Ghost Bird: The Academy Omnibus Part 1: Books One - Four

by C. L. Stone

  I couldn’t kick them out. They looked exhausted. I secretly didn’t want them to go away, either. I was terrified we would get caught, but my sleepy head desired their closeness. I felt less lonely with them beside me.

  I shifted onto my side to try to give them more room. I relaxed against the pillow, listening to the noises in the house.

  When I woke up again, Luke’s arm was draped over my side, his nose pressed to my shoulder. Gabriel leaned against me, his foot on top of my ankle. I was hot and uncomfortable but didn’t want to move, didn’t want to wake them. Squished, I forced myself to go back to sleep.

  The air shifted around us, causing a draft against the wisps of hair across my forehead. My eyes fluttered, but I closed them again promptly. I dismissed it because the attic door was open and I thought I was sensing changes to the weather outside through it. Sleep was dragging me back in before I could think of why it was open.

  Dual smacking sounds shattered the silence. Gabriel stiffened next to me and jolted up until he was sitting. Luke tumbled away in a shot and fell out of the bed.

  I leapt up, scrambling on my knees until I was upright, afraid. I held my hands up, wary of monsters from my dreams suddenly come to life.

  “Ow,” Gabriel grumbled. “What the fuck?” He sat on the edge of the bed, a hand shoved against his face. Luke was on his knees on the floor, covering his forehead with a palm.

  “At least Sang is paying attention.” Kota’s voice sounded through the dark. The window was open behind him and a gentle breeze picked up the back of his hair. “What are you two doing sleeping?”

  Why didn’t he ask why they were sleeping next to me? Didn’t it bother him that they stayed so close with me? My insides shook at fully realizing they had slept in the bed with me. While I was half asleep, I appreciated that they were close by. Now that I was fully aware, it felt strange and especially awkward that Kota knew about it.

  “The attic sucks,” Gabriel whined. “And we were right here with Sang. Nothing happened.”

  “Mr. Blackbourne left you both here so you’d take shifts. Do I have to explain it?” He turned to me. “How are you?”

  I swallowed thickly. “Fine, I think.”

  “Nathan’s outside,” Kota said. “He’s going to take you both over to Silas’s apartment. Victor’s there already.”

  Nathan had a car? I didn’t know he could drive.

  Gabriel grumbled, feeling around in the dark for his shoes. “What time is it?”

  “Four a.m.,” Kota said. “Welcome to it.” He removed the pillow from the head of the bed so he could sit on the edge near me. “Gabriel, go with Victor to finalize some things. Make sure you check in with Mr. Blackbourne. Luke, you’ve got homework duty.”

  “I hate homework duty,” Luke said, but he stood up, rubbing at his eyes. He stumbled forward, bending over and wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “Bye, Sang.”

  An arm hooked around my neck from behind me. I was pulled back and Gabriel dropped his nose to the top of my hair. “Oy, Trouble,” he said. “Don’t let Kota boss you around.”

  “Get out of here, guys,” Kota said. “Nathan’s waiting.”

  Luke crawled through the window, followed by Gabriel. Kota got off the bed to close the window behind them.

  “I thought we were supposed to stay off of the roof,” I said.

  Kota pointed a finger at me. “You are supposed to stay off the roof. But no. We’re not ready to start sneaking in the back door yet.”

  “We’re going to be ready for that?” I asked, moving to kneel on the bed, grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around my body. Now that the surprise was over, I was chilled. The ceiling fan and the fan pointed at the attic stirred the cool night air seeping in.

  “We have to be ready for lots of things,” he replied. He dropped on the bed next to me, his arm moving behind my back. He leaned against me, his shoulder pressing to mine. “You knew I was in the room before the other two. I saw you open up your eyes. How did you know?”

  “I felt the air shift,” I said. “Probably from when you opened the window.”

  “You’re a light sleeper?”

  I nodded. I normally was. That’s what surprised me about waking up with the guys next to me. I blamed the red pills Gabriel had given me.

