by C. L. Stone
“If we stop at Starbucks,” Raven said, “don’t let Marc know.”
“Why don’t we tell him about Starbucks?” I asked.
“Marc thinks his coffee is better,” Corey said. “He’s always comparing.”
Raven got off the highway quickly and found a Starbucks drive-through. At the menu just before the speaker, Raven stopped the car. He turned right to me, looking at me in the face. “What would you like, little thief?”
Starbucks had always been out of my price range so I had to check. The way Raven was asking me felt weird. Intention filled his question.
I tilted my head to look at the menu, pretending not to be intimidated. “What’s good here, Corey?” I asked, redirecting the conversation. I wasn’t sure what Raven was getting at, but I didn’t want to take him head-on.
Corey studied the menu, seeming oblivious to what was going on. “How about we get a bunch of those sausage egg muffins? I want an iced mocha.”
“Anything else?” Raven asked. He’d never turned his focus from me.
I glanced at the menu again. “What’s a pumpkin bread, Corey?”
“I haven’t tried it,” he said. “Want one? Let’s get it.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Would you like a coffee?” Raven asked, his eyes narrowing but his lips lifted a little. He was amused. “Or do you want to ask Corey?”
I smirked. That was better.. “Corey, what’s a good coffee here?”
Corey looked back at me. “Hot or cold?” he asked. “I prefer the cold ones. The frappes are good.”
In the end, I got an iced mocha like Corey’s. Raven got a large regular coffee, six breakfast sandwiches and a slice of pumpkin bread.
“And…” Raven said, holding up the order and studying the menu. His head tilted and he smiled again. The lip ring protruding. “And a fruit cup.”
Raven didn’t strike me as a healthy sort of guy. Well, maybe he was. He had a stack of muscles. Maybe he felt like getting some vitamins in.
At the window, Raven paid and took the food. He passed the bag back to Corey, and placed the coffees in the cup holders.
When he got the fruit cup, he held on to it and started driving off.
He stopped the car just after the window, opened the fruit cup and then looked right at me.
He held it out.
“I got this for you,” he said, his eyes intent.
“Ah,” I said. Maybe he got it because I’d been eating a lot of junk. Hadn’t we all been eating the same things? Why didn’t he just ask me if I would eat one instead of ordering it for me? “Thank you,” I said, although it was almost a question. I took the cup.
He held on to it for a second, still looking at me. His smile broadened, “Good.”
I may have not had coffee yet, but this was a deliberate…something. “What?” I asked.
He inclined his head. “What what?”
“Why the fruit?” I asked. I may as well be frank. He was being weird. “Are you saying I eat too much junk?”
He grunted and rolled his eyes.
“Is it a Russian thing? You’re going to have to explain it to me.”
“Where I come from,” he said. “Girl sits at table in restaurant.” He pointed to me. Then he pointed to himself. “Guy buys her fruit salad.”
“What does a fruit salad mean?”
“Introduction,” he said. “Means … I would like to make your acquaintance.”
That doesn’t sound so bad. It’s how they ask to get to know a girl? I could go for that. Maybe he’s trying to start over. “What if she doesn’t want the salad?” I asked. I picked the top off the fruit cup. I pulled a strawberry out and then put it in my mouth, and talked while I ate. “What if she doesn’t eat it?”
He shrugged, smirking. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll talk to her anyway.”
“So it’s just a false premise.”
“Tradition.”
“It’s tradition for the girl to not have a choice?”
“She can say no. I’ll still talk to her.”
“And if she still doesn’t want to talk?”
He shrugged again, shaking his head. “Depends.”
I guessed it was a situational question. I didn’t imagine Russian girls to be compliant if they really wanted to not talk to a guy. She’d just have to say no a lot. No wonder they seemed so tough.
“Sounds weird to me,” Corey said from the back. He leaned forward and plucked a piece of melon from the cup. “What if the girl wants to talk to a guy? Does she buy him a fruit salad?”
“No,” Raven said.
“No as in it doesn’t happen?” Corey asked. “Or she doesn’t buy him a fruit salad?”
“Doesn’t happen.”
I looked back at Corey, sharing a glance with him. Corey smiled and lifted his hands up in a have-no-idea way.
Russians are complicated.
QUESTIONS
We split up the food. Raven pinched pieces off the pumpkin bread. Corey and I shared the fruit salad. We all had breakfast muffins.
The iced coffee was good. Marc’s coffee he’d made for me really was better, though.
When I felt almost human after coffee and food, I wanted to probe the guys with questions about the Academy. I couldn’t figure out an opening.
Raven put on the radio. Corey was in the middle seat, curled up with a pillow that had been in the back. They must go on these trips a lot. The back had a set of pillows and small blankets, along with other travel items.
I turned my head, catching how Corey fell asleep inside ten minutes. “How late was he up?” I asked Raven quietly.
Raven adjusted the rearview mirror. I imagined he was checking out Corey. “I don’t know.”
“How late were you up?”
“Late.”
