First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (56 page)

Before he finished the thought, there was a pinch of electricity zapping his butt. Emergency call shocked his body. His heart skipped as he reached for his phone.

“Tell whoever it is to fuck off,” North said. “This is more important.”

It was Mr. Blackbourne calling through, so while he wanted to follow North’s suggestion, he couldn’t ignore the call and answered the phone.

“She’s fine,” he said. He suspected Mr. Blackbourne had heard about what had happened with Sang. He’d forgotten to text him as well as Dr. Green on the ride in and cringed, afraid Mr. Blackbourne was probably pissed. “If you want a doctor to...”

“Stop talking,” Mr. Blackbourne said, his voice loud enough that Kota was sure the others could hear. Still, he put him on speaker. “Where is she?”

“In the bath,” Kota said. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s her father.”

Kota stood up, still holding the phone. His heart began racing even as he told himself it could be anything. “Did something happen to him?” He shared a look with the rest of the guys. From Mr. Blackbourne’s tone, he knew something was terribly wrong.

“He’s at the Sunnyvale house now,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “And he’s demanding his daughter back.”

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BOOKS BY C. L. STONE

The Academy 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 (Late 2016) – Turn the page for a sneak peek!

The Academy Scarab Beetle Series

Thief

Liar

Fake

Accessory

Hoax (2016)

Other C. L. Stone Books:

Spice God

Smoking Gun

READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN THE ACADEMY GHOST BIRD SERIES

The Academy

The Ghost Bird Series

BLACK

AND

GREEN

♥

Book Eleven

 
♥

Written by C. L. Stone

Published by

Arcato Publishing

THE RETURN

W
e’d just returned from camp. I’d listened as the others discussed the plan of keeping the team together when a phone call interrupted everything.

I’d thought I couldn’t panic any more than I already had after simply listening to them.

Until Kota called for me in alarm. I’d never forget the desperate tone in his voice.

I dressed quickly and rushed out of Victor’s home in downtown Charleston. Kota drove North’s Jeep, with Nathan in the passenger seat, and Victor, Gabriel and I crammed into the rear seat together. The others would follow after gathering laptops and other supplies.

My father was back and from the way Mr. Blackbourne had described it, he had called the school, asking for Mr. Hendricks or someone who could bring me back from school camp; what we had told my sister about where we’d be for the week.

“We need to make sure he doesn’t do anything desperate,” Kota said. “If he came home to check in and found you gone, he might be worried. Remember, he’s just as desperate to keep your background a secret. Now that your stepmother hasn’t been around to keep you at home, he’s probably worried about exposure.”

What we couldn’t have was Mr. Hendricks finding out, either.

My heart was in knots, still in turmoil over the argument I’d overheard when in Victor’s bathroom. Gabriel had held my hand as we listened, and the more they argued, the closer he got. By the end, we were clinging to each other. We’d stared into each other's eyes, knowing what the other was thinking.

It can’t end. We have to stick together.
The more they fought, they 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.

But right now, we had more immediate problems. We hurried as quickly as we could on Mr. Blackbourne’s orders. He and Dr. Green were on the way, although we would still get back to Summerville first.

Most of them were still dirty from the camp we’d been at hours before. I was the only one relatively clean. In my rush, I’d dressed quickly inside Victor’s closet, not daring to waste time. I’d put on fresh underwear, no bra and a bulky sweatshirt I suddenly realized might have been Luke’s because it was baby blue and too big for me. I’d also pulled on cotton shorts that were the first things I’d seen inside Victor’s closet that were about 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.

Hope filled my heart on the way to Sunnyvale Court. Maybe my father 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 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 normally being such a stickler for road rules. He hadn’t even gotten on my case about my seatbelt, which at first I’d forgotten about, but had slowly, quietly put on. I turned and focused on Victor beside me. “Is it because of her? Is she back?”

“She can’t be,” Victor said quietly. They’d all been so quiet in the car, so intent on the road, and consumed by their thoughts. Victor held my hand, my fingers almost numb at the strong way he held on to me, although I returned the squeeze. “They wouldn’t dare, although she’s been demanding a transfer to a different hospital.”

“We’re working on pretending to get her a transfer, and then just drive her around the city in an ambulance and bring her back inside the hospital from a different entrance. We’ll give her a new room and a new doctor,” Nathan said. He spoke to the windshield at first, and then bent over the middle console to look back at me. “She wants medications she overdosed on and a different doctor that will listen to her demands. She thinks a different doctor will release her from the hospital.”

“We won’t be able to keep her forever,” Kota said. “But she’s still there. We would have been notified if things had changed.”

