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It can’t end. We had to stick together. The more they fought, the 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.
I folded my arms over my stomach. I’d put on fresh underwear, no bra, a bulky sweatshirt that I suddenly realized might have been Luke’s because it was baby blue and too big for me, and cotton shorts. They were the first things I had seen inside that were my size. I didn’t recognize them, and for all I knew, they weren’t shorts at all, but one of the boys’ boxers and I was too panicked to notice the difference. I’d dressed quickly inside Victor’s closet, not daring to waste time.
My father’s return wasn’t unexpected, but it had happened without warning, and with the rest of us so far away. The fact that he’d called around asking for me made us much more worried. Maybe he 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 in general 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 being such a stickler for road rules. He hadn’t even gotten on my case about my seat belt, which at first I had forgotten about but had slowly, quietly put on. I refocused on Victor beside me. “My stepmother, I mean. Is it because of her? Did he come back about her? Is she out of the hospital?”
“She can’t be,” Victor whispered. He picked up my hand and held it tight enough that my fingers tingled, threatening to become numb. “We would have been notified. Although she’s been demanding a transfer to a different hospital, one that would let her go home.”
Nathan twisted in his seat until he faced me. “We’re working on pretending to do so, and just driving her around the block in an ambulance and bringing her back inside the hospital from a different entrance, giving her a new room and a new doctor.”
“How long...can they keep her there?” I asked.
Nathan turned back around to face the windshield again but continued to speak. “For now, at least. She’s still talking divorce, but also she wants doctors who just give her whatever medications she wants. The stuff that makes her so loopy.”
“We won’t be able to keep her forever,” Kota said. He breathed in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth, turning his head slightly as he checked all of the mirrors. “For now, though, she isn’t a problem. She’s being monitored, and they are doing everything they can to make sure she’s stable, both physically and mentally.”
I settled into the seat, bringing up my legs and lifting the sweatshirt to roll it over the top of my knees and cocoon myself inside. I dipped my head to my knees, darkening the light and warming myself with my own breath to stop the onset of goose bumps along my body. If he rolled up the window, it was too stuffy, and with it open even just a crack, it was cold.
“He’s probably just checking up on me,” I said, more out of hope. “He came back, but...he’ll go again. He didn’t want to be here.”
Victor’s palm found my back, and he rubbed warmly, leaning in. “It’ll be fine. We won’t be too far away, and we’ll be listening to whatever he says.”
“We should have done something before now,” Nathan mumbled under his breath. “This shouldn’t be a problem.”
“We don’t know what’s going on,” Kota said. “And he wasn’t the one tying her up and leaving her to die. Despite whatever we might assume about his past, he’s never laid a finger on her.” He lifted his head and peered back at me for the first time since leaving the house. “Right?”
I nodded, chewing my lip. I couldn’t remember the last time my father had ever done anything to me—punishment or a hug. His interactions with me usually only showed indifference. On occasion, he did stand up to my stepmother when I’d been on the floor for hours and he finally noticed. Otherwise, he stayed out of it.
Probably so she wouldn’t tell the world about me. He only stepped in when things got too extreme, and it would affect my health, so that someone at school would look closer.
“Hopefully, he’s back just to check on the house and panicked when you weren’t there,” Kota continued. “That’s what we have to assume. It’s why we left your old room the way it was. So he’d think you were still around. Remember?”
I did remember. Some clothes, books and other things had been left behind. The bed had been made. My old trunk was still there.
My bedroom had a small door leading to an attic space. Inside, I’d left the old wardrobe, too, despite wanting to bring it out. The attic was still mostly soundproof. It had pictures inside, along with lights and a beanbag chair. We’d left it because we weren’t sure if my dad would be back on occasion, maybe over weekends like he used to before my mother had gone into the hospital.
Originally, even I’d assumed he would come back every couple of weeks, maybe to refill the fridge and pantry with food and to pay the bills.
I’d stopped thinking he would be back when he’d started paying the bills from wherever he was staying now. He’d sent Marie some cash to pay for food, although Marie hadn’t told me about it.
Because he’d taken steps not to come back, I had assumed he wouldn’t, and I’d settled into the idea that I’d never see him again.
I was nervous about that now, about seeing his face. I’d yelled at him while his wife was possibly dying on the way to the hospital. He’d returned, only to tell me he was leaving and to put a trampoline in the backyard, as if that could make up for the fact that he was going away.