“Doing what?”
He grunted, and passed a car, cutting the driver off without a blinker or a warning. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying. I was just curious.” I checked back on Corey again, but he was pretty quiet. His breathing was slow and even. “Can I ask you something?” I asked Raven.
“What?”
As soon as he said something, the opening I’d thought I’d prepared was gone. I went for blunt. “What’s this Academy thing? Really?”
He shoved his elbow against the door, and leaned with his head against his hand, propping himself up as he drove one-handed. “Nothing.”
“I know it’s a secret group already,” I said. “You’re a member. You use guns and you break into places. You blow up things.”
“That’s not what we do,” he said.
“You did it yesterday. Remember? I was there. We were jumping off the yacht and then you blew a hole in the ship. How did you do that?”
“Don’t ask me things.”
It was my turn to grunt. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it, because the people in charge told him to keep it a secret.
Axel seemed to be happy I’d discovered as much as I had on my own. None of them seemed to have a problem with me being included. They wanted me in, but they couldn’t tell me about it?
I quieted for a while, staring out the window as we passed Savannah. After, Raven took I-95, and all signs pointed to Florida after that. It made me think he’d been this way before. He didn’t have to check a GPS or ask Corey for directions.
As the miles went on, the road signs and trees were less and less interesting. I pulled out the cell phone Marc had given me, fiddling with it. “Does this have Internet?” I asked.
Raven looked over at the phone and then nodded. “Yes.”
I opened a few of the apps, checking out what I had access to. It was a basic phone, and I could work the browser and text messages. If I wanted something else, there was a store app. I’d never had too much access to cell phones so playing with this one was strange. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I tried simply using Google to research the boys. I didn’t want to be too obvious, because the phone w
as theirs and Corey probably had some tracking thing on it anyway. Still, entering things I knew about them into Google didn’t get me anywhere; it wasn’t like they had a Wikipedia page. The Academy? Nothing, just local schools. Axel Toma living in Charleston? Nothing, not even a Facebook page.
Corey Henshaw had a phone listing but nothing else. I wasn’t sure if it was the same Corey. Looking up Raven in Charleston showed me nothing. What was his real name? Ravenstahl? I wasn’t sure I was spelling it correctly, and wouldn’t know how to spell it in Russian. Besides, it was his last name and I didn’t know his first. I looked over at him casually. “What’s your first name?” I asked.
“Raven.”
“What’s your birth name?”
“Raven,” he said. “Ravenstahl.”
“I mean your first birth name.”
His lips twisted, the lip ring stuck out. “No.”
I smirked and did a small eye roll. “No Ravenstahl? Your first name is no?”
He rolled his eyes and he tilted his head at me. “No one needs to know my first name. Why?”
“Just wondering,” I said. I tried to come up with a reason. “Shouldn’t I know the first name of the guy that kissed me this morning?”
He grunted. He wasn’t going to answer.
“I don’t know anything about you.”
“What’s there to know? Is that the most important?” he asked.
“What’s more basic than knowing your real name?”
“Little Thief,” he said. He looked over at me, and then sat up, driving with his left hand and held out his right, palm up in offering. “Come here.”
I put the phone in my lap and then dropped my palm into his, trying to be compliant, feeling a compulsion to try to connect with him, since he offered.
His hand enclosed over mine and he gave it a squeeze. “I love my country,” he said. “I love mother Russia, but I was bad to her and she was bad to me back.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I left. With it, I left behind a lot of myself. Now, I’m just Raven. I’m not who I was. I’m someone new. Like you. You were someone else before. Now you’re with us and different.”
“Because I told you I wouldn’t steal wallets?”
“Because you said you give a shit and want to be different,” he said. “We asked you if you’d like to work for the good guys and you said yes.” He lifted my hand and brought it over, kissing the knuckle. “Now you’re Little Thief, but maybe I should give you a new name. Not thief.”
My lips parted and I ended up staring like an idiot at him, shocked at seeing a sweet side to him. “I just wanted to know.”
“Ask something else,” he said. He released me and focused on the road, where traffic was getting heavy.
I was running into a problem asking Raven things. I didn’t know what to ask next and I wasn’t sure I’d get an answer if I asked about Academy things. I’d have to wait to get a chance with Corey.
The more I was learning about them, though, the more I doubted myself. Maybe I was wrong.
However, I couldn’t let go of the feeling I had when I saw Mrs. Bernard with the files in her hand. Betrayed, especially since Wil was involved. I didn’t want him in the middle of this. I didn’t know what an adoption was but since it was expensive, would it mean Wil and I owed them money?
I glared at the window, watching the trees for a moment, trying to put a lid on my simmering anger. I didn’t want to lash out and create consequences that touched Wil. No, I should keep digging.
I went back to the cell phone, checking email on the off chance Wil may have tried emailing me. I didn’t think he would. I never told him the email address. It was just one I used for job hunting and I talked to him in person every day so it wasn’t important.
