by C. L. Stone
I crawled out of Nathan’s bed, stumbling on the carpet, blurry-eyed. I padded out to the hallway. “Kota?”
Silence.
I stepped into the kitchen, which was eerily quiet. “Nathan?”
Nothing.
I flinched. The kitchen looked clean. The living room was quiet. I checked the bathroom. The house was empty.
I checked outside, the shed door was closed, the pool and the yard abandoned.
I paused in the living room. I wasn’t sure what to do. Were they at the diner? I suspected if they didn’t wake me, it was probably Academy business. I was surprised they didn’t tell me they were leaving. Or if they did, maybe I was too asleep to remember.
What surprised me the most was that no one had called or checked in.
I found my phone in Nathan’s bed, mixed up in the sheets. When I pushed the button, it didn’t turn on. I groaned, realizing I didn’t charge it.
I stood in Nathan’s bedroom, unsure of what to do. It amazed me how much I relied on the others now. I felt awkward being alone inside Nathan’s house and wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do for the day. It amused me. Before I had thought it odd that Kota seemed to guide my every move and here I was lost without him. How crazy was that?
I checked Nathan’s closet, finding shorts and a shirt to wear for the day. Even then, I hesitated, wondering if there was something I’d end up doing which would require me to wear something else. Without knowing what they wanted, every move seemed awkward. It was tempting to spend the day relaxing and doing whatever I wanted, but a deep part of me knew what I wanted was to be around them. The truth was, I enjoyed their company a lot; it made me happy and satisfied when I was with them. I didn’t feel so lonely and felt much more confident when they were by my side.
I dressed quickly. Nathan had a similar phone and I could probably charge my phone with his charger, but I didn’t know where he kept it and still felt awkward being in his house alone. I left, making sure to lock up behind myself, and walked home.
When I got to my house, I felt a strange sense of returning to something not quite right. At first, I thought it was because I’d spend two nights away from the house, and I’d never been gone for that long before.
I stepped into the living room. Soda cans and water bottles littered the floor, along with an empty bowl, save for some unpopped popcorn kernels at the bottom.
The garbage was from more than what a single person could consume.
Eyes wide, I tiptoed through the house. Out of habit, I checked my parents’ bedroom first. It was empty, the air stale from disuse.
I treaded my way through the hallway and up the stairs. On the landing, I paused, listening. Quiet.
I tiptoed to my room. When I got there, I twisted the handle and when I’d opened it a crack, I let the handle go slowly as to not make any noise. I gently pushed the door open, careful not to let it hit the wall.
A figure was outlined in my bed under my blanket. Someone was sleeping there.
I figured it could be Luke or Gabriel or one of the other guys. Why did whoever it was come here and not over to Nathan’s where I was? Kota would have told them I was there. Or maybe they slept over here for another reason. It didn’t bug me, but I was confused.
I sniffed at the air, trying to figure out which one it was, only I couldn’t catch a scent I was familiar with. I thought for sure it must be Gabriel. He smelled different all the time. I tiptoed closer, and smiled to myself. I’d surprise attack whoever it was.
I angled myself, trying to figure out the best place to jump on the bed so I wouldn’t hurt him where I landed. I counted off from three in my head and jumped.
I landed with my knees on either side of the body, my hands on the blanket to pin whoever it was down. “Boo!” I called out, but my voice cracked with laughter at the end.
A shout barked from under the blanket and I was flung from the bed. I landed hard on the carpet, tumbling. I cried out in surprise, not expecting to have been thrown that hard.
The blanket was yanked back. Derrick’s sleepy face appeared, looking stunned and creeped out.
My mouth fell open and I sat up quickly. “Derrick! What are you doing here?”
He blinked at me as if he was unsure what I was asking him. His eyes flittered around the room, he shook his head, recognition settling in. “Oh. Sorry. Your sister said you were at Kota’s.”
I got up on my knees. “You spent the night?”
Derrick nodded.