He’d refused to tell me about my past. About where I’d come from and who my mother was.
I wished we could avoid seeing him now. What would he really do if I never showed up? Would he give up and just disappear again? It wasn’t like he could call the cops to search for me. He would never do it.
Despite my wish, the car pulled onto Sunnyvale Court.
To avoid any attention in case Mr. Hendricks had someone watching the road, Kota parked at Bob’s Diner. It was New Year’s Day. The neon sign glowed, advertising it was open, yet the parking lot was almost empty. It was probably a good thing it was slow.
Most of the employees were Academy, and many of them, including some of us, had been at camp all week.
Kota turned off the engine. He twisted in the seat to look back at me. “Remember,” he said, “go in, tell him you’ve been at school camp. You can give him most of the details. Whatever might convince him this was just a normal school thing and you decided to go. Given his history, he’s probably only concerned because it could lead to exposure, so just promise not to do it again.”
Despite his calm demeanor, his eyes were wide, and his knuckles were still white from having gripped the steering wheel so tightly and now being balled into fists.
Victor pulled out his own phone and passed it to me. “You’ll need to hang on to this,” he said. “I turned the sound off. It’s probably best if you hide it.” The case was white. Mine had cracked, and in the chaos, I wasn’t exactly sure where it was at the moment.
I didn’t have a bra on right now, so I tucked the phone into my underwear at my back. With the shorts’ waistband tight, it should stay at my waist if I didn’t bounce around too much. “Can you still listen with it at my back?”
“We can listen through it or through your father’s cell phone if needed,” Victor said. “And we’ll have the cameras running so we can see what’s going on. It’ll drain the battery, so don’t forget to charge it.”
Nathan opened Gabriel’s door, allowing him to get out, and then Nathan reached in and took my hand to help me scoot along until I was stepping on the gravel of the parking lot.
“No matter what,” Nathan said as he closed the door, “if you feel threatened, walk out the door. I’m not going to be far.”
“Me, either,” Gabriel mumbled. His c
rystal eyes darkened, his lips taut.
Nathan shot him just as dark a look.
No one was happy with this.
Or they were still moody after the fight they’d had. It was hard to tell.
There was no time to tell them what I’d heard, and I didn’t dare bring it up. In the moment, my heart was pounding so loud. This was worse than the week leading to camp. There had been no warning, and now I was returning home for the first time in what felt like eons.
I breathed in the cold January air. I wasn’t sure of the time, but I considered it had to be past noon at least. How different my world had become since yesterday, or even this morning. Camp had changed me. Despite my issues with being around girls, and the disaster I’d become around the shower, the Academy had shown me a world of kindness. Coming back had been a trip through a wardrobe...the Academy had been Narnia, and now I was back, blinking, wondering if it had all been a dream, because the real world wasn’t nearly as nice.
I needed to avoid being seen coming in, just in case.
I repeated what I needed to do in my head while we walked along the path through the woods.
I’d walk in.
He’d ask where I’d been.
I would say I was at camp.
He’d fuss about it, but I’d say sorry, wouldn’t happen again.
He might stay a day or two, but even so, he’d be gone for work. By Monday at the latest, he’d go.
He wouldn’t come upstairs. I might even just go for a walk while he was there.
I’d avoid him, like before.
I’d be able to sneak out to be around the guys, and they could sneak inside at night.
Once my father left, and we were sure he was gone, I’d be free again.
A thin layer of leaves crunched under my feet as I walked. Kota led the way and carried a pack loaded with a laptop to monitor everything. Nathan and Gabriel walked beside me. Victor followed.
“If you need someone to vouch, we can always call Carla,” Kota said, talking about a sort of friend I’d made at camp. “She’ll even do it without a favor.”
I didn’t dare bother Carla. She was nice, even if we’d started out at odds that week. Between her and the other girls, as much as they were very nice, I’d left under poor circumstances, in the middle of the night, and never wanted to see them again. I was too embarrassed.
Still, in my heart, I knew if I asked her, Carla, or Lake, or anyone at the Academy would help if I asked.
It was a thought that was supposed to calm me down; however, my heart wouldn’t stop racing.
I swallowed a thousand times on that walk. My heart felt like it was in my throat. My nerves were overwrought with anxiety. I didn’t think I’d ever feel calm again, I’d been so high-strung for so long.
When the path twisted and I found the bridge that led to the backyard, we stopped.
