First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series)

I
pulled my bag onto my shoulders and stood, testing the weight of it. Did we have to hike to the campground? “Gabriel packed all my clothes. I need more?”

He shrugged. “Probably not. I just get used to hearing about girls packing half the house.”

“Can we bring the house?” I asked. “At least the heater part?”

His smile faded. “Peanut, don’t tell me you’re an indoor girl.”

I shook my head and leaned into him a little, putting a hand on his chest. “I like the idea of camping, but I was thinking of how cold it’s been at night.”

His blue eyes were intense and he pressed himself against my hand before he put down his bag on the bed and covered my hand with his. “If it’s too much for you, you tell me. I’ll make sure you stay warm.”

The Academy

The Ghost Bird Series

First Kiss

♥

Book Ten

 
♥

Written by C. L. Stone

Published by

Arcato Publishing

Copyright © 2016 C. L. Stone

http://clstonebooks.com

Published by Arcato Publishing

http://www.arcatopublishing.com

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1532702334

ISBN-10: 1532702337

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

From The Academy Series

The 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 (Coming late 2016)

The Scarab Beetle Series

Thief

Liar

Fake

Accessory

Hoax (Coming 2016)

Other Books By C. L. Stone

Smoking Gun

Spice God

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THE RECOVERY

K
ota Lee brushed strands of my dirty blond hair away from my forehead and then pressed the back of his palm against it. “You feel warm still.” He sat next to me on his bed, wearing green and white plaid flannel pajama pants and a green T-shirt. He studied my face.

Dr. Green stood in front of us, eyeballing me and waiting for the thermometer in my mouth to finish reading my temperature. His arms were folded over his chest, making creases in the untucked, unbuttoned yellow shirt, and the white T-shirt underneath. He wore jeans, too, so I guessed he wasn’t going to work at the hospital today. “Let’s let the gadget thingie tell us if she has a fever.”

“The thermometer?” Kota asked.

Dr. Green dropped his hands, stuffed them into his pockets and shrugged. “I get so many gadget thingies. That’s what they all are.”

I smiled with the thermometer in my mouth. Strands of my hair fell over my cheeks, and while I tried to brush it back, Kota knocked my hands away from my face and gave me the eye to tell me not to move so they could get an accurate reading. I breathed out through my nose and waited, the loose hair tickling my forehead and cheeks. My hair was a mess after sleeping over; I must have thrashed around a lot in my sleep.

After about a week of being sick, the other guys had slowly started to get back to normal, returning home. I’d stayed at Kota’s house, at first because I was sick, and later because I was helping the others to recover. There were times when I’d run over to Nathan’s house to take care of things while he was sick. I’d also or occasionally gone to the diner to help while Luke and North were recovering.

My home base had shifted to Kota’s house because that was where everyone else usually ended up. Kota’s mother checked on us on occasion, too.

Apparently everyone taking over Kota’s upstairs bedroom while being sick was normal for them, and she didn’t say a word about me joining the guys.

We had all just starting to feel right again when my temperature had jumped in an odd spike last night. I was feeling a little run-down but had assumed I was only tired. Kota checked my forehead, said I must have overworked myself into being sick again and sent me to bed early.

Dr. Green hovered over us with a soft smile and a few curls of his dirty blond hair hanging around his forehead as he waited. He and Kota had such worried, concerned shadows behind their happy demeanors.

I was going to say I was fine, but kept my mouth closed, hoping the thermometer would tell them for me.

When it beeped, he pulled it out and looked at the digital screen. “According to this, she’s dead.”

I giggled, sure he either was reading it upside down or just making a joke. “I’m fine,” I said, probably for the hundredth time that week. “I feel normal.”

Dr. Green held his smile but looked at the thermometer again. He pushed the button once, to turn it off, and then again to turn it on. “One more time, though. Seriously. I think you opened your mouth.”

I hadn’t but was willing to sit through it again just to prove I wasn’t sick...or dead.

Dr. Green put the thing under my tongue and then looked at Kota. “It’s not like we should be in a hurry. Right now, your schedules are all changed. You’ll go to homeroom and then to Music Room B while we figure out our next steps.”

“Sang, too?” Kota asked.

Dr. Green nodded. “She’s already pinned as one of us by most of the staff and her schedule is out of whack. Despite our efforts, she has been missing a lot of school. She might be getting straight A grades, but we weren’t able to totally mark her as in attendance as we thought we could. We might get away with it with a fake Academy record that she’s been at the other school on days off. Might as well officially enroll her with us full time so we can have control of her schedule.” His green eyes sparked with amusement. “Did you hear that? You’re stuck with us now.”

I grinned, although it was more like barring teeth to keep the thermometer in and then closed my mouth quickly.

“What about Mr. Hendricks?” Kota asked, seeming to read my mind. “What happens when he wants something from her and tries to call her parents?”

