by Rebel Hart
“I know where he is,” Kyle said. “It’s going to be a bit of an ambush, but as long as I can get in there and talk, I should be able to get to him.”
“Okay, I trust you. When we get there, I’ll leave it up to you,” I said.
“Did you guys know that Cherri has a potty mouth?” Sicily said suddenly.
I looked over at him. “What are you doing?”
“And she loves trash talk. I’ll tell you something, when you get a few drinks in this girl and wind her up, she’ll tell you all the worst things about yourself and then laugh about it.” He chuckled. “She nearly convinced me to shave my entire beard once.”
“Please stop doing what you’re doing,” I said.
“You know, that’s funny you say that, because whenever I wanted Cherri’s honest opinion about something, I’d get her drunk first,” Avery said. “That makes so much sense now.”
“I noticed that potty mouth too over the course of the past six months,” Alistair said.
“Not just the past six months,” Colette said. “From when Deon first came back. She was throwing f-bombs like they were sprinkles.”
Then everyone erupted into laughter. It was Nathan who noticed first how I was staring at the interaction in confused shock, and he smiled at me. “Cherri, relax. We know that you’re not the same person you were when you were in The Royal Court before.”
“Yeah.” Avery wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “We want to get to know the real you, so don’t hold back, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll admit, I’m struggling with how to… I don’t know, just fucking exist right now.” Sicily did a knowing nod at me, and it was only then that I realized that I swore. I was about to apologize, but then realized that was the exact opposite of the point, so I didn’t. “It’s not like no parts of me from before were parts of who I am, but I was the more princessy version of myself.”
“You were who you were when it was just you and Sicily, right?” Colette asked. “This isn’t any different. Be with us how you are with him.”
I snickered. “That seems like the quickest way to get you all to fucking hate me.”
Kyle chuckled. “I am so here for Cherri dropping ‘fuck’ at seven in the morning.”
After that, breakfast wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected it to be. We exchanged stories about how things were for all of us during the second semester of school, and heard the other side of the stories of my nasty fights with Colette and Nikita. Even though I easily could have come off looking like the shit-head I was, they told the stories in sympathetic ways that made me feel better, and it really changed the way I saw both women.
I didn’t get much of an apology out before they stopped me. Everyone was desperate to put the last semester of our senior year behind us, which I was more than happy to do.
“So… how long before we can go talk to Brayden?” I asked. “I don’t want to rush us or anything, but Deon’s still out there and he could be in trouble.”
“Whenever we’re ready,” Kyle said. “I told him I want to see him today, and he agreed, so we just need to decide where and when.”
“Is… um…” I had a specific question I wanted to ask, but I wasn’t sure how to ask it. “Will it be okay?” That wasn’t quite what I was going for, but Kyle’s lips flattened into a line as if he understood what I was trying to ask.
He nodded at me. “It’ll be fine.”
“Then, can we go soon? Within the next hour maybe?” I asked.
Instead of responding, Kyle simply pulled out his cell phone. He only needed to hit a couple of buttons, and then he brought the phone up to his ear. After a few minutes, he said, “Hey.” There was a strain in his voice, but a warmth that was almost unfamiliar from the typically resolved, even-toned man. “How’d you sleep?” It almost felt awkward to just be listening to the conversation, but everyone sat there without saying anything, so I did the same. “Well, it’ll get better, I promise. Hey, can we meet up soon? Maybe in like an hour?” He looked over at me and nodded then said, “Okay. Let’s meet at the park by school. Okay. See you soon. Bye.”
“Just a few of you are going, right?” Colette asked.
“That’s best. It’ll be good if Nathan’s there, and then Cherri obviously, and me,” Kyle replied.
Colette crossed her arms. “I feel like we’re not helping enough. What should we do?”
Sicily slowly raised his hand. “Uh, I could use some help.”
“Really?” Avery asked. “How?”
