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What did it mean to belong to the Academy and not have to go to high school or college? What did you do for work? How did you learn?

What happened if I didn’t join the Academy? Would I have to stay at Ashley Waters then? The boys had told me often if they didn’t stay, I wouldn’t either. But the reality was, I had to do something. Perhaps they’d have me working at the diner while they were on Academy jobs or whatever they did when they weren’t in school.

I leaned my head against the seat, tired of all the questions I didn’t have answers to.

I stopped thinking about it for now. Instead, I considered what I would say to Luke if he found us poking around and watching him.

When Nathan finally pulled into the laneway that lead to the Taylor Compound, he paused halfway down the drive and stopped the car. “If I go any further, it’ll trigger a warning bell for Luke if he’s here. Do we want him to know we’re coming?”

“Didn’t Kota say he wanted a visual?” Silas asked. “That’s all I heard. Is he grounded?”

“He might be,” Nathan said. “I might ground him if he’s done what we think he did.”

“Do I want to know?” Silas asked. “Are Kota’s tires orange now?”

I peered out the window at the trees but couldn’t see anything. “Do we need to walk up?”

“Yeah,” Nathan said, opening his door. “Let’s walk it from here. Depending on where Luke is, we might just camp out in North’s trailer.”

We got out. The road ahead was gravel. I could see little of the sky, the light blocked by trees around us, making it appear to be closer to twilight than late in the afternoon. Everything had a green-orange hue from evergreen trees and the fallen leaves and my nose was overwhelmed with the smells of pine and decaying leaves.

Before I could step around Silas and start down the road, he held out a hand, catching me by the waist. “Hang on there, Aggele,” he said. “Hang on. Let me toss you over the line.”

I didn’t understand what he meant, but walked behind him.

I watched as Nathan walked up to a spot and then took a jump, hurtling himself over to land on his feet several feet further. He turned back, looking both ways down the drive. “Did I trip it?”

“I don’t see a light,” Silas said.

“There’s a sensor somewhere?” I asked.

“A pressure plate,” Nathan said. “Walking on it will trigger it. North says if a deer walks over it, it’ll go off. Anything about the size of a dog and up will set it off.”

Silas came around me and held onto one of my shoulders. “Do you want me to toss you over? Or can you jump it?”

I guesstimated from where Nathan jumped from to where he landed was doable. “I can run it,” I said, “and jump, but I may need Nathan to catch me.”

Nathan moved to face me, stepping back a bit to give me room, but spread his arms out. “Why am I always catching you?”

“I’m not in a tree this time,” I said.

“Huh?” Silas asked, but stepped away to give me room.

“Long story,” I said, and dashed toward where Nathan had jumped from. I lifted off and in a second, I was crashing into Nathan’s shoulder. “Ugh,” he grunted but held me upright so I didn’t fall on the gravel.

Silas chuckled. “What’s wrong? She too heavy for you?”

Nathan made a face, and then bent over, scooping me up and draping me over his shoulder. I wasn’t expecting it, and ended up with my face in his hip, and my hair spilling, the clip falling from my hair.

“Just for that, I’ll carry her all the way to the trailer,” Nathan said in a deeper, challenging tone. He turned toward Silas, and from that point I was just looking at the gravel.

“Do it,” Silas said, challenging him back.

I shifted on Nathan’s hip. The phone in my bra fell out, clattering to the gravel. I gritted my teeth. Luckily it landed face up, so if anything, it was probably the cover that was scratched. “Hang on, I’m dropping things.”

Silas scooped up my clip and phone and held onto them. “I’ve got them, Sang,” he said. “Don’t fall off. I want to see him carry you all the way.”

I made a noise that was supposed to be a sigh, but when Nathan adjusted me, it ended up as a snort.

Silas laughed in his big, booming tone. “Shit. Too cute.”

“What, you don’t think I can do it?” Nathan asked, shifting me higher on his shoulder as he started walking again.

