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“I didn’t have many when I met you,” he said. “And I spent them all, the last of my thirty allotted, on you.” He smiled and then brushed his palm against my cheek. “Sweetheart, I couldn’t get you out of that house without some outside help. You were complicated. All the background research...”
He spent everything on me? I bit my lower lip. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “Totally worth it. But I’ve got zero now. I asked Mr. Blackbourne for more to help with you, which he didn’t mind, but from my count, he’s getting pretty close to thirty, too.”
“The thirty original?” I asked. “The ones that are like credit?”
“Yeah,” he said and then grinned. “You’re learning fast. If you pay off your debt, any amount over thirty, that’s when you graduate. Sort of. It’s complicated.”
I understood it. “How’d he get so low?”
“We’ve been working on getting more for everyone, but it’s not always easy. There’s been the situation with Nathan’s dad, and occasionally Pam, and then Silas’s brother, Theo. Family things like that can eat up a lot of favors. And then you, sometimes.”
“I’m costing you favors,” I said quietly.
“It’s normal,” he said quickly and hugged me around the shoulders. “But I didn’t want to ask for any more. If I kept doing that, they would send a manager to our team to check out why we kept borrowing from each other. I didn’t want to call attention to you.”
I hunched down, putting my arms around my stomach and looking down at the fire pit. Now that I knew about the favor system, I wondered how much I had cost them all. Like the times I went to the hospital. “My stepmother? In the Academy hospital?”
“That’s more cash than favors,” he said quietly. “It’s not a big deal. We’ve got plenty of that. We got another boost when we did the Thanksgiving Day donations.”
Money and favors. Because of my stepmother, I must have been costing them a fortune, covering the hospital bills for so long. I was also risking Kota’s Academy career, eating up his favors just to keep me around, to keep me safe. No wonder he hadn’t dared to kiss me and break the rule.
The others had given in so quickly, maybe because they thought they had favors to spare. Or did they not realize how low their favors must be? Kota was family lead, right? Maybe he kept track of those things and knew the true numbers.
At this rate, if I got into the Academy, I might get a zero balance in each area right from the start.
Kota rubbed my spine. “Come on,” he said. “We should walk back to camp.”
“Is it ten already?” I asked.
“It’s getting there,” he said and stood. He reached for my hand. “Do you want me to come find you tomorrow night?”
I nodded enthusiastically. I wanted to talk to him about the plan, but I was suddenly lost in thought of favors and numbers. Perhaps because he worked with me and then spent so much time working as family lead that he never had a chance to earn a favor on other jobs. He spent, but maybe it was difficult to earn them back when he worked so hard to keep nine other people safe.
I held his hand as I walked beside him, lost in thought, my eyes trained on the road. I couldn’t help but worry about my place in the team. If I joined, the Academy might not like me sticking with my team. We knew it would be difficult. We knew there would be problems; there were probably many issues we hadn’t even thought through yet.
The Academy would force us to look at every single angle. With so many of us, and with me in the middle, I couldn’t help but see them fighting over how things would work out with us. I’d already seen hints of jealousy and had to imagine there would be more.
Then there was the cost. I was expensive, because of my stepmother, and no doubt looking out for Marie would be expensive, too. I didn’t think I could have the opportunity to be a member of the Academy without asking them to help me with my stepmother and Marie. Guilt would follow me through all my days if I simply abandoned them when I had the chance to at least make sure they were comfortable.
Maybe my father, too. Despite still being angry with him, and wanting to forget about him, what about the family he was with now? Did they deserve to be ignored? Or could they be at risk because of his past? I didn’t even know them or anything about them, but something I did in the future might reflect back on him.
Maybe when the Academy did their digging, it might uncover if he really did rape my mother, or he’d get into trouble if anyone discovered she had been only sixteen.
And then there was me. I was in the middle of high school, already in trouble with Volto, Mr. McCoy and more. I might be too expensive to take care of at this point. There was no denying taking me on would be complicated.
Maybe all this talk of plans and how we’d work it out was moot. Maybe the Academy couldn’t afford to keep me. Or worse, maybe they wouldn’t even want me.
A RIFT AMONG FRIENDS
I dwelled on dark thoughts the entire way back to the campsites, although I held Kota’s hand. He quietly remained by my side, a small smile on his lips as he used the flashlight to guide our way back to camp.
Before I knew it, we were at the guys’ tent and North was just putting out the campfire with a bucket of water. The others were putting away chairs and starting toward the tent.
Lake was with them, standing by. She was the first to see us coming. “Here she is,” she said and pointed in my direction.
The others stopped what they were doing, looking at us.
It was instinct to pull my hand away from Kota, as I was feeling awkward but Kota held my hand firmly in his. I stopped fighting since he thought it was okay.
“It’s been a long day,” Kota said. He looked at Lake. “Think you can walk her back without running into bears, or another cave?” He said this with his smile firm, teasing.
Lake raised an eyebrow, looking from me to Kota. “Uh...yeah.”
“Good,” Kota said. He turned to me.
I looked up at him, thinking he meant to just say goodnight.
He leaned in quickly and kissed me square on the lips. It was quick, but that he’d done it meant so much. He pulled back and smiled. “Eight,” he said. He squeezed my hand and walked toward the tent. “Okay guys, where are we at? Where can I help?”
I stood there frozen in place, stunned, surprised, shaken. I glanced at North, Nathan, who had been at the tent holding the flap open, and Gabriel and Luke, who were dragging chairs around.
Nathan looked confused and backed himself into the tent.
North frowned, but said nothing, continuing to put out the fire.
Luke and Gabriel seemed curious, eyebrows raised, but then Gabriel spoke to Kota. “Not much,” he said. “You want the coolers back in the car?”
They talked but no one had said anything about the kiss.
Lake approached me, distracting me by snapping her fingers near my face. “Hey,” she said. “You sleepwalking? Let’s go.”
I nodded and turned away, unable to say anything. I hadn’t been prepared for that goodnight kiss, especially in front of everyone. While I wanted to be happy about it, I was unsure about Nathan, who’d admitted to being jealous seeing that sort of thing, and North, who seemed to struggle with it, too.
“You took forever,” Lake said as she walked beside me to the road. “Were you having sex or what?”
I gasped and my eyes widened as I stopped in the road. “No!” I said quickly.
Lake lifted her hands in a wait gesture. “Hey, I was just asking. I don’t care.”
“We were...” I said and then stumbled. “We...I...”
“I said I don’t care,” Lake said. She looked ahead and then started walking.
I kept up beside her. “There’s complications with me joining the guy team. We were going over the problems.”
“Find any solutions?” she asked.
I lowered my head, watching our feet as we walked. “No,” I said. Not one I was satisfied with anyway.
The woods around us were very dark. Lake had a flashlight and carried her towel and supplies with her. I’d forgotten to get my own bathroom kit from North, but I suspected it was taken care of for now and I could get it tomorrow when I needed it.
Every so often, there was a pole with a streetlight, but they were so far apart, that you could be in the pitch dark in certain areas. We shuffled quietly along, eventually finding our way back to Taylor’s tent.
Quiet, whispery noises drifted out from it.
“Let’s scare them,” Lake said.
I shook my head. “Not tonight,” I said. I was thinking of the younger girls. They were probably exhausted.
Lake pouted. “You’re no fun,” she said and headed toward the tent to unzip it.
Despite my desire to not scare the girls, the moment Lake started unzipping the tent, the girls inside cried out in panic.