“Well, it’s like I said yesterday, I have to manually check like a million pings to try and find which phone Deon called from. It’s not hard to learn. If the rest of you were willing, I could show you and you guys could help me check pings.”
“Oh wow! That sounds interesting,” Avery said. “I’m in.”
“Yeah… Interesting. Sure.” Sicily let out a chuckle. “If that’s what it takes for your help.”
Jaxon looked over at Colette. “I am not sitting in front of a computer all day.”
Colette giggled and petted the back of his head. “That’s fine. You just keep me from going insane.”
He let out a sigh and a nod. “I can do that.”
“Alright, those are the teams then,” Nathan said. “The three of us will go to Brayden, Nikki, Colette, Alistair, Avery and Jaxon, you all stay and help Sicily.”
“Break!” Colette yelped, but no one moved. She shrugged and popped a grape into her mouth. “Screw you guys. It felt like a ‘break’ moment.”
After finishing up our breakfast, I said goodbye to Sicily, and then Nathan, Kyle and I piled into Kyle’s truck. I relented the front seat to Nathan, because sitting in the front with Kyle seemed a little awkward, but being in the back didn’t help much. The ride was totally silent, and there was a tension between Kyle and Nathan that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Part of me wanted to ask, but the other part thought that might shatter the stasis, so I didn’t.
Eventually, we got to the park near Postings Proper High School, and Brayden’s car was already parked in the lot. Kyle parked next to it and Nathan and I started to climb out, but Kyle didn’t move. I managed to make it all the way out of the truck, but Nathan noticed me looking back at Kyle and climbed back into the front seat.
“You good?” he asked.
“He’s gonna hate me,” Kyle said. “He’s gonna feel like we’re ambushing him.”
Nathan nodded with a snicker. “Yeah, well, after what he pulled he should be a little understanding.” Kyle glared over at Nathan and I got nervous they were going to erupt, but Nathan seemed unphased. “Don’t look at me like that. We babied him a lot during the last six months and he fucking sold us out.”
“You promised me you weren’t mad,” Kyle said.
“I’m not, but I’m not going to tiptoe around him either. He owes us for what he did. The only reason I’m not beating it out of him is because you asked me not to.”
“I’ll kick your ass if you touch him,” Kyle hissed.
“Okay,” I interjected. “What the hell is going on?” Both Kyle and Nathan looked over at me with shock on their faces. “Last I checked, Kyle you didn’t even fucking like Brayden, and he was Nathan’s goddamn mini me. What did I miss?”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “A lot.” He looked back at Kyle. “I’m not gonna hurt him. I know my dad manipulated him too, but if I go walking out there he’s not going to listen. We need you there, or this is useless. He’ll forgive you because if he doesn’t he’s an ass.” Kyle sat in silence, and all Nathan and I could do was sit there as well. Finally, Nathan put a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “We have to do something or he’s going to drift so far away even you won’t be able to bring him back. You don’t want that. I know you don’t.”
Kyle shook his head. “No.”
“Then let’s go get him.” That seemed to do the trick and Kyle finally unbuckled his seatbelt. As Nathan climbed out of the car, he leaned in towards me. “This is gonna get weird, so just sta
nd back.”
“Since when does he care so much?” I whispered back.
Nathan flashed me an indignant expression. “Like I said… you missed a lot.”
We walked around the car and followed Kyle further into the park. It was already shaping up to be a hot summer day, so the park was full of families enjoying the morning before it got too steamy. We stepped around everyone and made our way towards the picnic tables behind the initial playground, and Brayden was sitting on one of the tables facing away from us. Kyle did a stutter step when we first saw him, but kept going and when we were close enough, Nathan grabbed my arm to keep me from getting any closer.
Kyle walked up to the table and reached out to touch Brayden’s shoulder. To my surprise, Brayden almost immediately climbed down and threw himself into a hug, one Kyle returned with passion.
“Nathan, what’s going on?” I asked.
Before Nathan could answer, Brayden noticed us over Kyle’s shoulder and yanked himself back out of the hug.
