by Rebel Hart
“Hey, Sis,” I greeted with a warm smile.
Sicily sat down at an open stool and helped himself to a few fruits and pastries.
“How did ping checking go yesterday?” Nathan asked.
“Really good,” Sicily said. “We still got a couple thousand left to go, but we can get it done in a week, maybe, with everyone’s help.”
“That’s good,” Nathan said. “Brayden was helpful, but we didn’t get a whole bunch of information to trace since he was always blindfolded when he traveled to meet with my dad. Nikita had an idea though.”
“Well, Jaxon and I found Brayden walking out in North Postings. If we work with him, we may be able to find where he was before he got to where we found him. Maybe if we just drive back there, a sound, a pothole he might have felt, anything that could steer us in the right direction,” Nikita explained.
“Ooh, ooh, yeah! Like that sense memory thing,” Sicily said.
Everyone went silent and stared at him, so I said, “Explain.”
“Sometimes when people get robbed or raped or assaulted from behind, cops will use sense memory to try and help someone remember details they don’t think they have. There was a point at which you weren’t blindfolded, right?” Sicily asked Brayden.
“I’d meet the two guys, usually outside of school, and then they’d put the blindfolds on me and take me to whatever car and hand me over. I’d have the blindfold on then until they took it off of me in Connor’s office or wherever he was,” Brayden explained.
“When you were walking out where Jaxon and Nikita found you, were you blindfolded until you got there?” Sicily asked.
“Uh…” Brayden screwed his face as he tried to think backwards. “Yes.”
“Did you walk or did they drive you there?”
“Walked,” Brayden said, “Well, they dragged me there. They didn’t even take the blindfold off, just stood me there and unbound my hands. Eventually, I pulled the blindfold off myself and then a few minutes later, Nikita and Jaxon found me.”
Sicily put a hand on Brayden’s shoulder, and it seemed to bolster Brayden’s confidence. “That’s awesome. So all you guys have to do is take Brayden to about where he started, blindfold him again, and see if you can remember which directions you turned in and stuff. Like Nikita said. Try and feel a pothole, remember if you heard anything. You’d be surprised what your brain took note of.”
“Okay,” Brayden replied immediately. “I’ll give it a try.” He looked over at Kyle. “Will you come?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said with a smile. “I’ll be by your side every step of the way.”
“Well, it can’t be a whole lot of people this time either,” I said. “I’d like to go, and Nikita and Jaxon should go, since they found Brayden.”
“Can I go?” Avery asked. “No offense, Sicily, but the ping checking stuff was super boring. I just don’t wanna do that two days in a row.”
Sicily waved a hand. “Nah. I get it.”
“My truck seats six, so with me and Brayden, Jaxon and Nikita, Cherri and Avery, that maxes us out,” Kyle said. “Does that work for you?” Kyle asked Brayden.
Brayden nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine with me.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Let’s finish up breakfast then, and head out.”
Conversation was light and enjoyable over breakfast, then we separated into our two new groups for the day and then Team Drive Brayden piled into Kyle’s truck, and we left for Postings Proper High. Avery and I were in the third row of seats way in the back, and not long into the ride, Avery reached over and grabbed my hand and held it. I looked down at her hand in mine and smiled.
What was I doing? Avery was my best friend. Her telling me to go for it with Deon, or protecting me during Nathan’s outbursts flashed across my mind. She jumped between me and a gun. I was the one making things weird. She just wanted to be friends again.
That was what I wanted too.
“I missed you,” I said. “So much.”
Avery turned and looked at me and must have been able to hear the desperation in my voice, because her smile was less sympathetic than others, and more genuinely happy. “I missed you.”
I leaned in closer to her, hoping that no one else would hear me, but knowing they might and not caring. “We never got to talk about it, but before he left, Deon and I…” I fluttered my eyebrows up and down. “Twice actually.”
“Oh my god, seriously?” She repositioned herself in her seat so that she was facing me. “How was it?”
