by C. L. Stone
Gabriel turned when I was making the last two letters. “Did she just flip you off?”
Kota laughed. “No. She’s using sign language. She spelled out journal.” He looked back at me. “What language is this?”
I spelled again. It frustrated me because it felt like I was taking forever to communicate something that would have taken a second to say out loud. My sign language skills were rusty.
He repeated what I spelled for him, “Korean lettering, and English words.”
“Let me see that.” Mr. Blackbourne held his hand out to Kota.
I sighed, exasperated. I shot a look at Gabriel. He completely understood. “You can’t go reading her journal,” he said. “That’s private chick stuff.”
“I can’t read it,” Mr. Blackbourne said. He took the book from Kota and flipped through the pages, checking it. “Is there a key to this puzzle?” he asked.
Kota watched as I signed “She doesn’t need one.” He smiled, catching on. He slid a finger up to the bridge of his glasses, pressing to his nose. “I get it. She used Korean lettering so she wouldn’t need a key. If she ever forgot, she could just check a book to translate.” I signed to him again and he relayed the message. “So her family couldn’t read it.”
Mr. Blackbourne checked the floor, found a pencil and brought it and the journal to me. “I want to see you write in it.”
I lifted an eyebrow. Why?
“Write: The five boxing wizards jump quickly.”
I twisted my lips, confused that he picked such an awkward sentence. I opened to a random blank page, scratching in the lines and circles. When I was done, I passed it to him.
“You’ve done this for a while,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “You did it too fast to be a new trick.” He checked my work.
“Sang’s full of little secrets,” Gabriel said.
“Tell me about it,” Kota beamed at me. “When were you going to tell me about the sign language?”
I shrugged.
“One of these days,” Mr. Blackbourne said as he snapped the journal shut and passed it back to Kota, “Miss Sorenson, you and I are going to have a conversation to catch up on what you can actually do. You have some very unique talents.”
Kota shot him a look but Mr. Blackbourne turned away, ignoring it.
I was finishing up the trunk and closing the lid when Silas poked his head in.
“Sang, where does your dad keep his tools? Are there any spare wood scraps?”
I blew out a sigh, spilling onto the carpet on my back and rolling my eyes. I looked up at him from my upside down position, smirking. Was everyone going to forget I couldn’t talk?
He laughed, shaking his head. “Can you please show me?”
I looked over at Kota, wordlessly asking him if he needed me.
“Go help,” he said.
“Kota,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “Grab the other end of her bed, will you?” He bent over, his tie swinging free from his blazer as he pushed my bed away from the wall.
I got up, confused at what they were doing, but Silas tugged me out of the room. His large, strong hand enveloped mine and I let him guide me down the hallway. I glanced into the bathroom on our way. North was pulling the loose bit of frame out with a pocket knife. The stool was gone. The shower behind him was in pieces, the plumbing pulled from the wall and spread on the floor. Did Silas do that?
I followed Silas down the back stairs and out into the garage. I lead the way across the drive to the shed in the back, opening the side door and stepping out of the way so Silas could enter.
I was hitting the switch as Silas shut the door behind us. We were cast into darkness. The old fluorescent lights above our heads crackled, needing time to heat up.
My skin tingled and my heart thundered. I was alone with Silas.
Silas’s hands found me in the dark. He hugged me close, tightly enough that my breath escaped my lungs. I froze, too stunned to move. His chin dropped to the top of my head, and the warm breath from his nose mixed into my hair.
With trembling fingers, I slipped my arms around him to hug him back. Was this what he needed?
His right arm went under my butt to hold me up and his other tightened at my back to press me to him. He scooped me up off the floor. My feet dangled on either side of his legs.
I buried my face into his shoulder, too breathless and consumed by his embrace. It was too close and everything I wanted right then. How did he know?
“Aggele mou,” he whispered, and he moved his face until his cheek was next to mine. “Sang, don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t you ever fucking wait...” His breath was hot against my ear.