“What are they doing here?” he asked. “You said it was just you.”
“They need to talk to you,” Kyle said. “They aren’t angry.”
“Bullshit. Nathan’s fuming,” Bryden barked.
Kyle looked over his shoulder and I looked over and saw Nathan was tense and glaring. I smacked his arm and he dropped a little out of it, relaxing his shoulders and attempting to calm his face.
“They just want to talk,” Kyle said.
“No.” Brayden turned around and started to walk away, but Kyle reached out and grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He snatched himself from Kyle’s hold, but Kyle reached out again, attempting to grab Brayden again. “Stop it. Don’t touch me.”
“Brayden, don’t do this,” Kyle said. “Just—”
Before Kyle could get any additional words out, Brayden shot his fist out, making hard contact with Kyle’s nose. When it happened, a look of horror flashed across Brayden’s face before guilt settled in. He tried again to walk away, but Kyle reached out and grabbed Brayden’s hand.
“Stop,” Brayden said, and it was weak, like he was begging. “Just let me leave.”
“You need to face this.” Kyle pulled, but Brayden swung again. That time, Kyle ducked out of the way, but then Brayden swung back with his other fist, hitting Kyle’s face again. I took a step forward, but Nathan pulled me back. “Brayden.”
“Just let me go!” Brayden screamed. “I nearly killed you!”
“But you didn’t,” Kyle replied. He had a firm grip on Brayden’s hand and refused to let go. Regardless of the hits he’d taken, he was standing tall, unphased. “I didn’t die. None of us did. We know that you were backed into a corner.”
All of the fight in Brayden deflated and tears filled the corners of his eyes. “I thought you were going to die. I thought I killed you. Just let me leave. I don’t deserve—”
“Brayden!” Kyle snapped. “Look at me.” Brayden slowly lifted his head and looked at Kyle. “Why am I still here?”
“I don’t know,” Brayden said.
“Yes you do,” Kyle replied quickly. “Didn’t I already tell you? I’m not going anywhere.” My whole body covered with goosebumps as Kyle placed both of his hands on either side of Brayden’s neck and looked directly into his eyes. Brayden’s hands came up to rest on Kyle’s wrists, and all at once I realized that ‘a lot’ hardly covered what I’d missed. “They aren’t mad. I mean, they’re mad at the situation, but they aren’t mad at you. They just want to talk. Will you talk to them please?”
“You won’t leave?” Brayden asked.
Kyle flashed a small, warm smile. “Where would I go?”
Brayden nodded and Kyle pulled his hands away from Brayden, but stayed close to him as they turned to walk towards us. With each step, Brayden dwarfed more and more between his own shoulders, but one he was close enough, I charged forward. He winced, but I threw my arms around his shoulders in a hug.
“Um,” Brayden said in my ear. “What?”
He never did hug me back, but I chalked it up to shock as I backed up and smiled at him. “Hey. I’m happy to see you.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re okay, and though I do want to hit you a little,” I admitted, “I’m not going to. Right now, you’re the best lead we have to finding Connor and Deon. If you’re sorry for what happened, at all, you’ll tell us everything you know.”
Brayden gave Nathan a sideways glance. Nathan nodded, then he looked back at me. “Okay. I swear. I’ll tell you everything.”
5
Deon
It was a quiet morning at Felicity’s when I finally woke up for the day. I’d gotten in the habit of sleeping until damn near noon, because each minute I spent awake, I hated that I wasn’t doing something to track down Connor. Felicity had spoken with Venom and he was working on getting one of his contacts in line to meet with me. Felicity had this contact’s info, but Venom insisted on talking to him first. While we were waiting, I’d settled into lounging around, which it turned out, I hated.
“Good morning,” Felicity said as I entered the living room. Concrete was laying on the floor in front of her and looked up with a happy pant as I entered the room. “Or rather, good afternoon.”
