Tales & Time (Lost Time Academy #1)(13)

“Nice to see you again, Sleepy. You have changed one hell of a lot,” he says and lifts my hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it, and I raise my eyebrows at him. What’s with the flirting?

“Sin, come on, man. We are already in the shit because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut,” Knox shouts over, and he briefly looks at me before walking off.

“Sin?” I ask Oisin, not remembering that nickname as kids. I always just called him Oisin, like the others did.

“Just like your nickname, Sleepy—it’s what I’m good at.” He winks, making me blush before walking off after Knox, and Noah follows him, with only a brief look back at me.

“You have some explaining to do,” Tavvy suggests as she walks over to me. I look at the broken door and think about how strong Tobias must have been to knock the door down by throwing Noah. Crazy strong. What’s more concerning is how Noah only looked a little winded by being thrown through a door, not knocked out like he should have been.

“Let me guess, they are the powerful students you told me to stay away from?” I ask, and she gives me a sympathetic look.

“Let’s get some food, and we can chat,” she says and walks off, with me following. My parents always said to stay away from the Tale brothers…maybe they had a point.





Chapter 7





“Well, out with it…how do you know them then?” Tavvy asks once we sit down with our trays of food on one of the benches outside. There are a few strange-looking students sat around, but I can’t focus on them as my mind keeps picturing the guys over and over. I see the geeky boys who used to chase me down the street in a race to see who could get to the ice cream van first. I think back to the last time I saw them…and how it broke me for a long time. Quinton loved them like brothers as well…we were both crushed when they left.



“Shh, keep it down! My parents might hear you!” I whisper as I try not to laugh as Tobias falls through my window, his lanky body too big for the tiny window.

“It was a lot easier to sneak in when I was younger,” Tobias huffs, glaring at the window as he sits up off the floor and grins over at me as I keep laughing.

“Whatever, loser. Get in here,” Quinton says from where he is sat on my bed. Quinton has had a growth spurt recently, and the once skinny boy is now quite bulky, with wide shoulders and a six pack I spotted a few days ago when he had his shirt off as he mowed the lawn for my mum. All the neighbours paid him to mow their lawns after seeing him doing mum’s.

“Where are Oisin, Noah and Knox?” I ask when no one else comes through the window after a while, because I thought they were coming here tonight as well. We always meet up on Saturdays at one of our houses to hang out. It’s almost like a ritual now.

“I just wanted to see you, speak to you before…” he pauses and rubs the back of his head. When Tobias walks past me to sit next to Quinton, I’m shocked how he is so much taller than Quinton even now. Tobias and his twin brother, Noah, are the same age as Quinton and me. His twin brothers, Knox and Oisin, are a few months older. His parents adopted them not long after Knox and Oisin’s parents, who were best friends with Tobias and Noah’s parents, died suddenly. Even though they aren’t blood related, they are brothers in every sense. Quinton is like the brother they adopted at some point, and I suppose I’m like their sister who they can’t get rid of if they tried.

“Before what?” I ask quietly. Each one of the boys have been acting weird this week…maybe that has something to do with it.

“Nothing. Knox, Noah and Oisin aren’t coming tonight. Mum and dad needed them for something,” he mutters, not really giving me an answer. When his eyes meet mine, I know he wants me to forget it.

“Alright. Nothing serious though?” I have to ask him.

“Nope. Now come here,” Tobias suggests, patting the space on the bed between him and Quinton. I walk over and sit between them, and we all lie back, looking up at the white ceiling. I try to ignore how different it has been feeling to be close to Tobias and Quinton and the others recently. Every time they touch me makes my cheeks burn red like they are starting to now.

“You remember what we all agreed on mine and Noah’s eleventh birthday?” Tobias asks Quinton and me as I turn my head to look at him. Seeing how serious he is makes me pause. Quinton answers before I do.

“That we would protect each other, always.”

“Remember that, Sleepy,” Tobias tells me firmly. “Always.”





They didn’t even say goodbye, not really. That was the last time I saw any of them. The next Monday, they didn’t turn up for school, and when I went to their house after to check on them, it was empty. The neighbour told me they had all moved out and left the village yesterday. I don’t even remember walking to Quinton’s and crying for the next week. Eventually, the sadness turned into anger that they didn’t even say goodbye.

Now that anger is just shock and confusion. They are descendants like me…maybe that is why they left, but then that doesn’t make any sense. If everyone is given the book on their seventeenth birthday, they couldn’t have left to come here when they were fifteen. My birthday is the latest in the year out of all of us, except for Quinton whose birthday is next week. It hurts that I’m not going to be celebrating it with him, and he is going to be alone.