  I breathed in deeply in a half yawn, smelling fresh soap and his spice. How early in the morning did he get up?

  “You should still be more careful,” he said. “I had time to get in and thunk those two in the head. It would have been enough time for your mom or Marie to open that door and catch us.”

  “I thought they were going to sleep in the attic,” I said. “They snuck into the bed after I passed out last night.” I shifted on the bed, pushing back the blanket from my shoulders to rub at my cheek and yawn.

  “If they try that again, tell them to get back in the attic. Someone is supposed to stay awake and they aren’t fast enough to get into the attic from the bed in a dead sleep.”

  I nodded. The skin around the bandages itched. I lifted the corner of one on my wrist, to peek at the wound. It wasn’t a cut, but the skin had been rubbed raw, enough to make the skin scab over. I ripped off the other one from my wrist and the two on my ankles.

  Kota stood and grabbed his book bag that was by the window. He plopped the bag onto the bed and dug through the contents. “Silas got these for you.” He handed over a small plastic bag with a sports store logo on the outside.

  Inside the bag were two hot pink sport wrist bands. I smiled. “He was asking about my favorite color.”

  “Gabriel would have a fit,” Kota said, putting the bag aside and sitting next to me again. “I agree with Silas, though. We’ll need to hide those scabs on Monday.”

  “I like them.”

  The corner of his mouth jerked up briefly. “Good. He’ll be glad to hear it from you.” He brushed his fingertips across my wrist, tugging my hand close to him so he could examine my skin. “God, Sang... it’s awful.”

  I pressed my fingers into my palm and withdrew my hand away from him. “It’s fine. It’ll heal,” I said softly.

  Kota’s gaze fixed on me, his glasses glinting a little from the street lights outside. His face came close to mine. “Stop doing that to yourself,” he said. His hand drifted to my cheek, curling a lock of my hair between his fingers. “You’re dismissing what’s been done to you.”

  I scrunched my eyebrows together. “I remember everything,” I said.

  “But you’re not angry. You’re not complaining. Would you even tell me if your head hurt, or if your stomach hurt, if you thought I wouldn’t notice? Would you have told me about the rice on the floor or even about the shower if no one knew?”

  I bit my lip, glancing away. I didn’t know the answer to that. Was I supposed to tell people about every little ache and problem? No one else needed to deal with it.

  “What else hurts?” he asked me. His fingers sought out my chin and he brought my face around so I was looking at his eyes again. “Sang, when you’re friends with someone, you’re honest with them. Tell me what hurts.”

  I swallowed again, feeling my lips tremble. Why did I find it so difficult to talk now? As soon as he asked me the question though, I really didn’t feel anything hurting at all. Most of it was my tailbone, but at the moment since I wasn’t moving, it didn’t hurt. My wrists were tender and he already knew that. The pain in my ankle wasn’t bothering me yet.

  “Sang,” he whispered, but the power in his voice was taking over, commanding an answer.

  “I am a little sore,” I offered.

  “Is that it?”

  “And my wrists and ankles...”

  His eyebrow arched.

  “My, um... I think I might have cracked my tailbone.”

  His head tilted. “How?”

  My cheeks heated. “When Nathan and Silas were looking for me in the house and I was in the shower. I could hear them talking. I was trying to make noise so I jumped with the stool to try to get t
he wood to bang against the tub.”

  He sighed. He shifted, wrapping his arms around my waist. He sat cross legged on the bed and I let him pull me into his lap. He pressed his cheek to the top of my head, keeping his arms around me. “Is that it?”

  “I think so. I mean the ankle you know about, but it isn’t so bad right now,” I said. My fingertips pressed to his chest and I rested my head against his shoulder. I couldn’t believe how easily I’d let him pick me up into his lap. When he’d done it at Nathan’s house in front of everyone, I was too in need of wanting to feel him, or anyone, that I didn’t give it a second thought. Here and now, when he didn’t need to but did it anyway, I didn’t know what to think. He called me his friend. Do friends do this?

  “Why didn’t you tell me about your tailbone yesterday?”