I rolled my eyes clear into the back of my skull remembering the feeling of Deon all around me. “Like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. We just fit together, you know?” I frowned then. “I miss him.”
“Aw, honey.” Avery pet the side of my head. “I know you do. I don’t know what I’m going to do while I’m dorming at Yale.”
My eyes went saucer wide. “You got accepted?”
Avery flashed me a cocky grin. “Of course. Who do you think you’re talking to?”
I pulled her into a hug. “I’m so proud of you, Avery. They aren’t gonna know what fucking hit ‘em!”
Avery giggled as we released. “That’s the hope. Thanks, Cherri. When I got my letter, all I wanted to do was call you.”
“Yeah, and thanks to your dick friend you couldn’t,” I grumbled. “Fuck.”
Avery started chuckling again. “It’s gonna take some getting used to hearing you swear all the time.”
“Shit. Sorry,” I said, then I yelped. “No, shit. I mean shoot! Damn it. No. Ugh!”
“Just stop,” Avery said. “I like potty-mouth Cherri.”
I smiled. “Good.”
We made it to school and parked just outside the walls. Brayden walked to where he usually met with Connor’s goons. “Okay, I usually met them here. They would blindfold me, and I assume they were putting me in the back.”
“Okay. Avery and I will be Connor’s thugs. Kyle, since you’re driving, you, Nikita, and Jaxon will be the hand-offs. Put him in the back, Jaxon and Nikita, you ride in the far back, and Avery and I will get in the passenger’s side front and second row seats,” I explained.
“Okay.” Kyle put a hand on Brayden’s shoulder. “You good?”
“Yeah, I got this. Thanks.”
With that, Kyle, Nikita, and Jaxon walked back over to his car and started it up. Avery pulled the scarf she’d grabbed out of her pocket and then walked up to Brayden and started to wrap it around his eyes. I noticed Brayden’s entire body tense up, so I reached out and stopped Avery.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Brayden took a deep breath and then nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. You can keep going.”
“Okay. We’re right here. If you need me to, just say the word and the blindfold comes off,” I said.
“Thanks, Cherri,” Brayden replied. Avery resumed putting the scarf around Brayden's eyes and then stepped back. "Oh shoot," Brayden said, lifting his wrists. “My hands were usually zip tied. The only time they weren't was that one time Nikita and Jaxon found me.”
“Uh, okay. We'll use my hair tie,” Avery pulled the rubber band out of her hair and her perfect brown curls fell down in front of her cocoa skin. “It's not as tight as a zip tie.”
Brayden scoffed. “That's just fine.”
I held Brayden’s wrists together and Avery laced her hair tie around them. Once again, I noticed his body tense up, but that time I just gave his hand a little rub to assure him that we were there, and then pulled back.
“Okay. Where did they normally grab you?” I asked.
“My arms. My left one, typically, because they were usually dragging me across the street,” Brayden said.
Avery grabbed Brayden’s arm and dragged him across the street, and Kyle picked up on the hint and did a U-turn to pull up next to us. We loaded Brayden into the seat he was normally in, and then I climbed in the front passenger's seat with Kyle, while Avery climbed into the second row passenger’s seat across from Brayden.
“Okay,” Brayden replied. There was a shake to his voice, and I could see in the way Kyle looked back over his shoulder that he noticed it too, but then he just looked at me, and pulled away from the curb.
We started going straight for a few blocks until Brayden weakly said, “H-here.”
“Where?” Kyle asked. “Left or right?”
“Um. I don’t know.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Brayden shifting awkwardly. “Left ma—” He took a sudden deep breath. “No, right?”
“Brayden?” I said. “You okay?”
Kyle’s eyes shot up into the rearview mirror.
“Brayden,” Avery said. She reached over, and it was as if we all saw it in slow motion, Brayden started to shake. “Um…”
“Kyle, pull over,” I said.
