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I would do whatever it took to expose the Academy if I found anything that would prove what they were up to. I’d take any means necessary. God help them if they did have Wil.
Because I’d burn it all down.
PRETENDING TO CARE
I walked around the main floor of the hotel for a bit and I had to take time out in a downstairs bathroom, trying to calm myself and prepare to pretend nothing was wrong. Walking in with my temper flaring wasn’t going to get me into the Academy. I had flashes of Corey’s smile, of Brandon’s kiss, of Marc’s concern, Axel’s commands… Raven washing dishes for a grandmother. Despite thinking I’d been blocking myself off from them, now I realized how deep I’d been getting with them. It was all a lie. I shouldn’t care so much.
Why, then, did I feel like my world was crashing?
When I’d collected myself enough, I retrieved the phone from the exercise room and then quickly detoured outside to get some sand on my feet. If they asked too much, I could always say I ended up going out to the beach anyway.
By the time I returned to the hotel room, I knocked to be let in. I sucked in a breath and held it, waiting.
Raven opened the door. He looked out at me quickly and then left the door open, going back into the room.
I entered slowly, as if waiting for someone to be behind the door and jump me.
Corey was now propped up on the bed with the laptop. His shoes were off and one of his socks, too. Raven went to the bed, and then bent over Corey’s foot, reaching for a Sharpie that Corey was holding up.
Corey’s foot had marker all over it, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Was he done with doing math in the bathroom?
Corey looked up as I walked in, and then smiled, waving a little. “Did you find the beach? Is it looking good out there?”
It was a strange moment. I was sure somehow that they’d heard the whole conversation I’d just had with Blake. It was impossible, of course, but I couldn’t help but stop and stare, waiting for them to tell me they knew everything.
Part of me hoped they did. I wanted to get it out in the open. I could accuse them, and they could tell me the truth about it all. Smothering my anger at them not telling me these things, the possibility that this had all been a lie, it was torture to try to keep my tongue contained.
I stood next to the other bed, examining them for a moment as Raven continued to draw on Corey’s foot. “What are you doing?” I asked.
Raven cocked his head up for a moment before returning his eyes to his work. “Trying to convince Corey to get a tattoo. He said he wanted one around his foot.”
“I said ankle,” Corey said.
“That’s your foot.”
Corey rolled his eyes.
“Are we not going to go find this little girl?” I asked. “I thought that’s why we were still here.” Now that I had a new mission of my own, as much as I sympathized with a missing girl, I still didn’t know her and I was eager to get back to Charleston and start digging up clues about the Academy. I didn’t want to waste a minute here on something the police could handle.
Or maybe I should keep them down here. It would give Doyle time to find Wil if he could.
“We have to wait here for Axel,” Corey said. He pointed to the laptop. “I’m doing a little background check on Fred, but orders are to stay here until they get here.”
I eased myself closer to the bed. Raven was drawing a sailing ship on the water, the sun setting on the horizon, and birds flying around. It was pretty intricate, with the flags billowing, the water looking like it was lapping against the sides of the boat. “Not bad,” I said.
“You want one?” Raven asked, touching up one of the flying birds. He finished and then sat up. He moved over on the bed, propping up one of the pillows against the headboard next to Corey. He patted the spot between them. “Come sit.”
My first instinct was to say no, to stay as far away from them as possible. I shook off those thoughts. If I wanted to get into the Academy, I had to listen to them and pretend everything was fine. I may even have to get closer to them.
I lifted my feet quickly, dusting off sand. I got on the bed, crawling over. My heart was pounding the whole time, as if at any moment they could read my thoughts and know I was lying. Inside, I was hoping they weren’t going to make me disappear as they had that school vice principal.
I nestled between them. Raven took my hand, pressing my palm to his knee to keep it steady.
“I get a tattoo on my hand?” I asked.
“You want it somewhere else?” he asked. “I know American girls like getting ones on their asses.”
“It’s the lower back,” Corey said.
“It’s on the ass,” Raven said. “I’ve seen them.”
“There’s a difference between lower back and butt,” Corey said.
“What difference?”
Corey opened his mouth like he wanted to say something and then stopped, shaking his head. He sighed and looked at me.
“I don’t want one on my butt,” I said.
Corey laughed and went back to his work. When his foot seemed to dry enough for him, he moved over to the table again, plugging in his laptop while he was working on it.
Raven kept my hand in his lap, drawing over my skin. With the way he was bent over, though, I couldn’t see what he was doing.
A silence fell for a bit. I welcomed it, trying to smother my feelings and blend in again. I glanced over at Corey, studying his face. Would he stand behind a secret group that would invade a high school? Would he lie to me about Wil?
I was trying not to focus on how gentle Raven was with my hand. He smoothed his fingertips over the surface, often. At times, he was holding my hand by the palm while he drew.
After a period of quiet drawing, he lifted his head and then held my hand, up, angling it toward me.
He had drawn a beetle. The arms were up, stretched toward my fingers, and there were wings spread out. It almost looked real.
Ick. “You’re drawing bugs on me?” I asked.
“It’s a scarab beetle,” he said. “Thief.”
For a moment, I thought he was just flat out calling me a thief like he did before. “But why a beetle? Why don’t I get a ship or a tiger or something?”
He traced the pen tip along his drawing, broadening some of the lines. “Pickpocket,” he said. “Scarab beetles are the marks of pickpockets.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a Russian thing,” Corey said without looking up from his work. “There’s a meaning behind his tattoos. … I mean, maybe everyone has a meaning or story behind their tattoos, but in Russia, there’s history as to what your tattoos mean.”
I nudged Raven with my elbow. “What do your tattoos mean?” I asked.
He stopped drawing for a moment and pointed to the rose. “Ruined youth.”
I thought about that. Ruined? Because he was bad or did someone ruin it for him? “What about the bear?”
He grunted. “No.”
He didn’t want to answer. I turned to Corey, nodding my head toward Raven and asking silently how to get him to answer questions like this.
Corey nodded, and lifted the corner of his mouth. “Hey,” he said. Raven looked up, meeting his eyes. Corey flashed him a sweet smile. “You can tell her. She’s with us.”
Raven’s eyebrows furrowed, and he started to shake his head. “It’s bad.”
“She’ll understand,” Corey said. “I mean, none of us are perfect.”
I looked between them. If a bug meant thief, then a bear… The thought of those fierce eyes and that wide, snarling mouth forced me to imagine all sorts of scenarios. Assault charges were all I could think about. “Does it mean you fight like a bear?” I asked.
Raven’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Safe cracker.”
Safe cracker? He broke into safes? Maybe with explosives? It was strange to associate the bear with safes. This drew me in. If that’s what the bear meant, he was admitting he’d stolen things? I
eased, slowly, closer to him. “You were a safe cracker?” I asked quietly, trying to look interested and sympathetic.
He shifted a little like he thought I wanted room and started to move. I placed a hand on his arm. He looked up, meeting my eyes and then sighed. “I did bad things in Russia,” he said, and then pursed his lips.
He didn’t want to go any deeper. He’d mentioned before he’d been bad in Russia. He swore he was different here.
Would he tell me if he wasn’t?
“What’s this one mean?” Corey asked, pointing to his foot. “The sailboat?”
“Assistant thief. For helping Kayli with that last job.”
I nudged Raven. I wanted to know more about these tattoos. “What does the one on your stomach mean? The towers?”
He frowned. “Prison.”
