by C. L. Stone
“We are?”
“Yes.” No explanation as to why or what we were doing.
Likely more Academy work. We weren’t supposed to share too much over the phone.
“Okay,” I said, the only thing I had to offer at the moment.
“Let me know when you get there,” he said and hung up.
I sat back in the seat, dropping the phone next to me so quickly it bounced and slid to the floor. I slumped back again. “I can’t do this…”
“You go do whatever this is he’s asking you to do,” North said. He put in the address into his phone. Apparently, he’d heard the whole thing without me having to tell him. His hearing was too good. “Don’t tell him yet.”
“He’s got to know,” Silas said. “This is how we got into trouble last time, by not telling people.”
“We’re still in the same boat,” North said in a short burst of exasperation. “This just means she wasn’t at work. It doesn’t mean she’s…” He paused. “It could be something else. We’re not keeping it a secret. We’re going to report it to Mr. Blackbourne and figure out what’s next. This is what we’re supposed to do.”
I understood what he was thinking. We were desperate. Any hint to prove she wasn’t Volto, we were going to take.
“We have to get back anyway,” North said. “We have to time things at Nathan’s house. After the police leave and it’s vacant, we take out everything he absolutely wants to keep, anything left at least, and any Academy gear left behind, and be on site for when Mr. Griffin comes back. He’s going to expect his son to be there. At least to tell him he’s staying with us. And then we should be in the clear.” He looked at Silas. “We’re bunking in the security trailer for a few nights. We need to monitor the street for a while.”
“Great,” Silas murmured, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “My favorite.”
North turned the Jeep onto a side street next to the hospital and followed the GPS’s map directions. “Baby, you just tell him we’re still working on it. Try not to let on about her not being where she said she would be. Not yet. Telling him could make it hard if we are wrong. I’m worried we’ll tip her off before this is over.”
As he drove, I kept trying to reconsider what we found out.
Why would Erica tell her son, North, and the others she was going to work and then not actually be at work? It wasn’t like she wasn’t working at all. She had a schedule, and she was paying her bills. Clearly it wasn’t she had been secretly fired or anything.
I considered maybe telling Kota, however, with this job, the afternoon of whatever was planned, it could wait that long. If North and Silas were entrusted to make absolutely certain… well, we weren’t certain yet. That was the only conclusion. They needed to confirm with Mr. Blackbourne the next step. Then we’d know.
A Due
(Intended as a duet; for two voices or instruments)
Sang
Eventually the streets changed from commercial buildings to older colonial homes, and we ended up in narrow alleyways near the market buildings of downtown Charleston. The air was crisp. The sky was overcast but no rain.
The moment we parked, North sent word of where we were, and minutes later, Kota and Nathan arrived, along with Mr. Buble in Mr. Buble’s car.
We were doing something together?
Mr. Buble rolled down Kota’s window so we could talk. “We’ll take Miss Sorenson from here. Will you be heading back to Summerville?”
“With a stop at the school,” North said. “Still working on something.” It was all he mentioned, not volunteering any more. He glanced at Nathan. “Shouldn’t you be at your house? We’re supposed to go monitor. I thought you were there.”
Nathan shrugged lazily. “There’s a seventeen-hour flight before I even have to worry about him getting home. The police are done. Now I can’t be by myself waiting there.”
“We have to team up at all times,” Kota said. “That includes Mr. Buble now. So we’ll need Nathan here for now.”
Mr. Buble motioned with a wave to me. “Then let’s get on with our part. I don’t like doing things so far from the rest of group at this point, but let’s get this finished and we can clear the docket a little.” He motioned to North. “Maybe you two can go pick up Mr. Blackbourne’s car, too. The BMW was given to the dealership they’d bought the new car from. It’s waiting there for now.”
North nodded shortly. It was something important we needed to do. Clear the docket.
Like the theft. And Erica. And where to live.
I got into the back seat of Mr. Buble’s car with Nathan, but Mr. Buble didn’t drive anywhere. Instead, we waved goodbye to North and Silas. The parking spot was just outside of some shops downtown. I wasn’t sure of the location, as the area wasn’t totally familiar to me.
“The task is simple,” Mr. Buble said. “There are two separate runaway teens that have been spotted in this area. They run from adults in general. They’ve left multiple safe homes and foster parents. It might be they won’t trust you either, but more likely younger people than any adults. We’d like to eventually get them into secure housing, even if they prefer to be on their own.”
“What do we do if we find them?” Kota asked.
“You’re only here to locate them, and if possible, tag them. They’ll be joined later by other Academy teens who live on this side of town, those who might be able to get information and convince them to move in to one of our secure locations.” He showed us pictures on his phone, one of a girl, another a boy. They were school pictures, each looking bored or irritated and half smiling at some cameraman. They were young, perhaps twelve or so. “They’ve been seen together, so it’s likely they’re looking out for each other.”
“Then we locate and tag,” Kota said. “It seems simple.”