There was no hesitation. Kyle immediately pulled to the side of the road, causing a car behind us to honk in irritation, but it didn’t break Kyle’s stride a bit. He jumped out of the driver’s seat, and I jumped out as well, just in case he needed extra hands. I ran around just as Kyle was pulling Brayden out of the car. He was convulsing, bordering on a seizure, and there was sweat pouring down his brow.
“Brayden!” Kyle yelped.
“Take the restraints off,” I said.
Kyle quickly ripped Avery’s hair tie from around Brayden’s wrists and the scarf from around his eyes. They were red, swollen, and teary and they were glassed over like he was far from where we were standing.
“He’s having a panic attack,” I murmured.
“Brayden,” Kyle said. “Brayden, look at me.” He put his hands on Brayden’s face. “Bray, calm down. Just breathe.” It wasn’t working. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Anything that will ground him!” I called back.
Nikita was climbing over the seat and out of the car just as she said, “Kyle. Kiss him. A quick one to not make it harder to breathe.”
Kyle charged forward and pressed his lips to Brayden’s, and I watched as the rising and falling in Brayden’s chest started to slow. Kyle pulled back and gently petted the sides of Brayden’s face. “Hey. I’m here. Just look at me.” Brayden’s eyes regained some of their focus, centering on Kyle, and then the color started to come back to his face as he slowly evened out. “There you go,” Kyle comforted.
Brayden craned his head again and Kyle met him with another kiss, longer and more passionate. When they parted, Kyle muttered something quietly that I couldn’t hear and Brayden nodded, then Kyle took a few steps back. At that point, Brayden seemed to realize that Nikita and I were watching, and after a few seconds, Avery came to stand next to me.
“Kyle, take a few seconds,” Avery said.
With a nod, Kyle dragged Brayden away from the car and hugged him to continue to help him calm down.
“They’re so good together,” Avery said. “I wish they could just pull the trigger.”
“I still can’t believe it,” I said.
“None of us could,” Nikita said. “It threw us all for a loop, but I agree with Avery. I wish they could just commit to it. I think it’s Brayden keeping them from locking in.”
Kyle walked back towards the truck, holding Brayden at his side. “Hey, can we maybe do this another day. This sort of unexpectedly triggered him.”
“Of course,” Avery, Nikita and I all said at the exact same time.
“It doesn’t make sense to break ourselves trying to put ourselves back together,” I said.
Brayden shook his head. “I don’t know what did it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for something that triggered you, Brayden,” Nikita said.
I put my hand on Brayden’s arm. “I’ve had tons of panic attacks over things I didn’t expect these past six months. This shit we’re going through is fucked. It’s bound to happen. We’ll try again some other time.”
“Let’s head home,” Kyle said. “So you can get some rest,” he said to Brayden.
We piled back into the car, swapping around so that Brayden was back in the front with me in the middle row of seats with Avery. The ride was a quiet one home, and Kyle left us all behind in the interest of getting Brayden inside immediately once we got back.
“I of course don’t mind waiting until Brayden is more comfortable, but that was pretty much my plan for the day,” I said to Avery as we walked with Jaxon and Nikita towards the house.
“Yeah, I was thinking that too. How about we do a girl’s night instead? Dinner and drinks?” Avery said.
“Oh, sure. Will we invite Colette too?” I asked.
Avery smiled. “Yeah,” then she reached out for Nikita. “You’ll come too, right Nikki?”
I was surprised she even asked. In all the time I was in The Royal Court, Nikita dealt mostly with Nathan and Jaxon, occasionally Kyle, and that was it. She never came out with Avery, Colette and I. I got the sense she didn’t really like us all that much.
“Oh, you know I’m there,” Nikita replied. “So long as we go to Colette’s mom’s place. Her sushi is my favorite.”
I stopped in place, staring at Avery and Nikita as they walked and laughed side-by-side. It seemed the new romantic relationships weren’t the only thing I was going to need to get used to in the revamped Royal Court.
