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We Are Who We Are
Kota walked by my side as we traveled down the road back to his house. When we turned around the bend in the road, I expected bright lights, people scrambling around in the front yard, and the mess I left behind to still be there.
It was all quiet. The street ahead of us was lit only by dim lamps and what few lights were still on in houses. I wondered how many of the neighbors had gotten up to see what was happening at Kota’s house. How many knew that the principal and Mr. Morris had been here?
Did my stepmother see what was happening? Did Marie inform her about it?
Kota’s home was quiet, the porch light turned off. We went around the back, avoiding the still closed doors of the garage. Kota’s sedan was parked back in its usual spot.
Max greeted us in the hallway. I petted him vigorously for a short moment, glad he was okay. My fingers raked through his golden hair and he lapped at my arm. He seemed to know to keep quiet, as he stepped silently through the house, following us to Kota’s bedroom door.
Kota urged the dog to go back. “Find Jessica,” he said. “Stay with her.”
Max huffed once and padded away, as if knowing exactly what he said and was obeying.
Kota led the way up into his bedroom. It was empty, the bed still made, and a book bag sitting in the chair next to his computer desk. It appeared completely undisturbed by what happened earlier. I imagined he hadn’t even been up here until now.
I waited by the stairs as he moved further into the bedroom. When I stopped, he paused and turned to me. “Something wrong?”
“I feel like I should be doing something.”
“We sleep first,” he said. “I just didn’t want to have to leave again before talking to my mom tomorrow. It’d look really bad if I disappeared again without fulfilling the promise I made.”
It made sense, especially if he wanted me to be here.
He went to the closet and passed me pajama pants and a T-shirt. I didn’t know whose they were, but I put them on while standing in his bedroom, too tired to go into the bathroom and change. He threw on similar and urged me to bed.
He nudged me into his bed, but instead of rolling out the bed from underneath, he got in beside me.
Kota curled into me, his glasses removed. He had an arm around my waist, his nose pressed into my shoulder.
I exhaled and for the first moment, I actually started to relax. My body was tense, my mind reeling after all of the events. I’d been so tired, and then once I hit the bed, my brain was fully engaged.
Until Kota started rubbing a spot on my ear, soft at first, and then more intently.
From then on, I faded in and out of sleep.
At every moment, Kota was there next to me, an arm around me, or leaning into me with his face pressed to my body.
I reveled in it. For a while there, I had been sleeping alone in the bed, but with the guys nearby. Now, sleeping with someone in the bed, someone I trusted and wanted to be close to, made the whole experience something I craved and felt deprived of when they weren’t around. Feeling safe, secure, and able to depend on them. I hoped they felt the same from me.
His legs intertwined with mine often. And my face pressed to him, his back or chest, depending on how he was sleeping. It was like this the whole night, with me sleeping but then slightly waking when he turned, and then me realizing it was him, and snuggling closer.
We both needed this.
The sun was bright in the room before the downstairs door opened and footsteps padded up the steps, stopping at the top. I didn’t move. My body didn’t want to.
Kota yawned, stretched, sat up and moved to put his foot on the floor. “I know the rule,” he said, his voice thick and gravelly with sleep. “But after last night...”
“I know,” Erica whispered. “Don’t worry. I trust you.”
I was aware she was there, but I didn’t want to get up. I pretended to sleep. I was being a chicken, avoiding the conversation but willing to get up if Kota roused me.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Erica said. “When you’re ready. I need to know some things before someone on the police force comes back with more questions. I’m sure they’ll be here at some point.”
“Right,” Kota said. I felt him pull the covers back over my shoulder, lean over, kiss me on the forehead before getting up fully.
I didn’t get up until they were gone.
Rustling in the room spooked me. I was alone again.
Luke sat up from a sleeping bag, rubbing his eyes. His blond hair was wild, static lifting it in a wild way. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him, but I imagined a lot of us stayed on this side of town, at least last night. I wondered where the others were.
He signed to me with one hand. “He’s telling her about us?”
I nodded.
I jumped out of bed and silently slipped down the steps. At the door, I leaned in close, listening to what was being said.
Luke was behind me instantly. His warm breath fell on my shoulder. His hand touched my lower back. “Whatever she says, it won’t matter,” he whispered. “Not to us.”
I wasn’t so sure. Would Kota not care if Erica said she didn’t accept it?
I knew I was being a coward letting Kota do the talking, but I wanted to be able to step in for support if he needed it, too. He knew his mother better than I did. Maybe he should start without me there.
Erica kept it simple. “Tell me what’s been going on,” she said. “Tell me why Sang’s out at late hours with Nathan. Tell me where you’ve been. And why people were looking for her and willing to attack us to get to her. And why the police arrested those two men and don’t ask a word about Sang when you tell them not to include her in any of it.”
It was a long list.
Kota started by explaining to her that the Academy sent them to the public school not for a special academic program, but to investigate and be part of a team that would root out Mr. Hendricks and some problems going on there. He didn’t get into details, but he did say that at some point, I’d learned about it, joined them, and unfortunately that resulted in Mr. Hendricks coming after me, mostly to get to them.
“I don’t know how much he knows about her real situation at home,” he said. “There were things going on there, which is why she hasn’t been back. But somehow, he must have learned she wasn’t staying at the house much. Perhaps through her sister...”
Erica tapped her fingers repeatedly in various drumming patterns on a table, or at least I thought it was her as Kota didn’t normally tap at anything so randomly. “I can’t believe your school would ask you to do something like this.”
“You’ve known for a while it isn’t a normal school,” he said. “You’ve asked questions before.”
“I know,” she said. “I can’t say I’ve always...liked what they ask you to do, but I can’t believe they’d get teenagers to get involved like this.”
“We weren’t aware of how drastically they’d lash out. We were meant to observe only. Information gathering. Last night, that was the result of them being cornered. We weren’t the only ones trying to figure out what was going on, but someone else drew the attention of the police to them, causing them to react like this. Somehow they thought getting to Sang, to use her, they could get us to talk to the police to get them to back out of their search, or perhaps something else. We don’t know fully.”
He was talking about Volto, but I understood he probably didn’t want to complicated things by talking about a masked guy chasing us around.
Luke leaned in closer to the door. We were face to face, nose to nose almost, and listening.
His hand took mine, squeezing gently as we waited for more.
“So Sang and Nathan...they are a part of this?” she asked. “And that makes them need to spend time together?”
“Along with the rest of us, yes,” he said. “Silas, North...all of us. It’s why they spend time here often, or together somewhere else. We’re a team. Sang joined us in th
e middle of everything but she’s now part of the team.”
“And why wasn’t I allowed to know?”
“To protect you,” he said simply. “Sometimes it’s better when others don’t know.”
“So I don’t worry?” Her voice rose. “Are you kidding me?”
Kota fell silent.
More finger drumming, faster now. “Tell me something, then. Tell me the incident in the bathroom was something dramatically different than what Jessica saw.” The drumming stopped shortly, breaking the pattern she’d produced. “Kota, you tell me what’s going on there. How is it Sang isn’t upset with him, or you aren’t as mad at him as you pretend to be? It wasn’t like him at all.”
Kota sighed. My cheeks radiated with heat, even though I wasn’t in the room.
Luke squeezed my hand tighter, leaning in. He pressed his forehead to mine.
