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The questions she shot from her eyes as she looked at him and Victor last night, it killed him.
She found Nathan alone without a phone in the middle of the night. Finding Sang in the grocery store. Catching Kota in lies he’d told her. Kota then not showing up until very early in the morning, dropping off Gabriel and taking Nathan out.
“It’s an emergency,” Kota had said. “I need you to trust me.”
It was all he needed to say to her, but that was temporary. He was lucky she trusted him enough to let him go without explanation.
Or maybe it was the early morning hour and she’d lost the gumption to fight it out there.
Nathan brushed a hand across his tired face. He had already been to the spot where he lost the car. He was back to get dressed for school. And he had to find a way to get Marie and Danielle to go to school like they were supposed to.
After a quick brush of his teeth and checking over the place to make sure everything was put up, he collected a book bag and stuffed it with an old textbook and notebooks, just to make it look right.
His first stop was Danielle’s.
He took the back way, crossing by the pool, covered for the winter. There was frost on the grass and encrusting old, dead leaves. The sun peeked over the tops of trees. He breathed in the crisp air.
The woods behind his house were quiet. He took the path to the right. It had been a while since he’d been out here. A bit of bramble and some fallen tree limbs cluttered the trail. At some point, he needed to come out and clear the way again.
Would anyone else do this if the others bought a house? Would he be back to keep up with the walking paths? He wasn’t sure anyone else in the neighborhood did.
What Kota told him that morning disturbed him. On the way over to find the lake, Nathan asked him about what happened with Lily.
“You should talk to her,” Kota had said.
It was all he’d say about it. You should see her. You should talk to her.
But then he talked about houses, about how Sang needed a house. Despite Nathan suggesting they should wait on a big house until they’ve settled the relationship part, Kota seemed more enthusiastic about finding the right house for all of them.
Nathan didn’t know what to make of it. As Kota talked about a number of rooms, locations and space for vehicles, Nathan had sat back and wondered what Lily said to him. What would get Kota to change his position on the relationship so quickly?
And why did Kota refuse to talk to him about it? That wasn’t like him.
Nathan emerged on the other side of the woods, behind a neighbor’s house a few houses away from the diner. He walked a path between two homes and came out on the road. Unless Erica drove past, she wouldn’t see him.
He hurried to Danielle’s front door, ringing the bell.
Derrick answered. His brown hair still had the bowl cut, but it was shorter now. He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and was barefoot and sleepy eyed. “Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Hey!” Nathan said. “Danielle said you all could use a ride to school.”
He smirked and opened the door further. “What did she rope you into doing now? Yesterday she gets you to drive her to school and now you’ll take us both?”
Good question. If they went to school normally, taking them wouldn’t have been a problem. The only reason they hadn’t all school year was because they weren’t reliable, given Academy work. Nathan shrugged. “Silas should be here any minute with the car. I think we can squeeze you two in.” This would be better than getting just Danielle. Now she’d have to go or her brother would rat on her. “We need to pick up Marie, too.”
“Where has she been?” Derrick closed the door as Nathan stepped into the front hallway. The carpet was dark and the space was crowded with a coat stand and a side table covered in mail and receipts. “I haven’t seen her lately.”
“She’s around,” Nathan said. “Let’s get going.”
Derrick disappeared down the hallway to the right. There was activity in the kitchen, but Nathan avoided going to inspect it, assuming it could be their mom or dad. He didn’t want to get in the way.
A moment later, Danielle emerged, trying to appear placid, but her eyes were wide, raging. “Nathan,” she said through clenched teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to pick you up instead of you having to walk over,” he said. “Silas will be here any second.”
She made a face but before she could respond, her mother appeared from the kitchen. The older woman leaned out. She had straight brown hair to her shoulders and big, wide eyes.
“Danielle?” she called out in a nagging voice. “Don’t make them wait on you. Get out the door.” She glanced over at Nathan. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he replied.
She disappeared again into the kitchen.
Danielle clenched her teeth as her lips curled into a snarl. She went down the hallway to her room and picked up her bag. Derrick appeared a minute later, fully dressed.
“Where are you going?” Danielle asked him. “Get your own ride.”
“He said I could go, too,” Derrick said. “Any chance not to go on a suicide trip on those busses...”
“Still overcrowded, hm?” Nathan asked.
“I think there’s five to a seat now,” he said. “One of the other busses broke, and we’ve been taking on extra people since.”
Nathan wasn’t sure how many more busses could break down. He was pretty sure those busses were well overloaded as it was. They were critically dangerous.
By the time they emerged from the house, Silas was parked in the driveway. The blue sedan’s exhaust steamed against the frosty chill outside. Silas sat behind the wheel, phone close to his face, waiting. His broad shoulder was pressed up against the window. When they got close, Silas put his phone away and sat up properly.
???
“Morning,” Silas said to Nathan. He looked a little better today, like at least he had gotten a little sleep. When and where wasn’t clear. Nathan was sure no one really managed to make it home before three. That was if Silas actually made it home and didn’t just sleep somewhere else.
Nathan got into the front seat next to him. Danielle and Derrick got into the car in the back.
“We have room for one more?” Nathan asked. He turned to face Danielle. “Can you go in and get Marie?”
Danielle looked horrified. “You’re kidding.”
Nathan exhaled slowly and shrugged. “It’s either you or me.”
Danielle didn’t say anything. He supposed he was pushing it to get her involved in getting them to school today. He sensed she was barely holding back from yelling at him for the stunt he pulled at her home and getting her to go to school today.
The only reason she wasn’t yelling at him was probably Derrick.
It’s not like he was doing it for his own benefit.
They’d passed the Lee house, but no one was outside when they went by. Silas pulled into the drive of the two-story gray house but pulled in close to the large shed near the back, where he could sit in a blind spot. There weren’t windows on this side of the house. Nathan motioned to Silas’s phone in the cup holder and Silas nodded, indicating Nathan could take it with him.
This time when Nathan got out, he hurried to get inside the garage.
Once he was out of sight of both the house and the car, he used Silas’s phone to check the house cameras.
It was still super early. Mrs. Sorenson was asleep in bed. He should be okay going in, but he’d have to be as quiet as a Luke.
He went to the door inside the garage. It was locked, but he pulled keys out of his pocket and used one to get in.
From there, he tiptoed up the back stairway. On the landing, he paused, listening.
Sang’s old room door was open. The others were closed. He peeked into the open room first.
There were clothes spilling out of the closet, all over the floor. The short black-painted wardrobe that
had been in the attic had been pulled out. It was open, with only a couple of hangers inside. The bed was there, stripped but had books on it that looked like Sang’s old ones from before she stopped going to classes.
The whole place was a mess. Did Mrs. Sorenson do this or did Marie? The attic space was compromised now for sure anyway.
Nostalgia slithered into him as he checked once by the window, the one he’d climbed up to a few times to get to Sang.
The heavy feeling in him returned from that same night, knowing something was wrong in this house for Sang. He didn’t know what at the time. He had no idea. He could only feel it. The memory of her green eyes and the way she tried to ward him off before he was caught.
Now he knew the full of it, he shuddered from all the memories of her being here. He’d never let her come back. They’d come so far.
He went to Marie’s door next, and then at great risk of her screaming, he knocked quickly once and then opened the door slowly.