I couldn’t speak. Tears stung my eyes. I hadn’t realized until that moment that Silas had been holding back something from everyone, waiting until we were alone to tell me this. I swallowed heavily, tightening my arms around his neck. My fingers slipped into his hair, feeling the smooth black locks. I felt so bad. I’d scared him.
“Don’t you ever wait to call me,” he said. “I don’t care if you stubbed your toe or you’re just lonely. You don’t even have to wait until then. You call, I’ll be here.” He sighed, pressing his lips close to my ear and whispered. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be here at all. I’d take you home with me now.”
“Silas,” I croaked out a whisper. My mind whirled and I sucked back a sob. I didn’t want to cry. If I cried now, I wouldn’t be able to hold it in any more. Silas’s hug felt good, but I was trying my best to be brave around the guys and not show how scared I was. Monsters. Demons. All the scary things my dreams held and my mother whispered to me over the years. I could handle anything she threw me into. I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t see Silas so freaked out.
Silas shuddered against me. His large hand smoothed across my back. “When you called my name on the phone, I knew. Your voice squeaked, but I heard you. The line cut out and I couldn’t get here fast enough. I came as quick as I could. Kota and the others were across town and couldn’t get back sooner. I called Nathan and stayed on the line with him when I couldn’t get back in touch with you. I knew something was wrong. When he couldn’t find you, I thought maybe we were too late.” He growled softly in my ear. “Aggele mou, Sang. We were almost too late.”
“Silas,” I whispered. “You came for me. I’m here. It’s okay.”
He pulled back enough until he could press his forehead to mine. The light above finished warming and flickered to life. I was caught up in those soft brown eyes of his, dark and soothing, glistening. “Promise me,” he demanded. “Say it.”
“I won’t wait,” I whispered. I swallowed hard. “Silas, I promise. I’ll call.”
He grunted, pulled me in close against him once again and sighed into my shoulder. “I hate this,” he said. “I don’t want you here with them.”
Where else did I have to go? I couldn’t go home with him or anyone else. I couldn’t join the Academy, if I’d wanted and even if Kota said it was fine. My parents wouldn’t allow it. The only way to leave would be to call the cops but the results wouldn’t be what any of us wanted. “It’s not for forever,” I whispered. “If I ran away with you, they’d come after me. Won’t everyone else get into trouble?”
He grunted again and lowered me to the ground, keeping a hand on me to make sure I was stable. He pulled away to rub at his face. “Fine. Let’s fix your damn shower.”
“Was it broken?” I asked. I turned from him, my head buzzing after all the emotions. I sucked in some air and looked for the toolbox on the shelves.
“I felt like breaking it,” he said. His eyes moved to the collection of boxes that took up the majority of the floor in the garage. It was a mess and I was embarrassed by it but he didn’t seem put off. “So I just took it apart. I’m going to put a timer on it, though. If she even attempts to do it again, it’ll only be on for a half hour before it cuts off. You can flip it off and turn it back on again, but it’ll stop it from being run for hours on end like that.”
“Wh
ere’d you learn how to do that?” I wasn’t sure he heard me. I found the toolbox and pulled it off the shelf.
He took the box away from me. “My dad’s a plumber,” he said.
I’d half expected him to say the Academy. I smiled to myself. For friends, we still hardly knew each other. I wondered how many other secrets the guys had, and was sure they had many more than I did. I felt as if they were helping a near complete stranger, which was so messed up because my heart was telling me I was much closer to them than my own family that I’d known all my life.
♥♥♥
When we got back upstairs, North had the door off of the hinges.
Silas held up the tool box. “No wood,” he said.
“Damn,” North said. He blew out a sigh. “Okay, I’m going to make a new door and a new frame. Silas, you beat the shit out of it.”
“Yup,” Silas said, beaming.
“Sang Baby? Could you fetch me a pen?” North took the toolbox from Silas’s hands and opened the lid, pulling out a measuring tape and evaluating the other contents.
