The Academy - First Days (14 page)

“I yelled at you earlier before I left. I’m sorry about that. I
didn’t mean it.”

My mouth fell open. I had nearly forgotten about it. “How could
you think that? You get into a fight and the only thing you can think to say is
you’re sorry about something that doesn’t matter?”

He flinched, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Fine. Next time I
won’t apolo--.”

I realized I’d snapped and it broke my heart. I wrapped my arms
around his neck, hugging him. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t find the words
as to why I did it or what I was feeling. He’d disappeared and I had been
worried about him. Seeing him injured like that forced me to think of every bad
thing that was out there and I kept picturing it all happening to him. It was
everything my mother said would happen to me if I wandered away from home.
Friends hug when they want to support one another, right?

“Ooof,” Victor choked out. “Sang, I...” His hands settled behind
my back and he pressed himself to me. His fingers traced along my ribs. He
pressed his cheek to mine and I wondered if that was the proper way to hug
someone and I’d done it wrong. “I am sorry,” he whispered in my ear, his warm
breath teasing my lobe.

I sighed, regrouping myself and stepping back. After I had hugged
him, I felt so awkward, and my face felt hot. I hid my shaking fingers behind
my back as I looked over his injuries again. “We need to clean you up.”

Kota disappeared into his bathroom and grabbed his medical kit. He
brought it out to me. “Where’s Nathan?” he asked as I took the medical kit and
opened it up.

Victor looked at me and then lowered his gaze. “He’s still
training.”

“Where?” I asked, pulling out the peroxide and a gob of cotton and
knelt to the carpet. When my knees knocked against the floor, pain from the
bruises radiated into my thighs. I steeled myself, and shifted to sitting on my
heels to lessen the pressure. I hoped no one noticed.

Victor followed me, sitting cross legged on the floor next to me.
Kota and Gabriel joined us on the floor.

“It’s just at the Academy,” Victor said.

I frowned. It was obviously not this simple or he would have said
it before. “Did Nathan beat you up?” I asked.

Victor attempted a smile but he pursed his lips to stop himself
and shook his head. “No.”

I applied some peroxide to a cotton swab and cupped his chin in my
hand to steady him. I dabbed the cotton against his cheek. The liquid started
to sizzle at the cut.

He thrust his head back, grabbing at my wrist that held the swab
and yanked it away from his face. He sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“Easy, Sang.”

“I barely touched you.” I fished out a clean swab of cotton,
holding it to the bottle to absorb more peroxide.

I did my best to clean his cheek but Victor fought it at every
step, sensitive to every touch. I kept waiting for Kota or Gabriel to start
asking questions but it felt like they already knew what they needed to know,
or they couldn’t ask because I was there. I chewed on my cheek as I applied
bandages to Victor’s face.

“Does this happen a lot?” I asked in a quiet voice. “To all of
you? Do you get called out of school to go do ‘training’?”

There was a lengthy silence before Kota spoke up. “One of the
stipulations for us being there is that Mr. Blackbourne would have full control
over our schedules. If we ever needed to be called up for something that was
Academy business, we would be allowed to leave class to deal with it.”

“Does it always involve fighting?”

Kota’s lips lightly curled up at the corner. “No.”

“Am I allowed to ask what kind of business at the Academy makes
Victor’s face look like he got mauled by a baseball bat?”

Looks were exchanged by all three of them but lips remained
closed. I sighed, crumpling the wrappers from the bandages in my hand, putting
the kit back together and standing, heading to Kota’s bathroom to replace it
all.

“It’s better if you don’t know, Sang,” Kota said. “I don’t want to
keep you in the dark but if you knew...”

I tossed the wrappers in his trash and put the kit back in the
drawer. “Are you worried that I’d be scared for you? I’m freaking out now. How
is knowing worse than not knowing?”

They exchanged looks again. Their silent communication irked me.

“Do your parents know?” I asked. “I mean what if Kota walked in
one day and his poor mom saw him with bruises all over his face?”

“She...” Gabriel started to say but I caught Kota shooting him a
look. Gabriel blushed, looking down at the floor.

What else could I say? Who was I to say anything to them? I had
just as many secrets, didn’t I? I didn’t tell them about my knees, about North
on the roof, and so much more. I wanted to find out what they were up to, but
asking them wasn’t going to work. I sighed, biting back the questions. It might
not be up to them to tell me about it. I thought of Mr. Blackbourne. He was in
charge. Maybe I could ask him without revealing what I knew of Kota and the
others. No, the truth was that I’d agreed to not ask questions. It was harder
to do now that I saw Victor’s bruised face.

I calmed myself and walked back out of the bathroom. The guys
looked uncomfortable for a moment but I sat at the foot of Kota’s bed, crossing
my ankles.

“Are we done with homework yet?” I asked. I hoped the others
understood. It was too frustrating talking to them about an Academy that was so
full of secrets. I thought it was best that I kept listening and catching these
hints when I could. Maybe next time I’d follow Victor and see where he
disappeared to. Right now I knew for certain that the Academy was more than a
secret. It was true what Kota had warned me about. It could be dangerous.

They exchanged another set of looks but Kota gave the slightest
shaking of his head to the others. He smiled weakly at me. “It’s time for a
break.”

“What
smells like tacos?” Victor asked.

D
eeper

I
left Kota’s house an hour later. I wanted to make sure I got back
before Marie did to avoid any more trouble. Making an appearance at home was
important. I was still sensitive to how my mom reacted yesterday when she found
out I was at Kota’s. Before I met the guys, I could go for a couple of days
without seeing anyone in my family, locked away in my room without any
interaction from any of them. Right now seemed a critical time and I couldn’t
be too reckless. After I figured out how our lives would be different with the
new school, I’d be better prepared to spend more time with the others. A
routine would eventually settle in.

