Love's Cruel Redemption (The Ghost Bird Series)

by C. L. Stone

  “You play drums?” I asked.

  “Long story,” Kota said and shook his head. “But my mom will be around me. And the rest of us—”

  “Not forever,” Luke said. He opened a container and started poking at his pancakes. “Won’t we be pretending to go off to college soon?”

  Kota mumbled something. “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

  “Luke’s right,” Dr. Green said. “You all may be moving on, and probably pretty quickly. When it comes to the Academy, we don’t go into details about it, so it will be the same with the fullness of whatever this relationship is.”

  “More secrets,” I mumbled. We had many secrets surrounding us. For some reason, this felt different. It was Kota’s mom. She’d done so much for us. Didn’t she deserve some honesty?

  Or was telling her about this just like telling my own mother about it? Were some things really best left a secret?

  Kota pressed his lips together a little but didn’t say anything.

  “Pumpkin,” Dr. Green said in a more subdued tone, “it’s what we signed up for. We do it with the Academy. You don’t have to agree to this now. But even if you decided...if you picked one of us...we would always be in the Academy. And we’d always have secrets. Everyone does.” There was a small chuckle. “I could tell you some whoppers I’ve overheard from nurses...”

  “Not right now,” Kota said. “But if there isn’t anything else we need to do today, do you think it’s safe enough for us to go somewhere?”

  “If you don’t take her out, I will.”

  Kota sighed. “It’ll look weird if Sang doesn’t come back with me tonight, but also, I don’t know if she should. I’d like to smooth things out with my mom.”

  “I’d have her come here tonight, only...” Dr. Green paused. “I’d risk it. Want to come over tonight, Sang?”

  “I think we’ve got enough trouble with parents right now,” I said. “Not that I don’t mind meeting your mom, or seeing you.” It wasn’t just meeting her. Dr. Green was older than me by a couple of years. Would she say something about me being younger?

  “Aw,” Dr. Green said.

  “I’d be tempted to just go to a movie or something, but we’ve already had someone I thought was following us,” Kota said. “I’d prefer to go somewhere we can lie low anyway.”

  “Then you know where you need to go,” Dr. Green said. “Take her to Victor’s. Just in case someone is following. No more taking chances. We’re getting close on Mr. Hendricks.”

  “We are?” I asked.

  “He’s getting restless,” Dr. Green said. “We’ll fill you in at school on Monday.”

  “Woot!” Luke said. “Victor’s! I love his house.”

  “You like the ice cream,” Kota said.

  “I do,” Luke said. He reached out to my shoulder and held it, supportive. “It’s the cure for everything.”

  “Doctor approved,” Dr. Green said.

  After Dr. Green was off the phone, I settled into the seat, relieved to be going somewhere other than the Lee house. I hated feeling like I needed to avoid the place after that morning.

  I glanced at Kota on occasion, checking in with him. He smiled at me on occasion, but it seemed the thing with his mom was really bothering him.

  Do we tell her? And how much did we dare to tell her?

  Back to Where We’ve Been

  On the way to Victor’s, we stopped shortly in a parking lot so we could eat the breakfast and double check if the car that had followed us reappeared.

  We drove an odd way toward downtown Charleston, just in case. Getting off the highway and weaving through retail areas and neighborhoods at times to get to where we wanted to be made the journey take a lot longer.

  The moment we entered the gate of the Morgan estate, Kota got a text message. He checked his phone and groaned after he read it. “Nathan needs me to come over. I’ve got to drive all the way back.”

  “He needs someone,” I said. “He went back to his house after what happened...”

  “I can’t take you with me,” Kota said. “Just in case, at least right now. You shouldn’t be seen going to Nathan’s. Not until we can figure out...” He twisted his hands on the wheel. “I hate this feeling.”

  I put a gentle, supportive hand on the back of his neck. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to tell her Nathan isn’t a bad guy,” he said. “But it means telling her about...this.”