“Did you stay up late?” I thought I should have been upset, but I wasn’t. It simply surprised me. I didn’t know Derrick and Marie were friends.
“We were watching movies downstairs,” he said, moving to the edge of the bed and rubbing at his face with a palm. “My sister is over in Marie’s room.”
My eyes widened but I recovered before he stopped rubbing at his face. Danielle was here. How much did they know? “Sorry about jumping on you. I thought you were ... um ... I don’t know. Gabriel or someone.”
He smirked. “Marie said they slept here on occasion. I didn’t know it meant in your bed.”
I blushed. “It’s not like ...”
Derrick rolled his eyes and waved a hand at me. “No, I know. They’re perfect gentlemen. They probably sleep in their clothes and facing the wall and everything.”
“You’re not going to tell people at school, are you?”
Derrick laughed, standing up. He was wearing jean cut-off shorts and a T-shirt. He combed back his dark brown hair. “And risk the wrath of Blackbourne? No, thank you.”
“He wouldn’t be like that.”
“Oh yes, he would,” Derrick said. “Are they downstairs?”
“They aren’t here.”
He blinked at me. “Seriously? Are they on their way?”
Why was this hard to believe? I knew they were around a lot. I couldn’t blame him. They seemed to be my shadows lately. “I don’t know.” I showed him my dead phone. “I woke up and they were gone. Forgot to charge this.”
“You better do it,” he said.
I hesitated. My problem was the phone charger was in the attic, and I wasn’t sure I was supposed to tell anyone I used that space. He knew about the Academy though, and he hadn’t told anyone, as far as I knew.
That alone was tempting. He might be able to tell me more about it. If I showed him some trust, maybe he’d show me some in return.
“Can you keep a secret?” I asked.
Derrick shifted an eyebrow up. “I guess so.”
“I just don’t want Marie or Danielle finding out,” I said, and moved to the half-sized attic door. I knelt on the floor, and opened the door. I reached in, flicking the light switch.
Derrick knelt on the floor next to me. I knee walked, finding my phone charger on top of the small wardrobe. I plugged in the phone and sat back on my ankles, looking back at Derrick.
Derrick’s gazed at the dark carpet and the light fixtures in the wall. He touched the ceiling that was painted a similar dark color. “Did you do this?”
“The guys did,” I said.
Derrick smirked. “You really are in deep, huh?”
I bit my lower lip, unsure how to respond.
He tilted his head, looking around my shoulder. “What’s back there?”
I motioned for him to follow, crawling toward the platform. The rose sconces lit the way, revealing the pink and black bean bag chair and the collection of photos.
Derrick made a low whistle, plopping cross-legged on the carpet. “Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t remake your bedroom. That’s what they do. Lure you with nice things and suddenly they’re asking favors.”
“They’re not that bad,” I said, feeling defensive. Maybe it was a mistake to show him this. What was wrong with favors? Or was it a favor at all he was talking about? Maybe he meant how they were always working. I thought of Kota and Nathan pitching in at the diner, not giving it a second thought. That wasn’t a favor. It was being nice and helping.
His dark eyes and angular face fixed on me. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself in to?”
A finger fluttered to my mouth, pinching my lip to my teeth. “I think they’re nice. They do good things.”
“Yeah. But they aren’t normal.” He motioned to the attic space around us. “Secret attic spaces. Secret plans. A secret school no one can visit unless you’re a member.”
I remembered something Mr. Blackbourne had told me when I first asked him questions about the Academy. “They said they’d be swamped with applications and parents wanting to get their kids inside.”
“Or maybe,” Derrick said, “they are up to stuff they don’t want other people finding out. Secrets are kept for a reason. It’s usually a bad reason.”
I didn’t have a response. It was the same attitude Mr. Hendricks had, but Derrick had been closer to the guys than our principal. “I’d like to keep this attic a secret. Is that wrong?”
