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“Stop talking,” Mr. Blackbourne said, his voice loud enough that Kota was sure the others could hear. Still, he put him on speaker. “Where is she?”

“In the bath,” Kota said. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s her father.”

Kota stood up, still holding the phone. His heart began racing even as he told himself it could be anything. “Did something happen to him?” He shared a look with the rest of the guys. From Mr. Blackbourne’s tone, he knew something was terribly wrong.

“He’s at the Sunnyvale house now,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “And he’s demanding his daughter back.”

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BOOKS BY C. L. STONE

The Academy Ghost Bird Series:

Introductions

First Days

Friends vs. Family

Forgiveness and Permission

Drop of Doubt

Push and Shove

House of Korba

The Other Side of Envy

The Healing Power of Sugar

First Kiss

Black and Green (Late 2016) – Turn the page for a sneak peek!

The Academy Scarab Beetle Series

Thief

Liar

Fake

Accessory

Hoax (2016)

Other C. L. Stone Books:

Spice God

Smoking Gun

READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN THE ACADEMY GHOST BIRD SERIES

The Academy

The Ghost Bird Series

BLACK

AND

GREEN

?

Book Eleven

?

Written by C. L. Stone

Published by

Arcato Publishing

THE RETURN

We’d just returned from camp. I’d listened as the others discussed the plan of keeping the team together when a phone call interrupted everything.

I’d thought I couldn’t panic any more than I already had after simply listening to them.

Until Kota called for me in alarm. I’d never forget the desperate tone in his voice.

I dressed quickly and rushed out of Victor’s home in downtown Charleston. Kota drove North’s Jeep, with Nathan in the passenger seat, and Victor, Gabriel and I crammed into the rear seat together. The others would follow after gathering laptops and other supplies.

My father was back and from the way Mr. Blackbourne had described it, he had called the school, asking for Mr. Hendricks or someone who could bring me back from school camp; what we had told my sister about where we’d be for the week.

“We need to make sure he doesn’t do anything desperate,” Kota said. “If he came home to check in and found you gone, he might be worried. Remember, he’s just as desperate to keep your background a secret. Now that your stepmother hasn’t been around to keep you at home, he’s probably worried about exposure.”

What we couldn’t have was Mr. Hendricks finding out, either.

My heart was in knots, still in turmoil over the argument I’d overheard when in Victor’s bathroom. Gabriel had held my hand as we listened, and the more they argued, the closer he got. By the end, we were clinging to each other. We’d stared into each other's eyes, knowing what the other was thinking.

It can’t end. We have to stick together. The more they fought, they more it was obvious to us. We had to find a way to convince Kota. Mr. Blackbourne had been right. Kota was the core of the team. Without him believing in it, the others would doubt. We would fail. We would break.

But right now, we had more immediate problems. We hurried as quickly as we could on Mr. Blackbourne’s orders. He and Dr. Green were on the way, although we would still get back to Summerville first.

Most of them were still dirty from the camp we’d been at hours before. I was the only one relatively clean. In my rush, I’d dressed quickly inside Victor’s closet, not daring to waste time. I’d put on fresh underwear, no bra and a bulky sweatshirt I suddenly realized might have been Luke’s because it was baby blue and too big for me. I’d also pulled on cotton shorts that were the first things I’d seen inside Victor’s closet that were about my size. I didn’t recognize them, and for all I knew, they weren’t shorts at all, but one of the boy

s’ boxers and I was too panicked to notice the difference.

Hope filled my heart on the way to Sunnyvale Court. Maybe my father was just worried about me. Maybe he was upset that I’d left Marie alone for a week. Had something happened to her? An accident?

“What about my mother?” I asked Kota as he drove and then regretted looking to him for an answer. His hands were locked at ten and two, and he edged over the speed limit, despite normally being such a stickler for road rules. He hadn’t even gotten on my case about my seatbelt, which at first I’d forgotten about, but had slowly, quietly put on. I turned and focused on Victor beside me. “Is it because of her? Is she back?”

“She can’t be,” Victor said quietly. They’d all been so quiet in the car, so intent on the road, and consumed by their thoughts. Victor held my hand, my fingers almost numb at the strong way he held on to me, although I returned the squeeze. “They wouldn’t dare, although she’s been demanding a transfer to a different hospital.”

“We’re working on pretending to get her a transfer, and then just drive her around the city in an ambulance and bring her back inside the hospital from a different entrance. We’ll give her a new room and a new doctor,” Nathan said. He spoke to the windshield at first, and then bent over the middle console to look back at me. “She wants medications she overdosed on and a different doctor that will listen to her demands. She thinks a different doctor will release her from the hospital.”

“We won’t be able to keep her forever,” Kota said. “But she’s still there. We would have been notified if things had changed.”

I settled into the seat, bringing up my legs and pulling the sweatshirt over my knees to cocoon myself inside. I lay my head on my knees. “He’s probably just checking up on me,” I said. “He came back, but...he’ll go again.”

Victor’s palm found my back and he rubbed warmly, leaning in. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be there to listen.”

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