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“He won’t be alone,” Lillian said. “I could have one of our lawyers here quickly. Raven’s lawyer. He’ll be protected while we sort things out.”
The other guys on our team reappeared, this time shirtless. “We’ve got Marc and Brandon and the teen boy. There’s also a lady named Gretchen and the guards we’d used before Alice took over. Liam… They’re here to lift Raven down the stairs. We don’t have enough clothes on us unless we start taking it off some dead ones.”
Corey came to me, urging me out. “We don’t have much time. Police might be close because of the power outage.”
“That was us,” Lillian said. “But you’re right. We should go. The moment he makes the call, they’ll be here. And it’ll be harder to explain why we’re leaving with unconscious people.” She took off her shirt, wearing just a tank top underneath and handed the shirt to the girl. It was long enough to cover the girl’s butt, enough to get us out of the building. “Let’s just get out of here.” She paused and then thought again, slowly looking around. “He’ll need clothes the most. You can’t be here completely naked. It’ll be too hard to explain.”
We sorted out an extra shirt and pants for Jack, leaving Academy members in boxers to be able to give some cover to those who were naked to get out.
We all headed toward the stairwell. Some of us naked, but in the dark it didn’t matter too much. We just needed to hurry.
“Wait,” I said. “Where’s Wil?” I hadn’t forgotten but when someone said teen boy, I thought that was who they meant. Instead, it was someone I didn’t know standing in the hallway.
“I checked the other rooms,” one of the Academy said. “Alice is gone, too. As is anyone else that was here.”
“Dead?” I asked.
“No, just gone. No bodies. Nothing.”
I froze, unsure. Either they got out or… “If this was her people, she left without killing the others?”
He seemed to nod gravely at this. “Most likely. They killed anyone in their way. Your brother… I don’t know. Maybe he managed to escape in the middle after she left. But as soon as they got to her, they must have left. Everyone else was tied up, not a threat.”
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to check all the rooms, just in case. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve checked everywhere.”
“Even the closets?” I asked.
He nodded slowly, frowning. “I opened every door. He’s not here.”
“Kayli,” my father said. “He’s not here. But I’ll keep an eye out. He’s not dead. They would have left the body. But I’ll check again.”
I was urged toward the stairwell. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t trust them to have checked, to look…
I lingered at the door to the stairs while Jack held on to a cell phone, an extra passed to him by someone from the Academy. “You wait,” I said. “You wait and don’t leave until the lawyer shows up. Doublecheck the rooms.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. He chuckled. He patted me on the head. “Did I ever tell you that you look just like your mother?”
I was holding together but just that one sentence and I started to fight tears. “Don’t…”
“I never told you. Maybe that’s why I got drunk so much. A reminder…not that it was your fault. I just…it was hard.”
“We don’t have to talk about it now.”
“Might be the last time I see you for a while.” He urged me out. “Go.”
I left.
I regretted it with every step I took down and every mile we drove out of Charleston.
We’d arrived way too late.
JOIN US OR LEAVE US BE
Days passed after we left the Sargent Jasper. We tossed our phones to be untraceable. Lillian and Liam disabled the GPS in the RV before we got too far out of Charleston that night. They called the Academy from a payphone, relaying the entirety of what happened. They were told to get everyone out of town.
All of the Academy was leaving, especially after the dead count rose and the police had been called in to figure it out. No chance to be tracked after that. There was no contact from the outside world for a couple of nights. From that point on, we wouldn’t be able to get in the middle of the cartel and look for the missing Mr. Murdock.
We boondocked the RV out on public land, limiting electricity usage to what could be gathered via solar panels on top of the vehicle. Anyone might have questioned why there were so many of us in an RV out in the South Carolina countryside. One of us ventured out to get food and supplies, reducing the chance that all of us would be discovered.
No word from Axel.
No word about what happened to Wil.
I asked every day. I insisted on going to a phonebooth to be able to call in. I spoke with Dr Roberts personally several times.