I settled into the seat, bringing up my legs and pulling the sweatshirt over my knees to cocoon myself inside. I lay my head on my knees. “He’s probably just checking up on me,” I said. “He came back, but...he’ll go again.”

Victor’s palm found my back and he rubbed warmly, leaning in. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be there to listen.”

“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.” His head lifted, the first time since getting in the driver’s seat. He peered back at me in the mirror. “Right?”

I nodded. I couldn’t remember the last time my father touched me at all. A hug? A handshake? Funnily enough, now that Kota mentioned it, I couldn’t recall it ever happening.

“Hopefully, he’s back just to check on the house, and panicked when she wasn’t there,” he continued. “It’s why we left her room the way it was. So he’d think she was still around, and she could slip in if he came back. 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.

In the secret attic space, I’d left the old wardrobe, too, despite wanting to bring it out. It was still soundproof, and had pictures inside, along with lights and a beanbag chair. We’d thought he’d come back at least every couple of weeks, maybe to refill the fridge and pantry with food, and to pay the bills. Instead, he paid the bills from wherever he’d been, leaving Marie and me to figure out how to get food and take care of the house. He sent Marie cash to pay for it, although she didn’t tell me until I’d moved out.

I wished the car ride could last forever, or at least until my father gave up and left. I probably shouldn’t feel the way I did about my own father, but it was simpler when he was gone.

Despite my wish, we got to Summerville quickly and soon turned onto Sunnyvale Court. We turned into the road next to Bob’s Diner, the parking lot empty since it was New Year’s Day. It was odd to see it like that, though I imagined most of the staff was at camp this week.

Kota pulled the Jeep into the parking lot and then turned off the engine. He twisted, turning to face me. “Remember,” he said. “You’ve been at a camp for school, a girls’ retreat. It’s why Mr. Blackbourne got the forwarded call. Your father was trying to call the school.”

Despite his calm demeanor, his eyes were wide and his knuckles were still white from having gripped the steering wheel so tightly.

Victor pulled out his phone and passed it to me. “You’ll need to hang onto this so we can listen and track you,” he said. “I turned the sound off. It’s probably best if you hide it.”

I didn’t have a bra on, so I tucked it into my underwear at my back. With the tight shorts, it should stay at my waist if I didn’t bounce around too much. “Is that good enough?”

“It should pick up enough sound,” Victor said. “And we’ll have the cameras running.”

“No matter what,” Nathan said as he opened his door, “you feel threatened, walk out the door. I’m not going to be far.”

The others exited the car. Nathan opened my door.

There was no time to tell them what I’d heard and I didn’t dare bring it up now anyway.

My heart was pounding so loud. This was worse than the week leading to the camp. I was returning home for the first time in what felt like eons to face my father, not having any idea why he’d come back.

I breathed in the cold January air. I wasn’t sure of the time, it had to be past noon by now.

How different my world had been since this morning, or even yesterday. Camp had changed me. It had shown me how nice people could be. 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. Academy had been Narnia, and now I was back, blinking, wondering if it was all a dream because the real world wasn’t nearly as nice.

I stared at the path through the woods that led back to my house. I would go and tell him I’d been dropped off at the diner.

“If you need someone to vouch for you, we can always call Carla back at camp,” Kota said. “She’d even do it without a favor.”

I didn’t want to bother Carla. She was nice, even if we’d started out at odds when we’d first met. As much as she and the other girls were very nice, I’d left them under poor circumstances in the middle of the night, and never wanted to see them again. I was too embarrassed.

I walked with the boys. I was going to tell them they could wait at the diner. I knew at least one of them had a key. Or they could go to Kota’s house, or Nathan’s.

I could have told them that, but then I didn’t think they would listen. They would be at the doorstep if they could get that close. They’d sneak in, and even sit inside the attic space, waiting and listening.

I swallowed a thousand times on that walk, trying to get my heart to settle. My nerves had been made worse through my week of anxiety. I didn’t think I’d ever feel calm again. Especially not now.

When the path twisted and I found the bridge that would take me to my house, I paused, looking at the two-story gray building that used to be my home. The boys stood with me, Victor to my left, Kota to my right. They each held onto my hand.

Nathan was behind me and his hands found my shoulders, holding me strongly.

The house didn’t seem any different to me, but we saw the back. The shed blocked the view of the drive. The back porch, the screened in area, those were all still and quiet. The trampoline the neighborhood boys often came to use with Derrick when he was over visiting Marie, was still there. The grass was a little tall, but patches of it were brown. Despite the break in clouds and blue sky above, the day still felt gray and gloomy.