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Mr. Morris narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t we have enough to worry about without concerning ourselves with something like that?”
I caught Nathan’s eye, meeting his gaze and his silent look of surprise that matched my own. Mr. Morris seemed testy.
“It’s all part of the same,” Kota said, his casual tone reflecting that he hadn’t noticed the rude note from Mr. Morris’s. “We need to know where they’re voting.”
“It’s starting now,” he said. He pointed to the door. “Read the signs. Voting is in the gym this week up until Wednesday.”
“We’ll go check it out,” Kota said, backing up. “Thanks.”
Mr. Morris rolled his eyes. Kota and Nathan started to walk back out the door. I didn’t know if it had been Kota’s intention to simply ask something so obvious and then walk out, but Mr. Morris had made us change his plan.
I was still watching Mr. Morris as the others were leaving. It was how I noticed Mr. Morris’s back pockets. They were small for the jeans he was wearing, and peeking out of each pocket was a cell phone, one in a black case, and one in a pink case.
I stared at them for so long. I didn’t know at first what struck me as odd about it. “Kota,” I breathed. I didn’t dare say it any louder, afraid to catch anyone else’s attention.
Kota turned back, and I kept staring at Mr. Morris as he was walking away. I was afraid to point and draw any attention from to some of the other people sitting at desks and talking on phones. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kota checking what I was looking at.
“Is he... married?” I asked, trying to go through the possibilities. Would he carry his wife’s phone? Or a daughter’s? Would he use two?”
“Outside,” he said, and he took my elbow in his hand, turning me back to the door.
In the hallway, we moved together, Nathan leaning in. “What’s up?” he asked. “Something wrong?”
“He’s got two cell phones,” Kota said. “Sang caught it. One black, one pink.”
“Ha,” Nathan said, and he clapped a hand on my shoulder, leaving it there as he held onto me. “Nice job, Peanut. But it could be a student’s. Or who knows who it belongs to.”
“Would he keep one he apprehended from a student in his pocket? And this early in the morning?” I asked. We were walking among the students, and had to take turns cutting through because it was getting crowded. We had to trek our way back to the courtyard.
Once we were back out in the open air, we walked over to the benches, where North, Luke and Silas were sitting. Gabriel was with them. Victor wasn’t there, but I remembered he would be watching over Theo today.
Once I was close enough to the others, Silas immediately reached out a hand to me. He was wearing his fake school uniform, all except the blue jacket, which he had hanging over the bench. The white shirt was buttoned all the way, but was untucked. His shoulders seemed broader with the way he filled out the shirt.
North shoved his book bag off the side of the bench until it fell on the ground, moving over to leave me room. He was in his uniform, too, but his shirt underneath was black instead of the usual white, and his pants were a different shade than normal, a little darker. His shadowed eyes were as intense as ever, and they never once left me.
I let Silas take my hand and I sat down between them, feeling small.
Silas picked up his jacket and put it around my shoulders. “You cold out here?” he asked.
I hadn’t had time to even think about if I was hot or cold, but I tugged his jacket tighter around me, smelling the ocean scent and catching North’s musk nearby. “We just ran into Mr. Morris,” I said.
Kota filled them in quickly, sitting on the opposite bench between Nathan and Luke.
“He’s not married,” North said, his voice a little more gruff than usual. When I looked at him, he was looking at Kota, and I caught the shadows under his eyes. I looked back at Silas and he had the same. They really had been up all night.
“So it isn’t his wife’s phone he’s hanging onto,” Nathan said.
Kota pulled out his own cell phone and tapped into it. “Looked a lot like one of Sang’s,” he said. “Maybe I’m paranoid.”
“All her phones are accounted for,” North said. “But he’s on my shit list, so I want to know who it belongs to, too.”
“We don’t need to add more work on top of what we’re doing now,” Luke said. “We can’t jump at every little thing.”
“We don’t want to take chances,” Kota said. He finished his message and then held the phone and waited. A minute later, it vibrated and he checked the screen. “Mr. Blackbourne agrees. We’re to go see who it belongs to.”
“Aw man,” Luke said. He rolled his eyes but was smiling and stood up. “I need another coffee if I’m going to make this pull. Where’s the phone?”
I wasn’t sure how Kota managed to relay the message and get a response so quickly from Mr. Blackbourne if we weren’t supposed to discuss Academy business on the phone. Were they using some code? My nerves were jumbled and alive for Luke. I knew he could probably steal the phone, but I wasn’t sure about the risk if he got caught. “He’s got it in his back pocket,” I said. “On the...left hand side. The pockets are small, so both phones are sticking out.”
Luke made a ‘come here’ gesture at me. “Can I borrow your phone?” he asked.
“You can’t trade phones,” North said. “Not using hers.”
“Just need the cover,” Luke said. “If you guys think it was hers or an old one, then we can swap out one with the same cover and he might not notice a difference long enough for us to check it out.”
I pulled my phone out, and before I could hand it to Luke, North took it from me. He slid his fingernail between the cover sections and removed it. “Anyone have a spare? Preferably a dead spare? I don’t want him to have access to any of our live phones.”
“I’ve got one,” Kota said. He shuffled through his bag, finding a phone and handing it off to Luke. “It’s a blank. Never been used.”
“Never thought to carry a spare,” Luke said, taking it and the case and putting it together. Once he had it, he flipped it once in his palm. “Luckily Sang likes pink. She earns a brownie point.” He approached me, patted me on the head and then winked. “And I get twelve if I pull this off. That means we make brownies tonight. I’ll be back.”
Luke started walking off across the courtyard. I turned to North. “Should he go by himself?”
“If he needs someone, he’ll tell us,” North said, although his eyes followed his brother and stayed on the doors even after Luke had moved beyond them. North’s shoulders seemed to swell a bit, and the intensity on his face increased. “Sometimes having another person around him can throw him off. It’s best to let him go.”
Maybe he thought so, but the moment Luke was out of visual range, I felt the intensity North seemed to carry. I was listening, watching, waiting for Luke to return.
Silas put a palm on my back, smoothing the material of his jacket against my back. “Don’t worry, my little night flower,” he said in a low voice. “He’ll be fine.”
North instantly broke his gaze with the door and focused on Silas. “What did you just call her?”
My spine rippled and I sat upright. I looked straight ahead, but my full attention was on Silas and North, listening to every word.
Silas hovered closer to me, his arm tugging me into him. “What? Does that mean something else here? I thought it was cute.”
“You’ve never called her that before.”
Silas was quiet, but I felt his shoulders move in a shrug.
I dared a look at North, but my movement caught North’s attention and he turned his full stare on me. “Is there something going on I don’t know about?” he asked, although I sensed he was asking Silas and not me. “Why call her that now?”
“Is it wrong?” Silas asked.
I checked with Kota and Nathan, who were staring, mouths open and eyes on Silas and North. Both looked confused. Neither looked lik
e they wanted to get in the middle of it. Kota scratched at his elbow. Nathan simply watched, his jaw set, his blue eyes intense, mostly on Silas.
My heart raced. Would Silas tell them all right here that he had asked me out and I said yes? I was itching to send a message to Mr. Blackbourne, but North was holding onto my phone, and I wouldn’t dare ask for it now.
North grunted. “I just want to know why it’s not that aggele shit now. What’s it mean?”
“I can’t call her anything but that now?” Silas asked.
