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Until then, I had to figure out how to get myself to trust them.
WHAT A GIRL CAN DO
I sensed Kota leaving the bed sometime in the middle of the night. I was so out of it I fell asleep before I had a chance to ask where he was going. It didn’t matter. I knew the name of the source that called to him, but I probably would never know the details. Academy business.
Before the sun came up, I was awake. My eyes hurt. My throat felt scratchy. The ghost of thousands of tiny dust particles felt stuck to crevices I never realized I had.
My heart remained heavy, throbbing, shaking and unrelenting. Every thud it pounded against my rib cage was a reminder of what I’d done to North. How could I have let him go all night without apologizing? Last night, it seemed like the only solution. I didn’t want to say another stupid thing.
As I gazed through half open eyes toward the wall, I thought of the things I would tell him when I saw him next. I had to apologize to him for hurting him. Again. Why was I always hurting him?
The air shifted. Part of me thought it was Kota returning so I didn’t move.
The scent of spring soap drifting my way shocked me awake enough that I dragged myself up to kneel on the bed, spinning around.
In the low light of the early morning haze, Mr. Blackbourne stood a few feet from my bed. The gray coat and red tie suited to his frame. His eyes sparked with interest. “Miss Sorenson.”
I swallowed to find my voice. “Mr. Blackbourne.”
“Did you hear me coming? I thought I was pretty quiet.”
He had been quiet, but they were all pretty noiseless when they wanted to be. I shook my head. “The air shift,” I said.
His eyebrow rose. “What do you mean?”
“When you open the door, the air shifts. I felt it.”
The millimeter smile broke his otherwise solemn face. “Remarkable.”
“I’m just glad you’re not Gabriel with another water gun.”
He pursed his lips and touched the bridge of his glasses. “I thought you and I might take a drive this morning.”
I blinked, tilting my head at him. “A drive?”
“We need to talk.”
My heart thundered. It wasn’t something he could discuss here?
“Meet me outside, will you?” He turned away from me, heading back toward the door. I listened this time for his footsteps but heard nothing. He was as silent as Luke.
I popped out of bed, scrambling to follow. Mr. Blackbourne was in my room. What could he possibly want with me? Did he know about yesterday? Was he going to reprimand me for how I had behaved in front of the others? Or tell me off for keeping such a stupid secret about the signal?
I found a pleated full skirt and a soft pink blouse to wear. I did my hair in a twist, leaving the two locks hanging at my cheeks. I strapped on a pair of sandals. I glanced around for a phone before realizing I didn’t have one.
Outside, Mr. Blackbourne stood by a gray BMW. It was then I realized Victor and he had similar cars. Mr. Blackbourne’s was a shade darker, a deeper gray than Victor’s, which was more a dark silver.
Mr. Blackbourne nodded in my direction, moving around his car to open the front side passenger door. “No need to jump across the hood this time,” he said.
My lips parted, eyes wide. Was that a joke? Did he just make a joke with me?
The gleam in his eyes and the millimeter smile told me it was. I smiled in return, too stunned to find something to say.
I slipped into his car, smelling his soap in the air and the new car leather. I put my seatbelt on before he had a chance to get in on his side and sit down.
He started the car, pulling out of the drive. From that point, my heart was in my throat. I’d never been in a car with Mr. Blackbourne before. I didn’t know where I was going. Kota didn’t know I was leaving, did he?
But I had gotten into the car, didn’t I? I hadn’t asked where we were going. While I wondered where, I didn’t feel I needed to know. Mr. Blackbourne wouldn’t hurt me. So I was trusting them, right?
He didn’t speak while he was driving, keeping his eyes on the road. Nervous about the proximity we shared, but with my tongue feeling glued to the top of my mouth, I gazed out the window.
The roads were clear for dawn on a Sunday morning. He took the highway a good distance before turning onto a road with a sign that advertised a park. He wound his way through a road that soon turned from concrete to gravel, and from gravel to dust.
He stopped short of a playground nestled at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill was a wide lake. There was an area cut off and noted for swimming, along with a high platform for diving.
He turned off the engine. “Walk with me, won’t you?” he said, while at the same time releasing his seatbelt.
Before I managed to undo my own seatbelt, he was at my door. He opened it for me, putting a hand out in front of my face. My breath caught, unsure for only a split second. I reached for his hand, dropping my palm in his.
He wrapped his perfect, smooth fingers around my hand, tugging gently to help me out. I stepped back and he closed the door. He released my hand and started walking toward the lake, pausing only briefly to look back at me. I was expected to follow.
I started walking behind him but he paused again, looking back at me. “Do you walk behind the boys when you’re at school?” he asked quietly, curious.
“Sometimes I suppose.”
He frowned softly. “Remind me to talk to them.”
“It’s not their fault,” I said, surprised. I stepped quickly to walk beside him instead. “I guess when the hallways are crowded, or when I’m nervous ...”
“You’re not to walk behind them,” Mr. Blackbourne said in that quiet command. “Ever. You’re not inferior to them. You don’t mean less than them.”
“I think it was more I felt more comfortable like that.”
The corner of his mouth dipped. “I know you’re shy and a little low in self-confidence, but that’s no excuse for the guys to forget their place, and it is certainly not in front of you.”
I swallowed, my heart in my throat. I felt like I just got the guys in trouble and I had no idea why or the meaning of it.
We approached the lake, finding a dock. The water sloshed along the gentle slope at the bank. Mr. Blackbourne tucked his hand into my elbow to assist me up the steps as if worried I’d fall. He let go again when we were on top. I followed him to the very end, where our view of the lake was unchallenged.
The morning light sparked up the top of the lightly ruffled water, dazzling my eyes and distracting me from his face.
We stood quietly together. The wind swept gently around me. It was a salty breeze, reminding me of Silas’s ocean scent. My lungs filled up, reveling in the contrast to yesterday when I couldn’t breathe beneath the sawdust pile, and again when I had been swallowed up in sorrow about being so angry with North.
“I used to come here with my mother when I was little,” he said, his voice a couple of notches softer than his usual commanding tone. “I learned to swim in this lake.”
“It’s a nice lake.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “It was a safe place for me. It was one of the few places my father refused to come with us.” I broke my gaze away from the lake to seek him out, but he was fixated by the sparkling water as he continued and didn’t meet my eyes. “So I asked her every day if we could go swimming. I had ideas that if I could keep her here long enough, she’d see how much better life could be without him. She didn’t have to live with his pain or his lies.” He paused, his eyes narrowing to some point out into the sky. “I never said out loud that was what I wanted for her. I thought doing nice things around her, like remembering her birthday and wishing her good night would one day make her see. And when my father’s anger finally killed her, I’ve since regretted never telling her exactly what I wished.”
Words caught in my throat. The sudden revelation about his family shattered every imaginary thought I’d had about the perfect life he must have.
“We’re all broken, Miss Sorenson,” he said. His head tilted toward me, his gray eyes, gleaming, fixed on mine. “Every single one of us in our group, our family. Maybe they haven’t told you why yet, or how, but that’s who we are. Our group is different, because we’re all from broken families.”
Kota had hinted at this before, I didn’t imagine the extent and that it included Mr. Blackbourne. “All of them?”
“All of us,” he said. “It is what our family is built on. So when I realized you were with Kota and the others, I knew why. They saw this broken little girl, just as lonely and just as desperate as they had been, and when you seemed willing to play along, they knew exactly what to do. Well, they knew what they wanted to do for you. What they didn’t realize is how different they would become when you joined us.”