He flinched. “I guess not. That’s where it starts though. First it is little stuff like attic spaces. Next thing you know, you’re burying bodies in the woods and sworn to a blood oath or something like that.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“Will you ever know for sure?”
You believing there’s a secret makes it seem more important than it is.
Mr. Blackbourne’s words echoed through me. If I trusted in what Mr. Blackbourne told me, the Academy’s secrets were a lot like this attic space. Would it be a huge deal if Marie or Danielle knew? It wasn’t illegal, and it wasn’t really important. It was simply less complicated keeping the information limited to a select group of people, people who were used to swearing secrecy and keeping their word.
I smirked at Derrick, feeling more confident in my answer. “I’m pretty sure they don’t kill people.”
Derrick laughed. “Yup. They got to you, too.”
I pouted. “Is it that bad?”
Derrick shrugged. “Not really. Just make sure you find out all the details before you sign up completely. I mean, seriously, they never take a day off.”
The phone started rattling on top of the wardrobe. A text message was coming in.
“See what I mean?”
♥♥♥
I responded to Kota’s text asking if I was okay. I let him know Derrick was with me at my house. He didn’t seem surprised by this and told me Nathan would be back later that afternoon. If Derrick had to leave before Nathan got back, he wanted me to head for the diner. North was there, Luke wasn’t.
It was tempting to head to the diner anyway, but given that North was there and none of the others were, I was hesitant. I didn’t mean to avoid him, but if he was grumpy, I wasn’t sure he’d want me around. There was also the way Uncle had reacted when North fed me the slice of strawberry. I wasn’t clear on what it meant, and I wanted Kota or the others around if I was to return.
Derrick, however, was primed to get outside and do something. I followed him out to the driveway, and watched as he played basketball. I was going to join him, but part of me was tired still, and I wanted to be lazy.
At one point, the basketball rolled out of control toward the wide work shed at the very end of the driveway. It smacked against the shed’s front rolling door.
“What’s in there, anyway?” Derrick asked. He clasped at his side, breathing heavily. He’d removed his shirt, and his chest glistened with sweat. He swiped his forehead with the back of his arm.
“A bunch of boxes,” I said. “Actually, I don’t remember.” Now that I was thinking about it, I was curious, too. I’d been so busy with Academy secrets that a lot of the boxes my parents hadn’t unpacked in the shed left me wondering if there was anything forgotten and possibly useful.
I stood up, and crossed the driveway toward the shed. Derrick followed behind me, curious.
I turned the latch, and tried pulling the large front shed door up. It stuck about a foot off the ground. Derrick joined me, and tugged the door. Together, we managed to lift it over our heads.
Inside, the collection of boxes was bigger than I thought. “Well,” I said. “I think I found my new weekend project.” I counted the boxes, and I guessed it would probably take a week for me to clean it out if I were to do it alone.
Derrick squinted into the space. There was a blue utility carpet on the floor. A collection of shelves lined the walls. I found a switch for the fluorescent tube lighting. The lights flickered overhead but were dim, warming up. When they finally flickered to life, we stepped inside, glancing around.
“What’s in these?” he asked, pushing at a wardrobe box.
“I don’t know,” I said. “When we moved, there was a lot of stuff in the old garage, things we weren’t supposed to play with or old toys we’d outgrown.”
Derrick weaved his way further into the shed, scanning the items placed on top of boxes. There was an old lamp on one, and I was sure it didn't work anymore. There was an old kitchen chair with a broken seat. It made me wonder why they bothered to items if they were broken.
I was starting to open the lid to one of the taller boxes to peek inside when Derrick called to me. “What are these?” he asked.
I weaved my way through until I was behind him and leaned to look around his arm. There were a couple of old bicycles on the ground amid more boxes and broken furniture.
Memories reeled back through me. “I forgot about those. We got those when I was eight, I think.” It was before my mother had gotten really sick. My father had bought them used from a neighbor who had been moving at the time. After my mother started on the medication, we slowly became restricted to being isolated in our rooms a lot and I’d eventually forgotten about the bikes. They weren’t very useful to me when I used to escape and take walks through steep hills. I wasn’t allowed to ride them in the street, and they were road bikes and couldn’t go through the woods. “Marie’s is the white one,” I said, pointing. “Mine was the gray one.”