I sourced a pen and paper and gave them to North and headed down to my bedroom again. Mr. Blackbourne and Kota were next to the far wall, talking. The bed had been moved. Now instead of against the wall, the bed was sticking out lengthwise into the room, with the head of it under the window. The bookshelf was moved near the half door to the attic. It created another barrier, making a square space in front of the attic door.
“It creates an entry way,” Kota was saying, “but it makes it kind of obvious that she might be trying to mask that attic door.”
Mr. Blackbourne rubbed his palm against his cheek. “There’s no other furniture to work with. Unless they demand she move it, leave it there. We’re not prepared to escalate.”
Escalate? What did that mean? I moved further into the room, trying to figure out why they wanted to block the view of the attic door from the entryway. I looked at Kota, asking silent questions.
He smiled. “Gabriel,” he called.
The attic door opened and Gabriel popped his head out. “Yeah?”
“Show Sang.”
Gabriel crawled out of the space, with his two locks of dyed blond hair hanging across his forehead. The rest of his rich, russet brown hair was mussed in the back. He left the door to the attic open. He dropped on top of my bed and spread out a little.
“Go,” Mr. Blackbourne said.
Gabriel leapt from the bed, dropped behind the bookshelf, slid across the floor and quietly shut the attic door behind himself as he crawled in.
“Horrible,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “You’re not fast enough.”
“Oy,” Gabriel called from the attic. He opened the door again, letting it swing across the carpet until it stopped. “You try it.”
“You still need a security signal,” Kota said.
“We could just put a better lock on her door. One they can’t open with a push pin,” Gabriel said, crawling out of the space again.
I shook my head. Kota seemed to read my mind and knew the answer to this. “It’d be ideal but it probably won’t happen. They’d notice a new lock.”
Victor appeared in the doorway, his eyebrow going up at the rearranged furniture. “Mr. Blackbourne,” he said. “You should come see.”
I shot a questioning look at Victor but he held up his palm at me. I wasn’t supposed to go along.
Mr. Blackbourne crossed the room, passing me closer than he really needed to. I could smell his spring soap scent. “Stay here,” he commanded of me in a low voice.
I rubbed at my eyebrow, feeling awkward. Mr. Blackbourne temporarily grounded me to my room.
“Trouble,” Gabriel said. He leaned off the bed so he could grab my hand. “Come show me the platform in the back.”
I sighed. “We need a flashlight.”
Kota pulled a set of keys from his pocket, Attached was a metallic green flashlight. He unhooked the light from the keychain and handed it to me. “Don’t hurt yourself in there.”
“Hey,” Gabriel said, pouting his lips in a way that made my heart melt. “You didn’t say that to me.”
Kota waved him off and strolled out of the room and down the stairs.
I walked around the bed toward the open attic door. Gabriel got on his knees behind me, ready to follow. I flicked on the flashlight and crawled on my knees through the attic space. Gabriel left the door open, shuffling behind me. He had another flashlight on, attached to his own keys and was shining it around the space, looking at the exposed beams and the insulation.
I crawled inside about ten feet and found the platform in the back. I pointed the flashlight back to him to get his attention, swinging the light so he could see the one beam of wood that cut through the middle of the opening. I slipped between the beam and the wall, angling myself in. The platform space was as big as a closet, with enough room above our heads to stand up fully if we wanted.
Gabriel put his flashlight between his teeth and angled himself in. He got in on his knees, and sat down, crossing his legs. He sought my hand in the dark and tugged until I nearly fell into his lap. He held me with one arm around my waist, while he shined the flashlight around, checking how high the ceiling went. “You call us from here?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I think it’s above the laundry room.” I swallowed, the air was so dry and hot, I felt my throat getting scratchy again. My hands were pressed against his chest as he held me close. I squirmed, twisting to see where he was looking.
A playful chop landed on my head. “Stop wriggling.” He pulled his cellphone out. “We need Luke.”
“Why?”