“If you can get a tracker on one or both, we’ll have done enough to allow others to follow up later.” He leaned over Kota and opened the glove compartment, taking out two small, individually wrapped packets. Inside each packet was a very tiny black dot.
“This is a very simple ping back tracker,” he said. “The teenagers seem to stay downtown, so it’ll be straightforward to keep an eye on them. Get it in a pocket, in a bag, anything, and we can find out where they might be staying for now.”
Kota nodded. “Got it.”
Mr. Buble checked in with me for confirmation. I only nodded.
“Do your best,” he said.
My heart was pounding at the thought of what we should do. One job after another. How did they keep up with everything that went on?
“He’ll probably want to keep an eye on us when possible,” Kota said to me after we reached the sidewalk and started away from where Mr. Buble and Nathan remained, parked and waiting. “But I told him we’d probably pretend to be out on a date.”
“Oh,” I said, realizing he was walking very close. “Should we… does he…” I wanted to ask if Mr. Buble knew yet. “What happened with Lily?”
Kota hesitated, his green eyes blinking rapidly a few times before he responded. “Victor… kind of has a plan. I’m waiting to hear back. I’m not sure though.”
Victor? Sometimes being in such a large group, it was so hard to keep up. I tried my best. I reached out, gave his hand a gentle squeeze and tried to show some confidence. “We trust Victor, don’t we?”
He shared a light smile and his eyes lit up at my touch. “He gave up this job he was going to do with you to go sort it out and check with Mr. Blackbourne. You know, early on he sounded a little… jealous about everything. Or he sort of did when I talked to him about it.” He sighed. “Funny how we all did, in our own way. After I found out… it took a lot of talking to them to figure out how I even felt about it.”
I wished I had some sort of response for him, but I wasn’t sure how to make it better. At times, I felt guilty for how this all came about.
We continued to walk downtown. We didn’t really have a direction. We
were just told to keep an eye out and try to find two people. I tried to keep their picture in my mind, looking at everyone we passed, hoping we’d get to them quickly.
After a minute of waiting to hear him continue and he didn’t, I brushed my fingertips against his arm, trying to be encouraging. “I feel like I was constantly worried about… you. Them, too, but you mostly. I wasn’t sure you’d even try. And I’d understand if you didn’t want to…”
He smiled a little. “I like that you’re more open now. Before, when… I guess it was new and everyone was unsure, it was like you held back. A lot. And now you’re different. You’re more you. And I like it.”
My cheeks heated. I wanted to float as we walked, although I was more doing my best to avoid sidewalk cracks.
For a couple of blocks, we continued, circling an area downtown where there was a mix of older homes, and then crossing the street near a church and finding ourselves on a street with more small businesses built into the old homes.
After walking another block, he stopped shortly, taking his phone out. “Point,” he said.
I tilted my head at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Pick any direction.”
“Any?”
“Trust me. We have to walk the city anyway, let’s make it a little fun. We don’t get out much.”
I guessed that was true, but I didn’t understand what he meant. “Where?”
He smiled, and then jerked his head outward in a motion to direct me to look around. “Randomly. Just point.”
I bit my lip, unsure.
“Here,” he said. He held out his hand, I snagged it, and he drew me in close.
His other hand closed over my forehead and swooped down in a motion. “Close your eyes if it’s easier. Now point. Oh wait.”
He started spinning, in a slow motion, with me beside him on the sidewalk. It was a bit dizzying but he was careful.
“Now point,” he said. “Anywhere. Tell me where to stop.”
“Stop,” I said quickly, feeling like I was about to tumble. I pointed outward. He stilled me quickly, so my pointing finger was stretched out toward the city.
“Stay still,” he said.
I opened my eyes, and he held out his phone. He checked the screen. I peeked over his shoulder as he opened up a map. He zoomed in on where we were, displaying an overhead view of downtown Charleston.
He double-checked our actual location, the street name on a sign next to us, and then again looked at the map, adjusting it to the direction I had pointed.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” he said.
“It is?” I asked.
“Haven’t been there yet,” he said. He grasped my hand, and he lunged forward down the sidewalk, aiming us in the direction I’d pointed. “Come on. There might be one starting soon.”
He seemed so happy we were doing this together. Was this an Academy job or were we out for the day? It didn’t seem to matter to him. The feeling was catching. I wanted to do a good job, but he seemed confident.
We ended up on a street with an open-air market. It was later in the afternoon. The winter sun was already starting to lower itself a bit, but the stores around the market were open, welcoming what few visitors were walking the streets this late January day.
The open-air market was sort of familiar to me, as we’d been on this street before. This time, instead of heading into the more familiar indoor mall that was nearby, he led me toward the market itself. We passed sweetgrass basket weavers sitting on the front entrance, displaying their wares. Occasionally people would stop to look at them. There was a candlemaker near them, creating a blend of sweet and smoky fragrances that hung in the air.
Kota circled them. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he said. “We’ll do what you pointed out to do, but it’ll give us a chance to blend it a bit.”