Derrick knelt and picked up the white one, pulling it loose and holding it up. He inspected the tires and the chain, turning the pedals with his hand. “Looks like it still works. The tires need to be filled. Let’s see if we can’t fix these.”
We found a tire pump on the shelf. Derrick tinkered with the bikes, filling the tires and testing the chains. I watched him work, a bemused smile on my face. Derrick said he didn’t like getting called up to work, but when something sparked his interest, he didn’t seem to mind digging in and putting in some effort. Maybe that’s why Mr. Blackbourne or the others thought he might be a good candidate for the Academy.
When he finished, he got on. He shifted the pedals, and glided smoothly out of the shed and out onto the driveway. “Not bad,” he said. He pumped the pedals a few times and then stood on them as the bike coasted. “Try the other one.”
I picked up the gray bike, nervous because I hadn’t used it in a while. I wondered how stable I would be since I was out of practice.
I balanced myself and sailed out of the shed, standing on the pedals like Derrick was doing. I did shake at first, but quickly adjusted, getting used to it again. I pedaled out to the end of the drive and made a wide turn almost into the yard to loop back around.
“They work,” Derrick said. He stopped, leaning over his and touching the chain, pushing at it with his finger. “Could use a little WD-40.”
“Don’t know what we could do with them,” I said. “It’s a short street. And there’s the busy road without a sidewalk at the end.”
Derrick shrugged. “Who cares if they’re useful? Why not just have them for fun?” He straightened again, tensing up and pushing the pedal down on his bike. “Let’s go.”
I pedaled after him, following his lead down the road. He raced me around the bend, past his house and out toward the diner on the other end of the half circle street.
When we got close to the diner, he paused, stopping in the middle of the road and putting his bare feet on the blacktop. I stopped my bike next to him, confused. “What’s w
rong?”
He gazed out toward the diner, his eyes looking over the collection of cars. “It’ll be busier over here. A lot more people than usual.”
“It’s North and Luke’s uncle’s diner,” I said. “It’s good that it is busy, isn’t it?”
Derrick frowned. “Micah and Tom live across the street there.” He motioned to a trailer that was planted on the other side of the highway, and to another one about a hundred feet down the road on the same side. “It’ll make it harder for them to cross over if there’s more people coming here for this place.”
“Now who sounds like they’re Academy cavalry, looking out for everyone,” I said, and grinned. “They’re old enough to look both ways.”
Derrick made a face at me, turned the bike around and started racing down the street without replying.
We circled around the neighborhood a few times. When we were done, we pedaled back to the shed at my house. We spilled out under the shade of the open shed. Late September warmth was kicking my butt. How was I so cold the other night at the football game? The weather changes felt out of place to me.
Derrick was telling me about his own old bike, how he broke the frame and hadn’t bothered to get another one, when a familiar sedan pulled into the drive. I perked up, expecting Kota, but Nathan stepped out of the driver’s side. He was in jeans and a red Nike T-shirt. Even from the short distance away, I could see the dark circles under his eyes. How early had he gotten up?
Derrick sat up and held a hand up across his eyes against the light, looking out at Nathan as he approached. “Your entourage has arrived,” he said, smirking.
“Very funny,” I said. I waved at Nathan.
Nathan smiled as he approached. “Hey Peanut.” He gave a short nod to Derrick in greeting. His eyes fell on the bikes. “What are those?”
“Sang and I found them in the shed. We fixed them up,” Derrick said. “They’re pretty nice. Still work. We’ve been riding around on them, so I think the tires are okay.”
Nathan laughed. “You two have been having fun, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, happy I could get along for an afternoon without them hovering. Not that I wanted them to not come over, but I didn’t want them to feel they had to watch me every minute.