It wasn’t worth getting between them, so I just accepted that I was going to be carried. I wondered about Silas egging Nathan on. Did he do it a lot?

Nathan moved quickly while Silas trailing behind—I could see him smirking, even though I was upside-down.

I kept expecting the edge of the Taylor Compound to come up soon, but remembered any previous time I’d been here, I’d been in a car, so hadn’t noticed how long the drive was.

Nathan didn’t seem to have any trouble carrying me until we turned a bend and then he kept trying to adjust me. I almost fell off once, and Silas swooped in to catch me, before Nathan turned away. “I’ve got her,” he said.

“Don’t drop her,” Silas said with a chuckle. “You need me to do it?”

“She’s just unbalanced,” Nathan said with a grunt. “I keep thinking she’s going to slip off.”

“Uh huh,” Silas said, sarcasm in his voice.

Nathan mumbled something that I didn’t catch, but as they continued to walk, Silas stayed right behind Nathan.

All I could see was the gravel and the lower parts of trees and the boys’ legs. It was easier just to relax and lay limp.

“Almost there,” Silas said. “I think it’s coming up…”

“I thought there was a tree,” Nathan said. “Isn’t there a white oak before…” He stopped abruptly, rocking forward.

I felt something, too, a strange prickling feeling through my body.

“Shit,” Nathan said, and shuffled me more as he arranged an arm over my thighs. With one hand, he reached back quickly for his pocket, pulled out his phone and brought it around out of my sight. “Yeah?” he said.

“What the hell are you doing? What’s wrong with Sang?” North’s voice still was deep, even through the cell phone.

Nathan stopped and then put me down onto my feet. I stayed standing, but not without a wave of colors flashing over my eyes and as the blood rushed out of my head, making me dizzy. I held onto Nathan for a bit of support until my head stopped spinning.

“Did you just shock me?” Nathan asked and then turned his head. The breeze flattened his reddish hair as he gazed at the trees. “You didn’t tell me you had cameras out here.”

Silas stepped around Nathan, taking my hand and leading me on, chuckling. “Sounds familiar.”

I sighed, feeling a little funny after having been carried upside down for so long. I combed my fingers through my hair. “He shouldn’t be spying on us like that.”

“Are you going to shock him again?”

I shrugged, but then paused to let Nathan catch up to us.

Nathan mumbled complaints into the phone. After a while, he shook his head. “Fine,” he said, shoulders relaxing, defeated. He hung up on North and pointed the phone at me. “I could have carried you all the way to the house.”

“Why is he watching?” I asked.

“He’s keeping an eye on the cameras for Luke; Kota said he didn’t see him anywhere. He spotted us coming up.” He stuffed the phone into his back pocket. “When he realized you weren’t actually hurt, he got after me for…I think he said wearing myself out during an emergency.”

I felt a little put out since I’d wanted to text North about spying on us, but now I realized I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on in that fight. He was probably right. We didn’t know if this was an emergency and we had been goofing off. “Let’s just find Luke,” I said.

Nathan and Silas nodded, their blue and brown eyes now serious and trained ahead at the road.

The Taylor Compound was

quiet as we approached. Silas and Nathan skirted the perimeter to the left, closer to the trailer. I moved behind them, studying the house. It looked quiet. A couple of lights seemed to be on, but it was hard to tell since it was still daytime.

The boys stopped right behind the trailer. We were facing trees, hidden from the main house.

“This is stupid,” Silas said. “I feel like an idiot. We should just go up to the house and look for him.”

“We need to leave him alone,” Nathan said. “We just need to see him and make sure he’s okay.”

“I don’t know,” Silas said, looking steadily at a tree, thinking. “I mean he knows us, he’ll know where to hide so we can’t find him.”

“We don’t want to bug him,” Nathan said. He wiped his fingers across his brow and then across the front of his Bob’s Diner shirt. “Look, let’s just find him, and when we do, we’ll just keep an eye on him. That’s what we’re here to do.”

Silas looked back at him, frowning slightly before he looked at me. “You’re okay with this?”

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