Gabriel ignored me, pressing the phone to his ear. “Oy Luke, get up here to Sang’s attic. Have you been back here? Come check this out.”
A moment later, there was scuffling on the other side of the attic. I swung the flashlight around to help Luke find his way along. Gabriel did the same, casting us into darkness. I sensed his face getting close to mine and I held my breath, unsure of what he was doing. His tongue met my skin and he licked from my jaw to my cheek. I choked out a squeal, poking him in the stomach out of surprise. He lurched forward, laughing.
Luke popped his head up between the beam and the wall of the platform. “What’s so funny?”
I tilted the flashlight around to hold it like a candle between us, lighting up the area with a gentle glow. “Gabriel,” I whispered, “he...”
“Is a fucking handsome guy. He already knows, Trouble.” Gabriel smirked. “Luke, tell me we can take out that beam right there.” Gabriel swung his flashlight at the exposed 4x4 that split the opening. I had to go around it to crawl into the platform.
“Hm,” Luke said. He borrowed the flashlight from my hands. He checked out the beam and the surrounding wood. “Maybe.” He started to rise, putting a hand on my shoulder to steady himself as he crawled onto the platform. Luke leaned into me, and kept himself close. His chest was pressed at my back. His breath tickled my neck.
I pressed myself against Gabriel to give Luke more room. My insides flipped around. Being so close and in near darkness with these two left me blushing.
Gabriel rocked back, leaning up against one of the other beams surrounding the platform. His strong arms around my waist dragged me along. “Yes? No? What?”
“It doesn’t look important,” Luke said. He stood, finding where the wood disappeared further into the roof structure. He swung the beam of light around, reaching up above his head, trying to touch the ceiling above us. “Probably can take it out,” he said. “Not today though. It’ll take some work and we’re running out of time.” He crouched down again, his chest again close to my back and his face close to mine. “The space is small.”
“Good enough for her,” Gabriel said. I felt his lips moving against my forehead. It was way too crowded with three people. “You should walk the house and see if anyone can hear us.”
“You go,” Luke said.
“Call North.”
Luke pulled out hi
s phone and dialed a number. “I’ll call Nathan. North’s run off to our house to grab another door.” He paused with the phone to his ear. He leaned his head forward, bumping his nose into my cheek. I twisted my head to smirk at him and he was grinning. “Nathan?” he asked, looking right at me as he talked. “Walk the house, see if you can hear me talking to you. Well, stop being busy, we need to test this attic space.” He pulled the phone from his face a little. “Start talking so he can hear.”
I twisted my lips, rolling my eyes. “Luke,” I whispered.
Behind my head, Gabriel started singing the theme song to Friends. Luke started laughing, joining in. Gabriel’s voice was golden, but Luke’s voice was polished, too. I was giggling so hard, I pressed my forehead against Gabriel’s shoulder, smothering myself and breathing in the scent of a light fruity and spice musk. My shoulders shook as I laughed.
“What?” Luke stopped singing to talk on the phone. “Well I mean how much? Where?” Luke motioned to Gabriel, spinning his finger like he wanted him to keep going.
Gabriel started singing again, repeating the chorus as Luke rattled questions off to Nathan.
Luke hung up. “Okay, he can hear us on the back stairs and in the laundry room. We need to soundproof.”
“We should do that to her room, too,” Gabriel said.
“But then she couldn’t hear anyone coming,” Luke said.
“God damn it,” Gabriel said. He shifted his legs, moving me in the process until my body was tucked neatly into his chest, his hands against my back. “Fuck all this. Let’s just take her.”
“Gabriel,” I whispered.
A chop landed on my head again. “Shush,” Gabriel said. “Men are talking.”
I laughed, and I poked him in the ribs. He was always picking on me, but I secretly loved it. He was fun and amazing.
“Ow,” Gabriel said, letting go of me with one hand to rub at his ribs, feigning hurt and grinning.
“Hey,” Nathan called from the attic door. “You’ve got Sang back there?”
“Maybe,” Luke called back.