  “We were kind of busy,” I whispered.

  His cheek rubbed against my hair. “Sang, you need to speak up for yourself more.”

  “I’m not used to talking.”

  His hand lifted, brushing at the hair against my face. He curled a lock behind my ear. “I like it when you talk to me,” he whispered.

  “I like when you talk to me, too.”

  The corner of his mouth curled up. “Then we have to talk together a lot more.”

  The way he said it made my heart flutter. I did enjoy talking with him, and lately I rarely got to spend time alone with him like this. Did he mean to say he wanted more like this or something else? “What happens today?” I asked, not sure how to approach what I’d been really thinking about.

  “Well,” he said, dropping his hand against my leg, his wrist hanging loosely over my knee. His other hand rubbed my back. “You and I are going to have a nice, quiet Sunday. We’ll keep an eye on your mother. Nathan should be back soon and he wanted to hang out.”

  “I didn’t know he drove,” I said.

  Kota grinned. “Sweetie, we all drive.”

  “He has a car?”

  “He took mine.”

  “You let him borrow yours?”

  “He can use it when he needs it,” Kota said. “We all have copies of each other’s keys.”

  “To your cars?”

  “To everything.”

  I twisted my lips. Something in his eyes let me in on a secret I wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me. “Do you have a copy of the key to my house?”

  He tilted forward, pulling his set of keys from his pocket. There was a house key with a pink cover near the top of the ring.

  “Kota,” I said. I thought I should be shocked or angry about it, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t hurt that he’d done it, just that he didn’t tell me. If he had asked me for one, I would have given it to him. North must have made copies when he’d made them for me and Marie. Was Kota not going to tell me they had those?

  “It was convenient of you to bring us one,” he said, stuffing the keys back into his pocket.

  “So everyone has one?”

  He seemed hesitant to respond, but he nodded. “If they didn’t before, they do now.”

  I made a face. “Do I get your keys?” It only seemed fair.

  He laughed softly. “I suppose you should get mine. Maybe Nathan’s. I don’t know how you’d get to anyone else’s house to use a key.”

  Wasn’t that a big deal to have copies of someone’s key? Did friends keep copies of house keys and car keys? “Maybe I’ll learn how to drive.”

  “You still need a car.”

  “Maybe I’ll borrow your car,” I said, giggling.

  He grinned and his hand brushed over my side, tickling. “If you ask nicely.”

  I gasped, laughing and playfully patted his hand. “Could I please borrow your car, Kota?”

  “Nope.”

  “Aw.”

  “I have to teach you how to drive, first.”

  I perked up. “You’ll teach me?”

  “Who else was going to?”

  I didn’t have the answer to that. Outside of the guys, who else would ever teach me how to drive? Marie was old enough now but we knew better than to ask our parents. It wasn’t an option open to us.

  “Anyway,” he said. “You’ve done your homework, right?”

  I nodded.

  “It might be a good idea to start working ahead when you can.” He reached for his book bag and dragged it closer. “If it gets busier in the next couple of weeks, we won’t have to study so hard to keep up.”

  “Are we going to be busy?”

  He was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing over the zipper of his book bag. “Sang...”

  The silence hung in the air, thick with secrets. “Does the Academy keep you busy?”

  His fingers curled into a fist. “There’s a lot that needs to be done.”

  “Do you have the time to sit here with me?” I asked.

  His eyes darkened and his expression turned serious. “Of course,” he insisted.

  “But I make things complicated.”

  He shook his head, but a little too quickly. “It’s nothing.”

  I chuffed. “Friends are honest with each other, Kota. If there’s important work to do, the last thing you need is me getting in the way.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” he said.

  “I’m not afraid of being alone,” I said. I didn’t want to be, though. I didn’t want him to leave. I just needed to be sure I wasn’t being totally selfish. If I got them to stay when they needed to be somewhere else, would they come to resent me? “I’ve been fine.”

  He frowned. “You weren’t fine yesterday.”

  “I’m fine now. I didn’t realize she would do that.”

  “What happens the next time you think it’s not going to be that bad and it ends up killing you?”