  “I’m okay with it,” I said. I moved my hand away, putting it down in my lap. “But I...don’t want her to not like me, either.”

  He pressed his lips together again, and then touched the corner of his glasses. “I guess I should go talk to Nathan. I don’t know what to say to her. But...I should ask him, too. Maybe I don’t tell her everything. Maybe I just say it’s just Nathan and me. See how she takes that?”

  “It’s probably what he wants to talk about,” Luke said. “Some sort of plan. Should we all go back?”

  “No,” Kota said. He leaned over the center seat in his car, closer to me. “Do you trust us to talk about it? I’d rather you stay here. I want to go back anyway and see if that car returned to the street. I’d rather not do that with too many people. Nathan can hop in the car with me, and we can see if it will follow.”

  That made sense. “Tell your mom whatever you decide. I’ll go with whatever you say. We can stay here.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, he reached out, patting at Kota’s arm. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “I trust you,” Kota said and then smirked a little. “Just don’t go raiding the freezer for ice cream. You’ve just had breakfast.”

  “Aw...”

  I looked out the window. Kota had parked in Victor’s drive, near the garage. The large yellow estate still intimidated me. I knew we were being watched. “I guess we should go in. Is Victor here?”

  “Not at the moment,” Kota said. “But his parents aren’t here. Just security and a new maid.”

  “She’s legit this time, isn’t she?” Luke asked.

  “Academy vetted.”

  Luke and I got out of the car. The air seemed to be warming now that it was getting closer to noon, but it was still nippy.

  Kota turned the car around in the drive and approached the gate again. It opened, and the sedan turned down the road and disappeared.

  Luke reached for me, wrapping an arm around my neck. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go do something fun.”

  I pivoted to join him on the way to the house. “Aren’t you worried about Kota and Nathan?”

  “Nope.” He smiled and hung on to me on our way up the steps. He let go to open the door. “But can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember when we were all playing with water guns in front of your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Remember when we were all swimming and you were cheating?”

  “I remember. What about it?”

  “We’ve all been pretty stressed out for a really long time,” he said. “And probably for a good reason, but our main reason was you in your old house.” He closed the door behind us and then whispered to me as we went to the back stairs. “You’re out. This thing with Erica, we would have run into that eventually. Almost happened with me this morning. She ran up the stairs when we were kissing.”

  Very true. We were taking a lot of risks. We just realized it too late. “We should have been more prepared.”

  “We’ll never be prepared for everything, but the most important part is you’re out. And now you know what my goal is?”

  “Find Volto?”

  “Besides that.”

  “...Mr. Hendricks?”

  “Not even worried about that. We’re on to him.”

  “Then what?”

  He stopped at the top of the first flight of stairs, about where we were to turn for the second set. He looked at me and kept his voice low. “Us, Sang. Help me work on us. I was thinking about those times on the drive here
.”

  “The pool and the water guns?”

  “Don’t you remember? We struggle now but we already worked back then. And I think if we can get back to times like that, without all the stress on all of us, then that’s how we make sure the others know it will work too.”

  “You want to have a water gun fight?”

  He laughed. “Yes. In a pool.”

  “In January...”

  “Victor’s is heated. Have you even been in it yet? We can still fill the water guns with ice if you want. I recommend it.”

  I couldn’t help giggling at his crazy ideas, and in that moment, I realized maybe he was right. “I can’t believe you’re not worried about Erica.”

  “Erica loves us,” he said. “She may freak out about the things we do, but she comes around. But that’s between Kota and Nathan. Well you, too...but...I mean, what if Erica doesn’t approve of this? Do you think we’d give up then?”

  “Wouldn’t Kota?”

  “Not on you,” he said. “He wouldn’t do that.” He perked up. “So I’m not worried. I’d just like to get back to us. I think if we can get into having good times like that, they’ll all lighten up, see this with a more positive perspective.”