Kota followed a sidewalk between the open market and a stretch of shops running parallel to each other along the road. There wasn’t much traffic, and many people walked through the street as much as they did the sidewalk. It amazed me that while it was cool outside and the middle of the week, people seemed to be out and about.
Kota stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and read from a sign just outside the door of what seemed a discreet spot between a sweet shop and a bar. If he hadn’t stopped, I might have missed that it was an additional location, and not just part of the sweet shop.
“Next one starts in ten minutes,” he said. “Looks like we just made it.”
“We’re in time for what?” I tried to look around him to read the sign, but he opened the door too quickly and ushered me in.
The building had an open lobby, with a bunch of shopping displays along the walls, Charleston tourist shirts, hats and other items in prominent view. However it didn’t have a feel of a shop, more like the items were secondary.
A long, wooden booth was the center of attention. Attendants were behind it wearing matching T-shirts. Kota approached to talk to them. “We’d like the early jail tour,” he said.
The girl behind the booth nodded. “Forty dollars,” she said.
He pulled out his wallet and fished out two twenties and passed them over. The girl issued him a couple tickets.
“Your tour guide is getting ready,” she said. She motioned with two fingers to another door, smaller, to the left. “There’s a group over there waiting. Stand with them. He’ll be there soon.”
We went through the smaller door, and we ended up in the alley where others stood by waiting.
I stepped up beside Kota. He reached for my hand, encircling my fingers with his as if to warm them. I held on, leaning closely into him. I inched up a little to whisper to him, “What’s this?”
“There’s a ghost tour that wanders through the city a bit and then into an old jail… And then maybe a dungeon.”
My eyes widened. “A dungeon?”
He smiled. “It used to be.” He squeezed my hand once. “You’re not nervous, are you?”
I wished I could have said no, but I felt a little awkward standing with the others in our group for this tour. However, I thought it would be even more awkward if it was just Kota and me and the tour guide. At least we blended in.
He was right. It was a great way to move slow through the area, keeping an eye out for our targets and not look totally out of place.
And I’d never been a part of a tour before.
He leaned in, his lips finding my ear. “I’m a little nervous, too. I’ve never been to one of these. But last I heard, they only have one person out of every group get eaten up by one of the ghosts, so our chances are pretty good.”
My mouth opened up in shock. Kota was always so serious and steadfast that it seemed impossible it could have been anything but the truth. I realized a moment later he was kidding. “Kota!”
He grinned big. “Don’t be nervous. I won’t let them take you.”
I scrunched my face, not believing I fell for it for even a second. This didn’t feel anything like an Academy job at all. However, he was right.
“You haven’t done this before?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I don’t get many days off. But when I do, before we got too busy, I’d come into the city and just finding something to do. Usually my mom dropped me off, you know, before I learned to drive.”
I flinched when he mentioned Erica, but it seemed like he wasn’t worried about anything. I tried to just seem surprised by what he said. He was left alone in the city? “She left you here? And you went around? By picking at random?”
His cheeks bunched up at his big smile. “Random is the best way. You get to experience something new.”
“How do you know if you want to do it?”
“I don’t. But I should at least give it a try.”
“What else have you done?” I asked. As we talked, I took glimpses of the others in our tour group, a set of four older people, maybe early forties, a different older couple with white h
air. All of them were dressed casually, for a day out and touring the downtown area. We were the youngest by far.
He shrugged. “I took one of the cooking classes, learned how to do a backflip from some random guy at the park. I learned to play chess this way, too. They were playing outside a shopping center and I just asked the guys to show me how.”
“You play chess?” I asked, but before he could answer, he got cut off by the tour guide clearing his throat behind us. I shook, surprised and scooted back to give him room to address the group.
I only half listened to the tour guide and what he was telling us about where we were going, some history about Charleston, etc. I might have been more attentive if we weren’t out here for a purpose. From where we were, in an alley between shops just outside the tourist company office, we had a good view of the open market. I wanted to be sure to earn this favor this time.
In fact, as the tour started, I lingered at the back, tugging at Kota’s arm. He got the gist, hanging back away from the others but still following along, whispering to me, “You okay?”
“Just getting to the back of the group so we can keep an eye out,” I said.
He nodded and held my hand, and we followed the tour. Kota occasionally asked a question to at least pretend we were really here for that.
Part of me worried I wouldn’t remember what the two teenagers looked like. When I saw anyone around that was young, I scrutinized them. However most, if any, were with an adult and likely not who we were looking for.
An hour later, with no luck on our hunt during our tour, we were standing in the middle of a dark room down in what I thought was a basement level in a Charleston building. It used to be a courthouse or something. I was mildly paying attention to the tour guide describing the history. It was an interesting space, bricked with low ceilings and the air was thick and smelled of wet dirt and moss.
We didn’t need to be in this building to do the job we were set to do, but it was the last little leg of the tour before we were done.
“We’ve been all over,” I said to Kota. “I haven’t seen them.”