I was crossing through the woods, taking a path that lead behind
Nathan’s house. A voice bellowed with a slight echo.

“Fuck... fuck, ouch, fuck me, fuck.”

I recognized Nathan’s voice and stopped, looking toward his house.
It wasn’t quite dark yet but through the fence of his back yard, the light was
on in his shed.

I took the wood plank bridge across the ditch and opened up the
gate to his fence. The door to the shed was open and I crept over to peek inside.

Nathan knelt on the wood floor, clutching at the ground. His
shoulders shook. His shirt was off and he was wearing green camouflage shorts.
His back was layered with bruises and cuts.

“Nathan!”

He straightened onto his knees and twisted to look at me. There
were more bruises along his arms and chest. One of his cheeks was swollen. His
blue eyes squinted at me. “Sang?”

I climbed into the shed and crossed the room to him. I dropped
down to sit on my heels to look closer at his back. “Victor made it sound like
you were fine. Why did he lie to me?”

Nathan groaned. He slipped and crashed back against the cabinet.
“You know you shouldn’t trust boys,” he said. He was breathing heavily and yet
through it he grinned. “We’re... um... something bad that I can’t think of
right now. Remind me to tell you about it later.”

“You’re all driving me crazy,” I said. There was another medical
kit on a tray nearby, the bandages and containers of creams spilled out around
him. I reached for the creams that had rolled out on to the floor and checked
the labels. “Which one did you want?”

He pointed to one. His ring finger on his right hand was in a
splint and taped. I took his hand, pulling it to examine it closer and he
winced.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“Is it broken? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

“I saw a doctor,” he said. “That’s where I got the bandage thing.”

I reached for the tube he had pointed to and read the label,
recognizing the bruising cream. “Is this all you need?”

He nodded.

“Come on,” I said. I stood up and clutched his arm to help him up.
“Let’s get you to inside so you can lay down. You look terrible.”

He laughed. “Are you calling me ugly?” He picked himself up and
started limping for the door. I tucked myself under his arm. It wasn’t that I
could pick him up if he fell, but I could at least serve as a minor crutch. He
looked a little relieved and he leaned against me as he moved forward.

It was slow progress back to his house. Nathan kept stopping to
take in a breath. I opened the door for him and he hobbled in.

“Where do you want to lay down?” I asked.

“In my bed,” he said. “Once I’m down, I don’t think I’m getting
back up.”

I gritted my teeth and got under his arm again, letting him guide
the way through the living room and down a dim hallway until we faced a door at
the end. I opened it and he hopped in.

There was a low dresser pressed up against the wall and a standard
double bed in the middle of the room, no headboard. The bed was draped in a
dark brown blanket, maroon sheets and two pillows stuffed in the middle,
unmade. There were karate movie and jujitsu poses posters along the walls.
There was a walk-in closet completely filled with clothes, boxes and some
broken workout equipment. A workout bench had been pushed to the corner, dumbbells
sat on a box next to it. There was a window on the other side, the wood slat
blinds were drawn.

Nathan plopped onto his stomach on the bed. He landed halfway,
with his legs hanging off the edge. “Fuck.”

I climbed up onto his bed. “Scoot up.”

He did a push up and crawled further onto the bed until he smashed
his face against the pillows and he collapsed again. His broad shoulders shook
as he took in a heavy breath.

I crawled on my knees next to him, opened the tube and squished
the bottle in the middle to get the white cream onto my fingers. “I don’t
suppose you’re going to tell me what happened,” I said. I spread the cream over
the bruises on his back.

“You don’t want to know,” he said, his words were half slurred by
the pillow in his face.

I sighed. “Are you in trouble with the mob? Do you owe them
money?”

He barked a laugh. “Not at the moment.”

I used the cream over the bruises along his back, rubbing it in. I
worked silently, not knowing what to ask, knowing there was nothing I could
probably say to him to get the truth from him. When I was done with his back, I
patted his arm. “Let me see the front.”

When he flipped over, there was another layer of bruises along his
ribs and down his stomach. I squeezed at the bottom of the tube to get more of
the cream out. Touching his back had been one thing. Now that I was looking at
his muscular bare chest, my fingers trembled. I pressed my fingers to the
bruises, trying to calm myself as much as to help his injuries.

I felt his eyes on my face but I couldn’t look at him when I was
touching him in such a way. I focused only on rubbing the cream in. My cheeks
started to heat up when I realized what I thought had been shorts were only a
pair of boxers. I’d been too preoccupied that he was hurt to notice. I was in a
bedroom with a half-naked boy.

“What were you doing out there?” he asked, punching at the pillows
under his head to fluff them up.

“I was going home from Kota’s.”

“I didn’t know you were allowed out yet. Aren’t you grounded or
something?”

“Weren’t you supposed to be in gym class today?”

He smirked. “I had something to do.”

“Huh.” I finished rubbing the cream in and then replaced the cap
on the tube.

He reached out to me, grabbing my wrist. “It had to be done,” he
said. His face was stern, getting that serious look I recognized, his blue eyes
going dark. “If it wasn’t important, I would have been there with you in class.
I wouldn't leave you alone.”

Why was I that important to him? It seemed ludicrous. “I’m not
worried about being alone,” I said softly. “I’ve been alone for a long time. I
can handle myself. What I’m worried about is the next time you’re gone from
class and I’m wondering which hospital you may end up in.”

Nathan’s mouth opened as if he wanted to say something but he
promptly closed his lips again. He held on to my hand, giving it a gentle
squeeze but said nothing.