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As Valen and I were leaving Penny’s place, Mark showed up with a gigantic teddy bear and a huge bouquet of red roses. He practically skipped when he saw me and he called my name with excitement.
“Everly! Thank you for bringing her back to me,” he said, moved to hug me, but his hands were full. I patted him on the back and we broke apart awkwardly with nervous laughter. “I’m taking these in to brighten her day.”
“Just you being here is going to do it,” I assured him. “She really likes you, but I think you know that.”
“I like her too,” he said, and I swear I saw a blush creep across his face. He was adorable, and I wanted to hug him again, but the bear and the roses obviously got in the way. “Anyhow, I should get in there. These roses have thorns.”
I walked back to the car where Valen was waiting, and when I got inside he said, “Have you thought about how much school you missed? We should go over it when we get back to the mansion.”
“Oh god,” I snorted. “School. How could I have forgotten about school?”
“You might have forgotten about school, but Mr. Baker will never forget about you, buttercup,” Valen said with a lopsided smile as he pulled away from the sidewalk. I had to admit, I hadn’t thought about our math teacher for quite a while.
“It seems weird, though, doesn’t it?” I mused, mostly to myself.
“What does?” he asked.
“Math. Something as simple as worrying about advanced algebra after I just literally fought for my life and escaped the Organization. I still don’t even know where it was, too, you know that? Where was it?” I asked him.
“I’m not sure myself,” he replied. “We were flown out in Mitchell’s helicopter the night before. His family has a house nearby. A group of us stayed the night and drove to the prison the day after. Nobody talked about where it was, and nobody else asked.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
My voice might have been too sharp for the intent, but I was still sensitive about the entire ordeal and the fact that they’d watched what I’d been forced to do with Ryker.
“We couldn’t,” he replied, and his face fell. The weight of it was heavy on him and I reminded myself that he had no power in this either. “We were supposed to be into it as much as Mitchell and Max and the other guys were enjoying it. All we wanted to do was get in and get you out of there.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you were in a hard place. I don’t mean to be so awful about it.”
“God, Everly, never!” he exclaimed, and his hands tightened on the wheel as we drove. His knuckles whitened from the pressure, his rage and frustration palpable. “You have every right to feel angry at us. I feel angry at us, we should have come after you the first day.”
“You didn’t know where I was,” I said with a small laugh. And that was the truth of it, they didn’t. There was no way for them to find out until they talked to Mitchell and Max about it. “How did you find out? Which one of them told you?”
“Mitchell talked to us at school,” he replied. “Max was on board, of course, but Mitchell approached us first and told us.”
“Those fuckers,” I blurted. “God, I hate them.”
“Then let’s make their lives miserable,” Valen said, looking over at me. “Start with Mitchell, fuck with him while you’re getting trained to take on the bigger fish later on.”
“So start with the minnows and work my way up to the sharks?” I asked with a grin.
“Exactly,” he replied and nodded emphatically. He had a matching grin on his face as we kept driving back to Archer’s place. And as we drove, I thought about ruining Mitchell’s life, and it filled me with purpose and joy.
It was the exact thing I needed to carry on and focus my energies.
I was actually looking forward to school, after all.
* * *
“Are you coming home soon?”Mom asked me on the phone later that day. It was Sunday, about two weeks since I’d been taken and a week since I’d been returned. I wasn’t ready to go home, but I didn’t know how long I could keep up the lie that I was on a school trip.
“I’ll be home tonight,” I said, realizing I might be forced to rejoin my regular life in order to fight the Organization. I couldn’t stay at Archer’s, surrounded by guards, I had to use myself as bait and taunt those who would have killed me if they could.
Amara would continue to teach me, and I would continue to learn, but I had to live my life as normally as possible. Even if it meant going back to Mom and Reg’s place. I had Nat to consider, on top of everything else. As bratty as she was, I loved her like crazy and worried that the Organization would hurt her if I disappeared.
So I would give them the appearance of behaving myself, at least, if I had to. Maybe Amara would give me a way out, a way to stay with Archer and the guys and live in my new world with my new life as the new Everly.
“I’m so excited to see you,” Mom said. “You’ll have to tell me all about Academic Excellence when you get back. I’ll make your favorite dinner, a roast chicken, and we’ll have a cake to celebrate your success.”