“Hey.” I walked in and sat down in one of the arm chairs and Concrete walked over for some pets, which he got. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I did. How about you?” I nodded and she smiled. “Good. Do you want me to make you something for lunch?”
“Maybe in a little bit,” I replied. “Have you heard from Venom?”
“Not yet,” she said. “He’s working on it, Deon. You just have to be patient.”
“Connor could be trying to kill my brother or Cherri as we speak,” I said. “I don’t like just sitting around. I want to do something.”
“Well, surely your brother has social media. Cherri too. Why don’t you use my computer to check on them? You can’t make contact with them, but you could see if any of them have updated recently so that you know they’re safe. Or what about your mom?”
The idea of at least being able to see Nathan, or possibly even Cherri or my mom felt like doing more than nothing. “Yeah. Okay, that’d be good.”
“Okay. Wait here.” Felicity stood up and walked out of the living room and returned a few minutes later with her laptop in hand. She opened it, entering her password, then she handed it to me. “I’m already logged in on all the major socials, so just browse around as me, and even if someone happens to see it somehow, they’ll think it’s just some random woman.”
“Thanks, Felicity.”
I started with my mom. She was old school and just had the basic posts and pictures page that everyone had when social media became popular. It was easy enough to find her doing a search of her first and last name, and relief quickly settled in when I saw that she had posted just earlier that day. I scrolled through her posts, noticing that her statuses covered the same basic things—food, thoughts on her favorite shows, frustrations with work—but then I came across one that confused me a little.
From about two days prior, there was a post about her being sad to say goodbye to her roommate. A few people had commented on it, mostly coworkers, but no one said who the roommate was. Had my mom been living with someone? The entire four years I was locked up, she never got a roommate, why all of a sudden after I disappeared? Grief?
I spent a little bit of time scrolling through her page, trying to find any information about who this roommate was, but though she alluded to the roommate a few additional times over the course of a handful of months, she never said the roommate’s name or even mentioned a gender. It freaked me out a little to think that someone random had been living with my mom, but she didn’t seem to be forced into anything, and was sad they were gone now.
I’d just have to add it to the list of many questions that needed answering.
Once I was confident that I had an understanding of what my mom was up to,
I turned my attention to Nathan, and his results weren’t nearly as inspiring. He, along with most the members of The Royal Court, hadn’t updated their social media much in the past six months. There was the odd passing selfie, mostly by Colette, and each of them had shared a memory or two of the year prior’s summer season, but I anticipated they were sharing them mostly in the place of a lack of those happy feelings this year.
I did see a sweet selfie of Nathan and Nikita which led me to believe that they were maybe together, finally, but there was very little to tell me how any of them were doing today.
“Disappointing news?” Felicity said, walking back into the room yet again with a bowl of chili. She set it on the table next to me and walked around to stand behind me.
“Just no news,” I said.
“No news is good news.” She pointed at the picture of Nathan and Nikita I was looking at. “Who are they?”
“The guy is my brother, Nathan, and that woman is one of his best friends of all time, Nikita. They look pretty friendly though, they may actually be together now,” I explained.
“Don’t sound so happy for him.”
“Well, I actually am happy for him, but he was supposed to be looking after Cherri for me, and I don’t know how much attention Nikita would let him pay to her.”
“How come?”
I thought of the one, brief interaction I’d seen Cherri and Nikita have and how contentious it was. “Not only do Nikita and Cherri not care for one another very much, but Nathan and Cherri dated for years.”
“Your brother dated your girl?” Felicity asked. “Knowingly?”
“Yeah, but…” I shrugged. “Connor is such a fucked-up man, I have no idea how much of Nathan’s bullshit was him and how much was Connor manipulating him. I don’t even think I really know my brother.”
“You wanna get to know him?” Felicity said.
“I’d like to. We had about a year together when we were preteens, but I didn’t like being away from my mom. That’s what set Connor off I think, the fact that I left. Nathan’s apologized to me, and when we were kids we actually got along really well.”