“We’re going to face it sooner or later,” Dr. Green said. “What happens if we find this missing money? Hendricks will point fingers, including at her. The people he keeps close are ones with a lot of skeletons they want to keep in the closet. She’s not a threat to involve any police, but he could change that in a few seconds with a phone call. Based on who he is and his status, he could make things escalate very quickly and he’s not above lying. If we kick his beehive enough, he might do it.”

“We can stop it, though,” Kota said.

“We may need to get her off the radar before that happens.” He looked over to the window, to the street outside. “We’re taking a lot of risks trying to keep things as they were. The best thing to do right now is to get her away from the potential for harm when it all falls down. We were kidding ourselves. Extracting her from the school was never going to be easy, and we’ve made it ten times harder involving her as much as we have.”

Kota caught my attention with a stare and then winked at me. It wasn’t the first time I suspected things might change after this year when I’d possibly join with the Academy, but Dr. Green made it sound like they’d been planning for a while to get me out of Ashley Waters High School.

Dr. Green continued going over how we’d handle the next few weeks. Since we’d gotten sick, Academy meetings had been held in person, usually at Kota’s house. With Volto getting closer and more dangerous and clearly listening in on any phone calls, despite Victor’s efforts to evade him, no one was taking any risks. Phone calls were only for every day normal things—no Academy business.

I hadn’t turned on my new phone all week. Since mine had been compromised, Victor had provided a new one that had a unique heart sticker on the inside of the cover so I’d know if it’d been switched. Once we returned to school and the diner I’d have to carry it with me, but I planned only to use it for emergencies. I was paranoid now and waited until people were around to talk to them about anything, including simple, friendly things.

When Dr. Green took the thermometer from me again, he shook his head and pouted. “Yup. Dead. Is this one broken?”

“What does it say?” Kota asked.

“Ninety-five point eight,” he said. “I thought you said she had a fever last night. This is the opposite of a fever, Kota. You should get her a heating blanket.”

“Ninety-six is my normal,” I said. Had this not come up before? Maybe not, since I hadn’t really been sick around them before. “If my temperature is ninety-eight, I’m uncomfortable and if it’s ninety-nine, I’m feeling really sick.”

Dr. Green smirked and put the thermometer away. “You just break all the rules, don’t you? I wouldn’t mind taking a few blood tests to be sure it isn’t anything serious. It could be your normal or it could be something else.”

“Could it be serious?” Kota asked.

“Well, she doesn’t have a whole lot of other symptoms,” Dr. Green said. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and looked at me. “No internal pain?”

I shook my head.

“We don’t have to hurry with it,” Dr. Green said. “But I’ll put you on my schedule.”

Kota sighed and shook his head. He stood up and adjusted his shirt and pants from the mess they were in since we’d both just woken up. “Well, as long as she’s not very sick...or actually dead.”

He headed toward the closet, pulling out clothes for himself. His brown hair was sticking out in the back in a way I liked; I’d come to enjoy his fresh-out-of-bed look. He was a lot like Mr. Blackbourne during the day, with hair just right and glasses polished. In the mornings, though, he was almost human, casual, and occasionally without his glasses. I found his face handsome, and admired it.

Dr. Green waited until Kota was in the bathroom, and then reached for my forehead, pressing his palm to my skin. He held there and then eased back to brush some of my hair away from my eyes. “Almost ready to get back into the saddle, pumpkin?” he asked.

I tried to smile, but I was shaking my head at the same time. Could I ever be prepared to go back to school now? Every time I showed up, something strange or awful happened. I wasn’t even worried about the other students anymore. The teachers and staff were unpredictable enough.

“Well, you don’t have to go back right now,” he said.

The door to the bathroom opened and Kota stepped out, dressed and ready for the day in jeans and a thin, green sweater. He had cleaned his glasses with a microfiber cloth and his brown hair was brushed neatly aside on his forehead. “So today’s the day, huh?” he asked.

“I figured with the two of you, we can get through them all in one day,” Dr. Green said. “Unless we’re missing any items. Hard to keep track. There’s a mountain.”

“Today’s the day we find out if we’re missing anyone,” Kota said. “A couple weeks out should be enough time to get more. And if that’s the case, we’ll just order things from the internet to be delivered. We’ve got time.”

I looked from Kota to Dr. Green and back. “Huh?” I asked.

“Wrapping Day,” Dr. Green said. “I’ve got all the gifts at my house for Christmas this year. Now that everyone else is busy, you and Kota are going to help me sort and wrap them all up. You just don’t get to see your own, and you two have to wrap mine so I can pretend I don’t know what they are.” He finished with a satisfied grin.

I started to get up but froze as I thought about gifts. I’d started my shopping with Luke and Gabriel. Gabriel had tucked those items away, promising to send them on to Dr. Green to wrap. I hadn’t thought about it since.

I hadn’t finished shopping for everyone. And Gabriel had the rest of the cash I’d brought to buy them with.