Love's Cruel Redemption (The Ghost Bird #12)(107)

“Right,” Kota said. I felt him pull the covers back over my shoulder, lean over, kiss me on the forehead before getting up fully.

I didn’t get up until they were gone.

Rustling in the room spooked me. I was alone again.

Luke sat up from a sleeping bag, rubbing his eyes. His blond hair was wild, static lifting it in a wild way. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him, but I imagined a lot of us stayed on this side of town, at least last night. I wondered where the others were.

He signed to me with one hand. “He’s telling her about us?”

I nodded.

I jumped out of bed and silently slipped down the steps. At the door, I leaned in close, listening to what was being said.

Luke was behind me instantly. His warm breath fell on my shoulder. His hand touched my lower back. “Whatever she says, it won’t matter,” he whispered. “Not to us.”

I wasn’t so sure. Would Kota not care if Erica said she didn’t accept it?

I knew I was being a coward letting Kota do the talking, but I wanted to be able to step in for support if he needed it, too. He knew his mother better than I did. Maybe he should start without me there.

Erica kept it simple. “Tell me what’s been going on,” she said. “Tell me why Sang’s out at late hours with Nathan. Tell me where you’ve been. And why people were looking for her and willing to attack us to get to her. And why the police arrested those two men and don’t ask a word about Sang when you tell them not to include her in any of it.”

It was a long list.

Kota started by explaining to her that the Academy sent them to the public school not for a special academic program, but to investigate and be part of a team that would root out Mr. Hendricks and some problems going on there. He didn’t get into details, but he did say that at some point, I’d learned about it, joined them, and unfortunately that resulted in Mr. Hendricks coming after me, mostly to get to them.

“I don’t know how much he knows about her real situation at home,” he said. “There were things going on there, which is why she hasn’t been back. But somehow, he must have learned she wasn’t staying at the house much. Perhaps through her sister...”

Erica tapped her fingers repeatedly in various drumming patterns on a table, or at least I thought it was her as Kota didn’t normally tap at anything so randomly. “I can’t believe your school would ask you to do something like this.”

“You’ve known for a while it isn’t a normal school,” he said. “You’ve asked questions before.”

“I know,” she said. “I can’t say I’ve always...liked what they ask you to do, but I can’t believe they’d get teenagers to get involved like this.”

“We weren’t aware of how drastically they’d lash out. We were meant to observe only. Information gathering. Last night, that was the result of them being cornered. We weren’t the only ones trying to figure out what was going on, but someone else drew the attention of the police to them, causing them to react like this. Somehow they thought getting to Sang, to use her, they could get us to talk to the police to get them to back out of their search, or perhaps something else. We don’t know fully.”

He was talking about Volto, but I understood he probably didn’t want to complicated things by talking about a masked guy chasing us around.

Luke leaned in closer to the door. We were face to face, nose to nose almost, and listening.

His hand took mine, squeezing gently as we waited for more.

“So Sang and Nathan...they are a part of this?” she asked. “And that makes them need to spend time together?”

“Along with the rest of us, yes,” he said. “Silas, North...all of us. It’s why they spend time here often, or together somewhere else. We’re a team. Sang joined us in the middle of everything but she’s now part of the team.”

“And why wasn’t I allowed to know?”

“To protect you,” he said simply. “Sometimes it’s better when others don’t know.”

“So I don’t worry?” Her voice rose. “Are you kidding me?”

Kota fell silent.

More finger drumming, faster now. “Tell me something, then. Tell me the incident in the bathroom was something dramatically different than what Jessica saw.” The drumming stopped shortly, breaking the pattern she’d produced. “Kota, you tell me what’s going on there. How is it Sang isn’t upset with him, or you aren’t as mad at him as you pretend to be? It wasn’t like him at all.”

Kota sighed. My cheeks radiated with heat, even though I wasn’t in the room.

Luke squeezed my hand tighter, leaning in. He pressed his forehead to mine.

We stayed like this, eyes closed, close. Waiting.

Hoping this wasn’t the wrong thing. That after all this turmoil, after all of this we’ve been through together, that someone outside of it would understand.

If Erica couldn’t accept whatever he’d say, then who else could? Did we have any chance at all?

I knew what Kota would say before he said it. I only hoped she’d understand. “Because... we’re both dating her.”

“You’re...what?”

“We both like her, so we decided between us that we’d...both date her. He wasn’t doing anything behind my back. I mean...I don’t mean to make it sound like Sang didn’t have a choice. She agreed to it. I’m probably making this sound worse than it is.”