  Maybe he was right. We were wound up pretty tight, even after I left my parents’ house. It felt like the times Luke mentioned happened eons ago. “Can we think of something else besides freezing water?”

  He laughed and nodded. “I know we still need to figure some things out, but let’s not figure it out like it’s a chore and we’re reluctant. Let’s do what we do together.”

  His idea was brilliant. Get back to us. “I want to try,” I said.

  He beamed. “Yeah. So next time you’re around the others, try to smile a bit, get them to do fun things. We’ll be a bit more careful, set up some ground rules around families.” He reached out to me, touching my cheek softly. “It’s a happy ending for us, Sang. I promise.”

  He made me feel better about it. I was still worried about Kota and Nathan, but I had to trust that even if Erica disapproved, somehow they wouldn’t give up on me. Or us.

  The Smooth Chilling Thrill

  When we got to Victor’s bedroom, we were both surprised to find Gabriel on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The king-sized bed was made with a white bedspread and plush with dozens of pillows. The baby grand piano dominated the room in the center. The silver, grays, whites and darks of the floors and walls all made Gabriel’s clothes and even his skin seem to pop in contrast.

  Gabriel was lying sideways with his knees bent. His two locks of blond hair fell across his eyes. He kept up the color before, but at the moment, I realized the roots were showing by about an inch, matching the rest of the hair in the back.

  His hands were over his stomach. He wore jeans and a yellow tank shirt, and he was barefoot. There were pink crystal studs in his ear, the three black rings and a pink ring added in around the crest.

  He slowly turned his head as we approached. The moment he saw it was us, his crystal light eyes widened immensely. “About time,” he said. He sat up swiftly and relief flooded over his expression. “Hey! What are you doing here?” He paused and analyzed my outfit. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “We had to run out the door,” I said.

  Luke shut the bedroom door behind us. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had Pam drop me off when I was supposed to meet Victor, but I don’t know where he is. He’s off doing something. Probably an Academy call.” He yawned and stretched. “I’ve been waiting for someone to come by.”

  “Was someone else going to come over?” I asked.

  “I was going to wait for Victor,” Gabriel said. “Mr. Blackbourne was going to come by if no one else did, but something happened. What car did you all bring?”

  “None,” Luke said. “Kota dropped us off. We were followed for a bit, so he went back to see if he could find him.”

  Gabriel made a face, exposing his teeth. “There’s no car here for us to take. So I guess we’re stuck unless we walk down to the hospital.”

  “It’d be a bit of a walk,” Luke said. “And we probably shouldn’t take Dr. Green’s car right now. Not unless it’s an emergency.”

  “What’s Mr. Blackbourne doing?” I asked.

  “Mr. Blackbourne things,” Gabriel said. “We really need more cars.”

  “What happened to your bike?” Luke asked.

  “It’s too damn cold to drive that thing right now,” he said.

  Luke walked away from me and toward the bathroom. “Then let’s do something fun since we may be here for a bit. Think up something. I’ll be right out.” He closed the door behind himself.

  I went over the piano and sat on the bench. Gabriel jumped up and joined me, sitting next to me, placing his phone on top of the piano.

  We toyed with the piano, figuring out Marry Had a Little Lamb, and then testing every key.

  “Should we be messing with it?” I asked him.

  He tapped at the black keys, making his fingers look like little legs jumping from one to the other. “It’s a piano. You’re supposed to mess with it.”

  His phone buzzed, and he scooped it up off the top of the piano, checking the message.

  “Is it them?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s Victor. But it looks like it is just us up here for a while.” He moved the piano key cover over until it closed. “So we...probably shouldn’t mess with this.”

  “So we don’t make noise while Victor isn’t here? So no one hears us?”

  “No,” he said sheepishly and then grinned. “He just knows I like playing with it when he isn’t here, and he just said to stop. He just had it retuned after the last time.”

  “What did you do to it last time?”

  “Nothing!” he said, a little too quickly. He looked around. “But there’s nothing else to play with. I’m not allowed on his computer, and that’s boring. It’s all dumb code stuff.”