“Nothing,” he said. “For Axel, that’s probably a good thing.”
“What if he’s dead?”
“If he is, he’d be found by now, I’m sure,” he said. “In this line of work, no news is good news. And your brother, if he was working with Alice, she probably saved him. There’s some suspicion he escaped on his own, before Alice had gotten free.”
I stuffed a hand toward my mouth, biting at my own knuckle, hoping it relieved some of the anxiety. But it wasn’t enough. “How do you know?”
“Just from what the people there have said versus what was discovered among the dead…” He paused. “Your father’s searching for him, too. After he helped the police…We’re working with him. We’ve got our best people on it.”
“Are we going to be called in?” I asked.
“Eventually,” he said. “Just relax. No one’s in trouble.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him.
There were a lot of questions by Gretchen, the guards and among us all. We sorted out what we could. The only things we didn’t know: who had taken Alice, and if Wil was with them.
After a few days, Lillian and Liam used a phone to check in, and the guards and Gretchen were allowed to leave.
“I don’t understand why they wanted me,” Gretchen told me as they packed up a small car picked up at a lot just outside of a tiny town south of Charleston I didn’t even know the name of. It’d been left behind by an Academy member just for this group to return to the city.
“I don’t know,” I told her. Gretchen wasn’t let in on a lot. Only that there was some confusion with local gang members. “We were all just caught in the middle.”
She pressed a palm to her forehead, the only place she’d been struck. A cut was still prominent there. “I’m not sure if I should return. I might get out of town for a while…”
“You shouldn’t have to,” I said. “They didn’t need you for anything. They only caught you on your way in, right?”
She sighed and nodded. “It’s easy to forget things like this can happen in this world.” She chuckled a little. “Now I understand why you’d want to be able to run sometimes.”
I didn’t know how to explain it to her. “Sorry,” I said. “I feel like it’s my fault. Maybe we should have gotten normal clothes…”
“Maybe I’ve got you on the hook now for that modeling? And maybe to help me with some deliveries? We might call it even after that. It’s not as exciting, usually.”
I wasn’t sure how to promise I could. After what happened, it was sounding like the Academy wanted the majority of us to disappear for a while, and possibly leave Charleston for good.
I wasn’t going to argue with them this time. Not about this.
Very early the next morning, I was still in the RV with Marc, Raven, Corey and Brandon after most others had left, some to escort Gretchen and the guards back to the city, some to fetch more food. We’d taken turns in the RV, and some had gone to buy camping gear, tents and supplies. Our camp was a mishmash of the RV, a portable charcoal grill, and various seating arrangements and tents. There was someone on guard, watching. Blake was out with someone else to go get more food.
Marc was massaging a leg
while sitting in the passenger seat. He’d turned it around to face us. “I’m getting cramps, sleeping on the ground.”
It was the leg I’d shot him in a while back. I didn’t want to look at it, but the scar was noticeable.
Seemed like forever ago…
“When do you think we’ll hear about Axel?” Brandon said. He sat next to his brother at the table. “It’s making me nervous not hearing from him in so long. And Wil.” He looked at me. “They’ll find him, but it’d be nice to hear details.”
“They’d let us know if something bad happened,” Corey said. He was slumped over against the wall while sitting down, his arms folded across his stomach. “I think we’re just slow at communication right now, what with just a phone call a day to check in.”
It’d been days and days of so many people around, it took me a minute to realize it was just us in this moment inside the RV.
Raven came out of the bathroom. He skin was still patchwork of bruises all over his body, wearing a T-shirt and jeans we’d picked up for him. He poked Brandon in the shoulder as he approached. “Smell that?” he asked him.
“You stinking up the place?”
“It’s the smell of success,” he said, beaming. “Get it?”
I groaned. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Jail,” he said. “Funny joke.”
“At least you’re feeling better,” Corey said. He sat up as Raven nudged me over to sit next to me in the RV’s booth.
“We’ll be on the move soon,” Raven said.
