushing in.
Marie was lying across the bed, in clothes similar to Danielle’s. Her hair had been pulled back. Her eyes were closed. It didn’t appear she had vomited, but she wasn’t waking up.
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked.
Victor checked Marie’s pulse and then pried open an eye. He reached back, giving a solid slap against her cheek. “Marie!” he cried out. “Wake up!”
Marie’s head rocked back, but she didn’t stir.
Gabriel stood in Marie’s doorway, checking in. “Are they drunk?” He scanned the room. “Is there beer in here?”
“I didn’t see any,” Victor said. He hunched over, picking up Marie and repositioning her in his arms. “We need to get them to the hospital.”
“Call Kota,” Gabriel told me. He went to the bed, helping Victor.
I stabbed my finger at the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Kota asked after he picked up. If I was calling this early, he knew something had to be wrong.
“It’s Marie,” I said. “She’s passed out. Danielle is, too. They’re at my house. Victor says we need to take them to the hospital.”
Kota groaned into the phone. “Drunk?”
“We don’t think so. There’s no cans or bottles.” Despite the mess in the bedroom, it was pretty clear there wasn’t anything that was alcoholic. And she didn’t have to hide it if she’d been drinking. There were soda cans, and some coffee bottles, and food stuff but nothing like beer.
“Put me on speaker.”
I pushed the button, holding the phone out as Victor and Gabriel were angling Marie through the hallway to carry her down the stairs. “Kota?” I said, checking to make sure he could hear me.
Gabriel noted the phone. “Hey Kota,” he said. “Where do we take them?”
“If they’re still breathing and their pulse seems normal, take them to the downtown hospital. If it looks like one is trying to slip away, take them to the closest one you can get to. Drive Victor’s car into the garage and then load them up.”
“Where are you?” Victor asked.
“I’m on my way with Silas. Sang, check out the window. Is anyone watching the house?”
I ran to Marie’s window, angling to check up and down the street, and spotted a familiar brown sedan. I returned to the boys as I spoke. “Mr. Morris’s car is across the street and up the road from your house.”
“The other one is following me right now. So he’s not watching for me. Waiting for Nathan, maybe.”
“He was here when I got in. What should we do?” Victor asked.
Kota paused. I heard thumping, like he was tapping against the steering wheel while he was trying to think. “I don’t want to chance Mr. Morris spotting us taking them to the hospital. Gabriel, Victor, take them and start heading downtown, but do it slowly. I’m going to get North on the way. If he starts following you two, North will intervene.”
“What about Sang?”
“She stays home. We’re almost there.”
I sent panicked looks to Gabriel. Marie was going to the hospital without me? Shouldn’t I be with her?
Gabriel seemed to sense how I was feeling. “Sang wants to stay with her sister.”
Mild relief swept through me. Maybe I was getting the hang of the silent communication thing.
“Sang,” Kota said. “Listen, sweetie. You can’t help her right now. I’ve got a feeling it might be that drug going around school. Whatever it is, you and I need to go through her room and look for the cause. It’s better if you’re there with me. The doctors are going to start treatment when she gets there, but if we can find a source, she’ll get better faster. Okay? We can come see her after, and Victor and Gabriel will send updates.”
I swallowed. Maybe I should have trusted him, as his plan did make sense. I’d just needed to hear it.
“Everyone move. We’ll be there in five minutes.” Kota hung up.
“Sang,” Victor said. “Go downstairs and make sure the shades are pulled tight. We don’t want a chance of anyone seeing us carrying them around.”
I raced ahead, doing what I was supposed to, making sure all the blinds were closed tight. Victor had to run out and pull the car in to the garage.
“We need a distraction,” Gabriel said to me as we stood in the living room and waited for Victor to finish. “We need to make it look like we aren’t just pulling into the garage for no reason, if he’s watching us at all.”
“Do you want to make it look like you’re moving some furniture?” I asked. I pointed to the downstairs side tables, the television. “Put something in the trunk. Something that will fit barely and you have to make it look like you tied it down. It’ll give us a reason that we brought it into the garage, like it was heavy and awkward.”
Gabriel brightened. He trapped the back of my head with a palm and planted a kiss on my brow. “Fuck me, your brain is hot.” He tugged me toward the living room. “Let’s steal the television.”
I grinned at his comments. I managed to hide it as he directed me to one side of the television, and worked with me unplugging it and lugging it toward the door.
We told Victor the plan and he agreed with it. “Let’s get the girls out, first,” he said.
We’d just managed to get Danielle and Marie downstairs when Kota and Silas showed up. They were both in jeans. Kota had on a green polo from the day before and Silas a blue baseball shirt that was crumpled. Both looked tired, like they’d had a late night just like we’d had.
Silas took one look at the girls on the floor and frowned. “Are we sure they’re not dead?”
“They’re not,” Victor said.
“Almost a shame,” Silas said.
Gabriel elbowed him in the gut. “That’s her sister, you know.”
Silas looked at me, rubbing his stomach. “Sorry. Didn’t really mean it.”
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I understood. They’d been a lot of trouble. I was on edge, wondering if they were dying or what had happened. What would the Academy do if they didn’t wake up for a while? Wouldn’t Danielle’s parents come looking for her? What would we tell Derrick?
“Let’s get them into the car,” Kota said.
Silas carried Danielle, and the others angled Marie into the back of Victor’s car. After, Silas and Kota lifted and tied the television into Victor’s trunk. They left it partially open so it would be obvious.
“North should be close,” Kota said to Victor.
Victor nodded and Gabriel got into the car with him. They waved bye to us and headed down the road.
I stood with Kota by the living room window, watching Victor’s BMW roll down the street. A black car with tinted windows followed them. Mr. Morris’s brown vehicle remained.
“Is that one new?” I asked. “The black car?”
“He’s been trading off with the blue car,” Kota said. “At first we thought it was Mr. Blackbourne’s tail, but Mr. Blackbourne’s been reporting in that he still has one. So this guy is new. Or the same guy with a different car.”
“And still obvious,” I said. “Mr. Hendricks seemed to like that. Preventing you from doing ... whatever it is you do?”
“Or keeping us contained while he’s up to something.” He released the blinds so they fell back into place and turned to me. His eyebrows scrunched together behind the black-rimmed glasses and his worried frown tightened. He reached out, his fingers tracing my collarbone. “Good lord, what happened to your neck?”
My hand fluttered up, covering what I could. My mind went blank trying to figure out the answer.
Silas had been in the kitchen and walked into the living room. He looked between us and then zeroed in on Kota’s disturbed face. “What’s wrong?”
Kota stepped forward, capturing my chin between his fingers. He turned my head one way and then another, checking out the damage.
Silas peered over Kota’s shoulder, frowning. “Was that Jay?” he asked, his tone deepening. “Or Rocky? Was it—“
“No,” I said, although too quickly. “Well, maybe one.” I knew one had to be a hickey mark from Rocky and couldn’t lie about that. But Jay hadn’t grabbed me hard enough to bruise. I didn’t know what to say about the other marks. I didn’t even know which ones were which. I hadn’t had time to really examine what they were seeing. “It’s a long story but I’m fine.”