  “We could...watch TV?”

  “Mmm...” He shrugged.

  I glanced around the room, at the black and white décor, and then the closet. “Should we sort the closet?”

  “That’s what I was doing before you got here,” he said. He tapped his fingers like he was playing the piano over the cover. He swung his legs around until he was sitting facing the other way on the bench, and then leaned back against the piano with his elbows propped up. He slid over a little, crossing in front of me, until his face was near mine. “You know what I’m thinking?”

  He was close, and his breath was warm. Part of me was terrified at the crazy possibilities he was feasibly coming up with. “I don’t want to cut my hair right now.”

  He chuckled.

  “Gabriel!” Luke said from the bathroom, his tone light and playful. “Sang! Come see.”

  We scrambled off the bench. Gabriel got to the door first and held a hand out to me. “Hang on,” he said. “Let me make sure he didn’t leave a weird shaped doodie and now he’s wanting to brag.”

  I wrenched my mouth open to make an “o” shape.

  “I was twelve when I did that!” Luke shouted from the bathroom. “And that’s not...I didn’t poop! Just come see.”

  Gabriel opened the door. I braced myself to avoid looking toward the toilet, just in case. Luke was tricky.

  Luke was on the floor, peering under the sink, and surrounding him were several gift baskets. Each one cellophane wrapped and full of bath oils, bath bombs, salts and a wide range of similar concoctions.

  Gabriel picked up one and examined the contents. “Are these new? I didn’t notice these before.”

  “Yeah, they’re new,” Luke said. He chuckled and his eyes caught my attention. “I’m pretty sure these are meant for you.”

  “Shouldn’t we put them back?” I said. “I mean, what if those are for him? Or a gift for...like a cousin or something?”

  “He wouldn’t buy his cousin bath bombs,” Luke said. He brought around his phone, poked a
t it with a forefinger to type in a message. He spoke as he typed. “Can...we...play...with...gift...baskets...under...sink?” He sent the message and waited. When the phone buzzed, he read, “Leave a few for Sang.”

  “Well, she’s here,” Gabriel said. “That means we get to open all of them?”

  “Man, Sang...you get all the good stuff,” Luke said. He placed three of the smaller baskets back into the cabinet. There were still a few in there he hadn’t pulled out. “We’ll save those for Victor. Or next time.”

  There were four left out for us. We placed the biggest one in the middle and we each took one of the other baskets.

  It felt a little weird to open it without Victor here, since he was nice enough to get them. “Maybe I should wait,” I said. “Did he mean these to be a gift for me?”

  “I’m sure it was because of last week, when we said you liked the bath bomb,” Gabriel said. “And he just said we could play with them.” He stabbed a couple of fingers into the cellophane of his basket and widened the hole. He pulled out an item, a box of three various soaps. He put the box to his nose and sniffed. “The box says Korean Night, but I don’t know what Korea smells like. Is it really?” He sniffed again. “Wow, actually smells spicy.”

  Luke opened his package completely, spilling the basket’s contents onto the floor. There was a pipe-shaped container that was the biggest and he took off the lid. He reached in, pulling out a big round bath bomb in a light blue shade. He sniffed it. “Cotton candy? I like this.”

  I turned my basket around, checking out the inside without opening it. Everything was displayed so nicely, I didn’t want to break it open. “What’s a face masque?” I asked.

  “Oh man, I want to try one,” Gabriel said, putting his basket aside and sliding over to look. He put his face to my shoulder to examined my basket and did some noise that was a cross between a grunt and a squeal. “Fuck it. We’re having a Victor spa day.”

  “In honor of Victor?” Luke asked.

  “Right,” Gabriel said. “For Victor.” He went back to his basket. “Okay, pull out everything you want to try. We’ll organize it a bit to put it in order. I’ve seen those spa night routines on YouTube. Been wanting to do that.”