The email came with a phone number, too, but it only took voice messages. The voicemail box was flashing.
I felt my heart lift at the sight of it. Job offer? Or Wil? Did I ever give Wil that number?
When a voicemail comes in, the program translates it into text. There were no less than twenty messages. All the transcribed messages were the same.
Call me.
I sat up quickly. I didn’t recognize the number. My heart thundered against my chest.
Raven glanced over at me. “What?”
I stayed quiet, sitting back. If this was Wil, I didn’t want the Academy boys to know. Not yet. I didn’t want the Academy to find Wil before I discovered what they were about. I was already out of the state, too far to turn back. I was cursing myself for asking to go on this trip. I dropped the phone into my lap, trying to pretend to be bored. “Nothing. Junk mail. Thought it might be a job offer.”
He chuckled. “Do you really want to work at the mall? Do you want a job like that?”
“What other kind of job is there?” I asked, not really caring but wanting to distract him further.
“Something more exciting.”
“Like working for the Academy?”
He shrugged. “Work for me.”
I rolled my eyes. He shared an apartment with two other guys. He didn’t have money. I couldn’t imagine what he was offering.
When he was focused on driving again, I casually picked up the phone, checking the screen, trying to pretend I was just playing with it and gently tapped to read the messages again.
All of the messages started a couple of days ago, and continued up until this morning. Via the translated text, I couldn’t tell if it was Wil, or just some random person. I didn’t recognize the number. I’d have to listen to the actual message.
I hovered a thumb over the button that would play the recorded messages to me. I wasn’t sure if it would play it out loud or quiet through the ear piece so I could listen without Raven hearing. Maybe if I told him I had to use the bathroom I could get him to pull over.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated in my hands and made a beeping noise. A text message came through on the phone’s line.
I switched modes, opening up text messages.
Unknown: Can you call me from this one?
Same phone number as the text messages. I stared at it for so long. How would the person know...?
Another text message came in before I could finish the thought. I turned the volume down on it in the middle of the beeping.
Raven looked at me. “Messages?”
“Uh, I downloaded something,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Angry Birds?”
“What?”
“Download what you like,” he said. “There’s games.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. I tapped quickly at the phone to find that game so it would start downloading. “That’s what I got. Sorry. It said free.”
He shrugged. “Buy what you want.”
I turned the phone a bit, pretending to poke at it continually like I was playing around as I read the new message.
Unknown: Call me.
I sent a text back.
Kayli: Who is this?
Minutes passed. I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer. Did he not know who this was? Maybe it was a wrong number.
The phone vibrated in my hands and I checked the screen.
Unknown: I’ve got a few of those frozen hamburgers left in the freezer, and I’ll get you another bag of Pop Chips.
Everything around me froze, including my once wild heart. I’d been excited one moment with the possibility of it being Wil and I completely changed gears. My first reaction was to turn the phone completely off and throw it out into the road. Not who I wanted to hear from.
Then I was in a panic. Blake Coaltar was after me. I wrecked his boat. I shot him. He wanted revenge. He wanted to tell me off. He wanted to sue me.
In the chaos of the last few days, I’d forgotten that my voice mailbox number was the one I’d given to him before, when I’d crashed his party, and he pretended to offer me a job.
According to the voice mailbox, he first started calling the night of his party, an
d continued on until the night he brought me to his home. He started again when I ran back to Marc and the others. It stopped briefly again yesterday, with the yacht crash. The latest one was this morning.
But how did he get this cell phone number to reach me? I had a feeling it might have been another favor from his friend, Doyle, the Irish hacker. If Corey could hack cell phones and those types of things, I bet Doyle could, too. He must have traced who opened the email and found this phone number through it. Was that even possible? Didn’t matter, it happened.
The phone buzzed in my hands again.
Blake: Where are you going?
He wasn’t going to give the guys a hint as to who he was if he thought they might be looking at this phone. If I answered right, he’d know it was me. Did I even want to play this game?
Still, he knew I was on the move.
I swallowed, checking out the window as if that could show me the GPS signal emitting from the cell phone and it connecting to some secret device that followed me. Cell phones could be tracked. I knew it. Corey told me.
I looked around. Raven was oblivious, staring off at the road, thumping his fingers against the steering wheel as his mouth moved with the lyrics of the song. Corey was still asleep with an arm over his eyes.
Flashes of Blake’s face came to me. I’d be lying to myself to say I hadn’t thought of him. I even felt guilty for shooting him in the leg, even if he did deserve it. I sent a text back. I needed to cut Blake off. I could only handle one thing at a time and a lawsuit wasn’t part of the plan.
Kayli: Go away.
Blake: Sugar, I know it’s you. If you’re with those guys, you need to ditch them now.
It took me a moment to consider what he was saying. Ditch them?
Kayli: Why?
Blake: Are you part of it? The Academy?
I wanted to sit up but then realized I was drawing attention from Raven. To counter it, I curled into myself, even kicking off Marc’s boots like I was trying to be comfortable to expel the energy.