The Academy - Friends vs. Family (6 page)

Kota laughed. “No. She’s using sign language. She spelled out
journal.” He looked back at me. “What language is this?”

I spelled again. It frustrated me because it felt like I was taking
forever to communicate something that would have taken a second to say out
loud. My sign language skills were rusty.

He repeated what I spelled for him, “Korean lettering, and English
words.”

“Let me see that.” Mr. Blackbourne held his hand out to Kota.

I sighed, exasperated. I shot a look at Gabriel. He completely
understood. “You can’t go reading her journal,” he said. “That’s private chick
stuff.”

“I can’t read it,” Mr. Blackbourne said. He took the book from
Kota and flipped through the pages, checking it. “Is there a key to this
puzzle?” he asked.

Kota watched as I signed “She doesn’t need one.” He smiled,
catching on. He slid a finger up to the bridge of his glasses, pressing to his
nose. “I get it. She used Korean lettering so she wouldn’t need a key. If she
ever forgot, she could just check a book to translate.” I signed to him again
and he relayed the message. “So her family couldn’t read it.”

Mr. Blackbourne checked the floor, found a pencil and brought it
and the journal to me. “I want to see you write in it.”

I lifted an eyebrow. Why?

“Write: The five boxing wizards jump quickly.”

I twisted my lips, confused that he picked such an awkward
sentence. I opened to a random blank page, scratching in the lines and circles.
When I was done, I passed it to him.

“You’ve done this for a while,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “You did it
too fast to be a new trick.” He checked my work.

“Sang’s full of little secrets,” Gabriel said.

“Tell me about it,” Kota beamed at me. “When were you going to
tell me about the sign language?”

I shrugged.

“One of these days,” Mr. Blackbourne said as he snapped the
journal shut and passed it back to Kota, “Miss Sorenson, you and I are going to
have a conversation to catch up on what you can actually do. You are
surprisingly useful.”

Kota shot him a look but Mr. Blackbourne turned away, ignoring it.

I was finishing up the trunk and closing the lid when Silas poked
his head in.

“Sang, where does your dad keep his tools? Are there any spare
wood scraps?”

I blew out a sigh, spilling onto the carpet on my back and rolling
my eyes. I looked up at him from my upside down position, smirking. Was
everyone going to forget I couldn’t talk?

He laughed, shaking his head. “Can you please show me?”

I looked over at Kota, wordlessly asking him if he needed me.

“Go help,” he said.

“Kota,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “Grab the other end of her bed, will
you?” He half bent over, his tie swinging free from his blazer as he pushed my
bed away from the wall.

I got up, confused at what they were doing, but Silas grabbed for
my hand to tug me out of the room. His large, strong hand enveloped mine and I
let him guide me down the hallway. I glanced into the bathroom on our way.
North was pulling the loose bit of frame out of the door with a pocket knife.
The stool was gone. The shower behind him was in pieces, the plumbing pulled
from the wall and spread on the floor. Did Silas do that?

I followed Silas down the back stairs and out into the garage. I
lead the way across the drive to the shed in the back, opening the side door
and stepping out of the way so Silas could enter.

I was hitting the switch as Silas shut the door behind us. We were
cast into darkness. The old fluorescent lights above our heads crackled but
needed time to heat up.

My skin tingled and my heart thundered. I was alone with Silas.

Silas’s hands found me in the dark. He hugged me close, tightly
enough that my breath escaped my lungs. I froze, too stunned to move. His chin
dropped to the top of my head, and the breath from his nose mixed into my hair.

With trembling fingers, I slipped my arms around his neck to hug
him back. Was this what he needed?

His right arm went under my butt to hold me up and his other
holding at my back to press me to him. He scooped me up off the floor. My feet
dangled on either side of his legs.

I buried my face into his shoulder, too breathless and consumed by
his embrace. It was too close and everything I wanted right then. How did he
know?

“
Aggele mou
,” he whispered, and he moved his face until his
cheek was next to mine. “Sang, don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t you ever
fucking wait...” His breath was hot against my ear.

I couldn’t speak. Tears stung my eyes. I hadn’t realized until
that moment that Silas had been holding back something from everyone, waiting
until we were alone to tell me this. I swallowed heavily, tightening my arms
around his neck. My fingers slipped into his hair, feeling the smooth black
locks. I felt so bad. I’d scared him.

“Don’t you ever wait to call me,” he said. “I don’t care if you
stubbed your toe or you’re just lonely. You don’t even have to wait until then.
You call, I’ll be here.” He sighed, pressing his lips close to my ear and
whispered. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be here at all. I’d take you home
with me now.”

“Silas,” I croaked out a whisper. My mind whirled and I sucked
back a sob. I didn’t want to cry. If I cried now, I wouldn’t be able to hold it
in any more. Silas’s hug felt good but I was trying my best to be brave around
the guys and not show how scared I was. Monsters. Demons. All the scary things
my dreams held and my mother whispered to me over the years. I could handle
anything she threw me into. I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t see Silas so
freaked out.

Silas shuddered against me. His large hand smoothed across my
back. “When you called my name on the phone, I knew. Your voice squeaked but I
heard you. The line cut out and I couldn’t get here fast enough. I came as
quick as I could. Kota and the others were across town and couldn’t get back
sooner. I called Nathan. I stayed on the line with him when I couldn’t get back
in touch with you. I knew something was wrong. When he couldn’t find you, I
thought maybe we were too late.” He growled softly in my ear. “
Aggele mou
,
Sang. We were almost too late.”

“Silas,” I whispered. “You came for me. I’m here. It’s okay.”

He pulled back enough until he could press his forehead to mine.
The light finished warming and fluttered to life. I was caught up in those soft
brown eyes of his, dark and soothing, glistening. “Promise me,” he demanded.
“Say it.”