9
Cherri
Avery flipped through the clothes hanging in my closet. Back before I cut Avery and the rest of The Royal Court off, Avery and I used to love picking out one another’s outfits and dressing one another up whenever we’d go out. In the wake of deciding that we’d spend the day we lost going out for a girl’s night instead, Avery came up to my room and immediately went to my closet. I didn’t stop her. It was nice to have her getting comfortable around me again.
“Wow. Even your style has changed so much. Move over chiffon, leather is in the house,” she joked.
“Yeah, well, I had one of Deon’s jackets that I hung onto, and I realized that it felt more comfortable,” I explained. “I didn’t wanna go full Nikita, but my wardrobe got generally darker and yeah, I had to invest in a few leather and jean jackets.”
“Well, I wanna be Cherri for a day, so you’ll definitely have to pick out some of this stuff for me, but I’d like to see you in…” She came walking out of the closet with a pair of tight fitting black jeans, a light blue t-shirt, and a sleeveless black jean jacket. “This.” She threw them on the bed. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your lack of heels lately, either. I’ll respect the comfort, but I’m putting you in a pair of my shiny black pumps because they’d be…” She finished the statement by doing a chef’s kiss with her free hand.
I held up my hands. “Fair enough.”
She walked over and fluffed her fingers through my hair. “I never really got to tell you that I love the new haircut. Don’t get me wrong, I loved your hair before, but this just feels like it fits you so much better. The short shows off your gorgeous angles, and the brown color makes your eyes shine.” She squealed. “Ugh. My best friend is so beautiful.”
Tears filled my eyes before I could stop them and I reached out and wrapped my hands around Avery’s waist and buried my face in her stomach. “I don’t know why I thought I could survive without you. You’re gonna leave for school in three months and I wasted six of my last nine months with you being angry.” I really did hate myself for it. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Yes, I leave in a few months, but it’s not like I’m never going to visit you, and it’s not like you’re never going to visit me. I can’t wait to show all those people in New Haven how wonderful and cool you are. Hopefully they’re okay with swearing,” Avery said.
I leaned away, but still kept my arms wrapped around her and looked up at her. “Hopefully, because I did enough prim and proper shit for The Royal Court.”
“There she is,” Avery said with a bright smile. “Okay, come on. Pick something ou
t for me.”
I knew exactly what to pick. Disengaging from Avery, I walked into my closet and sifted through the clothes until I found the few things I had in mind. A pair of form-fitting leather pants and a gray bustier top were two of my favorite things that I owned, and I knew they would look amazing on her. Even though it was pretty warm outside, I convinced her to lace up a pair of my knee-high combat boots, and the way the colors looked against her brown skin was amazing. It was definitely the right way to go. I got dressed in the outfit she picked out for me, and we of course took a copious amount of selfies to mark the occasion.
“Okay. Time for the true test,” she said. She took my hand and led me out of the room and we walked down the hallway to where her and Alistair’s room was located. She knocked a couple of times on the closed door before opening it. “Babe?”
Alistair was laying on the bed flipping through a graphic novel. “Hey.”
“Hey. How do we look?” Avery asked.
Alistair peeked up from his novel, and then suddenly sat straight up. His eyes nearly bugged out of his skull and he smiled. His eyes flicked up and down Avery’s form and I felt a tinge of pride over how excited he looked. He gave me a once-over, though much more respectfully, and smiled. “Damn.” He started to laugh. “Baby, you look smokin’ hot.”
Avery beamed, elbowing me. “Nice pick, Cherri.”
“You look good too, Cherri. You two are gonna knock ‘em dead out there tonight. I damn near don’t want to let you go,” he said.
I snickered and Avery waved her hand. “You know you’re the only one for me, Ali.”
“Still, maybe I should just tag along. I’ll sit a couple tables away with fake glasses and a mustache. It’ll be fine,” he replied.
“Nice try.” Avery hooked one of her arms through mine. “Don’t wait up. It’s our first girl’s night reunited, so we’re partying til we drop.”
“Well I will be waiting up, but only because I’m not letting that sexy-ass outfit go to waste,” Alistair said, then he leaned back on the bed.