  “What if that never happens?”

  “Then we’re lucky,” he said. “But we’re not taking the risk.”

  I blew out a breath. “Why?”

  His head reeled back, an eyebrow going up. “What do you mean?”

  “Why me?”

  “God, Sang,” he pulled me back into his arms. I wanted to push him away because I was feeling confused. When he hugged me against him, the warmth in his body melted my rigid composure. He buried his face into my hair at the top of my head. “What happened to you? You’re intelligent, sweet, considerate. You’re too nice to speak up for yourself, even when you’re in trouble. If one of us isn’t right on top of you, you end up stuck inside a tree, or you’re tied up in the shower, or hanging off the arm of some goon at school. And you’re asking me if I’m inconvenienced?” He nuzzled his cheek against my head. “You’re a beautiful wreck.”

  I swallowed hard, my head pressed up against his chest. Was that horrible? Was that supposed to make me feel better? “There are a lot of girls in trouble out there, Kota. There’s many who have it much worse than I do.”

  His breath warmed my skin through my hair. His fingers rubbed at my back and side, massaging. I thought he wasn’t going to answer. It was true. There were girls kidnapped and tortured every day. My mother said so.

  “When I first started at the Academy,” Kota whispered to me, “I thought the same thing. You might have noticed the Academy helps when it can. I wondered how they picked who they helped and why. There’s so much that needs to be done. Why didn’t we try helping everyone we came across?” His cheek brushed against my head again. “But we can’t help everyone, Sang. We can’t do it all. We have to trust that there’s other people doing their best for those they love and hope it works out. We start with friends and family. That’s our priority. If that’s in order, we move on to helping others where we can. Family first, Sang. Always.”

  “But I’m not family,” I whispered.

  “You’re one of us,” he said, the command in his voice returning. His fingertip traced the tip of my chin, drawing my head up so I could look into his eyes. His forehead hovered over mine, warming. “I know you don’t feel it yet. You’ve got a family that doesn’t act like one. It takes time to get used to s
omeone caring about you when you’ve never had it. You might not know this, but Nathan and the others know exactly what you’re going through.”

  My lips parted. “What do you mean?”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “They should tell you about it, but none of their families are very close.”

  “Your mother is,” I said. “And your sister.”

  “We are,” he said. “The others’ families aren’t. It wasn’t very hard for them to recognize how lost you were. It’s part of the reason why they wanted you.”

  I thought about Nathan’s dad, who I’d yet to see. Nathan said he flew helicopters and was gone a lot. North and Luke lived with an uncle, and hadn’t even known each other existed for a long time. I wondered about Gabriel and Silas and Victor. They were all caring and affectionate around me, something I never really experienced with my own family. How did they figure it out?

  Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe they were having just as hard a time figuring this out as I was. “I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “I don’t understand how. Or why.”

  “I know.” He pulled his head back, bringing a palm to my cheek, but still looking into my eyes. I forced mine to remain looking at his, but it was difficult. It felt like he could look inside, see everything. “We had a feeling and we made a decision. When you accepted us, we accepted you. It’s how we work. You’re one of us, Sang. So we’re here for you. Family first.”

  Family. They were already my friends, but now I was family? I couldn’t understand. We weren’t related and they still hardly knew me. I was one of them. I sighed. I wanted to believe it. A few weeks ago I was alone. Now here I was in Kota’s lap. My heart still raced. I wanted desperately to stay. I couldn’t find the words to say it. Tears brimmed in my eyes and I tucked my head down, pushing my forehead against his shoulder because I didn’t want him to see how unsure I was.

  “I know you don’t feel it, yet,” he whispered, his hand seeking out mine. He slipped a thumb across my palm, holding on to my hand. “You will. It’ll happen. If you want it to. You’ll always have the choice. Family is a choice.”

  “It is?”

  His thumb pressed into my palm firmly. “It’s your choice. Parents and siblings are your relations. Family takes care of one another and helps each other. When each side is working together, when everyone wants it, that makes the difference.”