“I won’t wait,” I whispered. I swallowed hard. “Silas, I promise.
I’ll call.”

He grunted, pulled me in close against him once again and sighed
into my shoulder. “I hate this,” he said. “I don’t want you here with them.”

Where else did I have to go? I couldn’t go home with him or anyone
else. I couldn’t join the Academy, even if I’d wanted and even if Kota said it
was fine. My parents wouldn’t allow it. The only way to leave would be to call
the cops but the results wouldn’t be what any of us wanted. “It’s not for
forever,” I whispered. “If I ran away with you, they’d come after me. Won’t
everyone else get into trouble?”

He grunted again and lowered me to the ground, keeping a hand on
me to make sure I was stable. He pulled away to rub at his face. “Fine. Let’s
fix your damn shower.”

“Was it broken?” I asked. I turned from him, my head buzzing after
all of the emotions. I sucked in some air and looked for the toolbox on the
shelves.

“I felt like breaking it,” he said. His eyes moved to the
collection of boxes that took up the majority of the floor in the garage. It
was a mess and I was embarrassed by it but he didn’t seem put off. “So I just
took it apart. I’m going to put a timer on it, though. If she even attempts to
do it again, it’ll only be on for a half hour before it cuts off. You can flip
it off and turn it back on again but it’ll stop it from being run for hours on
end like that.”

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” I wasn’t sure he heard me. I
found the toolbox and pulled it off the shelf.

He took the box away from me. “My dad’s a plumber,” he said.

I half expected him to say the Academy. I smiled to myself. For
friends, we still hardly knew each other. I wondered how many other secrets the
guys had, and was sure they had many more than I did. I felt as if they were
helping a near complete stranger, which was so messed up because my heart was
telling me I was much closer to them than my own family that I’d known all my
life.  

When we got back upstairs, North had the door off of the hinges.

Silas held up the tool box. “No wood,” he said.

“Damn,” North said. He blew out a sigh. “Okay, I’m going to make a
new door and a new frame. Silas, you beat the shit out of it.”

“Yup,” Silas said, beaming.

“Sang Baby? Could you fetch me a pen?” North took the toolbox from
Silas’ hands and opened the lid, pulling out a measuring tape and evaluating
the other contents.

I sourced a pen and paper and gave them to North and headed down
to my bedroom again. Mr. Blackbourne and Kota were next to the far wall,
talking. The bed had been moved. Now instead of against the wall, the bed was
sticking out lengthwise into the room, with the head of it under the window.
The bookshelf was moved near the half door to the attic. It created another
barrier, making a square space in front of the attic door.

“It creates an entry way,” Kota was saying, “but it makes it kind
of obvious that she might be trying to mask that attic door.”

Mr. Blackbourne rubbed his palm against his cheek. “There’s no
other furniture to work with. Unless they demand she move it, leave it there.
We’re not prepared to escalate.”

Escalate? What did that mean? I moved further into the room,
trying to figure out why they wanted to block the view of the attic door from
the entryway. I looked at Kota, asking silent questions.

He smiled. “Gabriel,” he called.

The attic door opened and Gabriel popped his head out. “Yeah?”

“Show Sang.”

Gabriel crawled out of the space, with his two locks of dyed blond
hair hanging across his forehead. The rest of his rich, russet brown hair was
mussed in the back. His blond locks of hair hanging in his eyes and the rest of
his brown hair mussed. He left the door to the attic open. He dropped on top of
my bed and spread out a little.

“Go,” Mr. Blackbourne said.

Gabriel leapt from the bed, dropped behind the bookshelf, slid
across the floor and quietly shut the attic door behind himself as he crawled
in.

“Horrible,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “You’re not fast enough.”

“Oy,” Gabriel called from the attic. He opened the door again, letting
it swing and drift across the carpet until it stopped. “You try it.”

“You still need a security signal,” Kota said.

“We could just put a better lock on her door. One they can’t open
with a push pin,” Gabriel said, crawling out of the space again.

I shook my head. Kota seemed to read my mind and knew the answer
to this. “It’d be ideal but it probably won’t happen. They’d notice a new
lock.”

Victor appeared in the doorway, his eyebrow going up at the
rearranged furniture. “Mr. Blackbourne,” he said. “You should come see.”

I shot a questioning look at Victor but he waved his hand at me. I
wasn’t supposed to go along.

Mr. Blackbourne crossed the room, passing me closer than he really
needed to. I could smell his spring soap scent. “Stay,” he commanded of me in a
low voice.

I rubbed at my eyebrow, feeling awkward. Mr. Blackbourne
temporarily grounded me to my room.

“Trouble,” Gabriel said. He leaned off the bed so he could grab my
hand. “Come show me the platform in the back.”

I sighed. “We need a flashlight.”

Kota pulled a set of keys from his pocket, Attached was a metallic
green flashlight. He unhooked the light from the keychain and handed it to me.
“Don’t hurt yourself in there.”

“Hey,” Gabriel said, pouting his lips in a way that made my heart
melt. “You didn’t say that to me.”

Kota waved him off and strolled out of the room and down the
stairs.

I walked around the bed toward the open attic door. Gabriel got on
his knees behind me, ready to follow. I flicked on the flashlight and crawled
on my knees through the attic space. Gabriel left the door open, shuffling
behind me. He had another flashlight on, attached to his own keys and was
shining it around the space, looking at the exposed beams of the house and the
insulation.

I crawled inside about ten feet and found the platform in the
back. I pointed the flashlight back to him to get his attention, swinging the
light so he could see the one beam of wood that cut through the middle of the
opening. I slipped between the beam and the wall, angling myself in. The
platform space was as big as a closet, with enough room above our heads to
stand up fully if we wanted.