The Academy - Friends vs. Family

Silas’s hands found me in
the dark. He hugged me close, tightly enough that my breath escaped my lungs. I
froze, too stunned to move. His chin dropped to the top of my head, and the
breath from his nose mixed into my hair.

With trembling fingers, I
slipped my arms around his neck to hug him back. Was this what he needed?

His right arm went under my
butt to hold me up and his other holding at my back to press me to him. He
scooped me up off the floor. My feet dangled on either side of his legs.

I buried my face into his
shoulder, too breathless and consumed by his embrace. It was too close and
everything I wanted right then. How did he know?

“
Aggele mou
,” he
whispered, and he moved his face until his cheek was next to mine. “Sang, don’t
ever do that to me again. Don’t you ever fucking wait...” His breath was hot
against my ear.

I couldn’t speak. Tears
stung my eyes. I hadn’t realized until that moment that Silas had been holding
back something from everyone, waiting until we were alone to tell me this. I
swallowed heavily, tightening my arms around his neck. My fingers slipped into
his hair, feeling the smooth black locks. I felt so bad. I’d scared him.

T
he
A
cademy

Friends

vs.

Family

Year
One

Book
Three

Written
by C. L. Stone

Published
by

Arcato
Publishing

.

Copyright © 2013 C. L.
Stone

http://clstonebooks.com/

Published by Arcato
Publishing

http://www.arcatopublishing.com

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1482685302

ISBN-13: 9781482685305

This book is a work of
fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or
locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s
imagination and used fictitiously.

Other Books By C. L. Stone

Smoking Gun

Spice God

From The Academy Series:

Introductions

First Days

Friends vs. Family

Forgiveness and Permission

For Chelsea

For Delona

For Tabitha

For Nesha

For what family means

.

 
S
ecret
L
ives

I dreamed a wind swept
through a valley, laced with fire and blinding anyone that it came across. I
was tied to a tree, unable to dodge the fire no matter how I struggled. All I
could do was wait what was coming for me.

Part of me felt like I
deserved it.

“Sang?” a voice woke me from my dream.

I sat up in bed, shivering, confused. It
was dawn. My alarm hadn’t gone off yet.

A knock sounded at the door. “Sang?” my
father called. “Are you awake?”

Was something wrong? Was he going to the
hospital with my mother? I kicked off my blankets, my heart rattling hard
against my half-asleep body. My father never came to my door unless something
was wrong. I swallowed back my fears, tugging down the hem of my t-shirt on my
body as it had crept up my stomach while I was sleeping. When I was decent, I opened
my bedroom door, peeking out.

My father loomed in the hallway, dressed
in dark slacks, a white collared shirt and tie. A suit coat hung off of his
arm. If he was going to the hospital, he wouldn’t be wearing that. He peered in
at me with his dark and tired eyes.

I opened the door more, tilting my head.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m going on a business trip,” he said.
He nodded toward the stairwell, in the direction of his bedroom, where my
mother was likely still sleeping. “I won’t be back for a couple of days. I need
to make sure you get your mother to eat something while I’m gone. You know how
she gets when she doesn’t.”

I nodded. Since I was about nine years
old, my mother had been sick. She first went in for a sinus infection but came
back weeks later with bottles of morphine for an illness I wasn’t privileged to
know about. She’d never been the same since, traversing in and out of hospitals
almost as often as I went to school.

Her illness was bad enough as it was.
The drugs, however, made her paranoid. My sister and I spent most of our
childhood and early teenage years at her mercy, keeping us isolated in our
rooms. She told us that men would rape us; monsters would kidnap and kill us.
If we disobeyed, if we left the house and she found out we’d talked to anyone
outside the family, she punished us by getting us to kneel on a hardwood floor
or sit on a stool for hours at a time. If she didn’t eat, didn’t take her
medicine, the punishments got worse.

“Where are you going?” I asked. It was
Friday, and not only did I have school, but I also had something secret to do
with the Academy. I’d have to hope the boys were right, and it wouldn’t take
all day.

“Mexico,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.
Tell your sister.”

Marie, my older sister, was probably
still asleep across the hall. I wondered why he told me and not her. I couldn’t
remember the last time he went on a business trip. I usually didn’t notice
until he was already gone. I hardly saw him anyway, he was always working. It
had me wondering why he mentioned it this time. Maybe he expected to be away
longer.

He marched down the stairs, turned the
corner and was gone. A moment later, the sound of his car starting echoed
through the house. His suitcase must have already been in the car. Telling me
he was leaving was like an afterthought. No goodbyes. No promises to call.

A hollow household with hollow people.
We did what we had to do.

I got dressed for school in shorts and a
blouse. When I was ready, I went to the kitchen downstairs. I found some
crackers in the cabinet and grabbed a yogurt cup and a spoon, along with a
bottle of water. I tiptoed through the quiet house toward my parents’ bedroom.

My mother was slumped over her pillow,
her mouth open and she was snoring. Her graying hair was pulled back in a ponytail,
recently brushed out and fixed up. If I didn’t know any better, she looked
almost normal, peaceful.

I didn’t want to wake her. I dropped the
crackers and everything onto her bedside table. I hoped it would be enough if
she woke up and was hungry.

Something glinting under the bed caught
my eye. I checked my mother again to make sure she wasn’t going to wake up. I
dropped to my knees next to the bed, ducking my head.

There was an open shoebox on its side
under her bed. I recognized her handwriting on some of the notes that spilled
out. The silver metal glint was a picture frame. The picture was a little
faded, and it took a moment for me to realize it was my mother. She had to have
been no more than twenty or so at the time the picture was taken. Her hair was
longer then, and her eyes clearer, sharper than I’d ever remembered.

It was in that moment that I realized I
couldn’t recall ever seeing a picture of anyone in my family. I didn’t think
she owned a camera. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? It was a small thing,
but something that never crossed my mind.

This photograph, as far as I knew, was
the only one of any of us in the entire house. She’d kept it hidden.

The sight of this had my heart
thundering in my chest. Why was it under her bed? Did she not like it? She
didn’t want anyone knowing she had it. Did my dad know?

There were other objects in the box as
well, needles and old bottles of prescription medication, some dating back
before I was born.

I didn’t want to go through her private
things or get caught doing so. I closed the lid for her, slipping the box back
underneath the bed again. I scrambled to get out of her room.

I would let her keep her secrets. I had
my own to deal with. Adding hers to mine right now was too much. I needed to
get to school.

That afternoon, I was flat on my back in
a thin, pale green hospital gown as I waited for the MRI machine to start. The
guys had taken me to this nondescript medical building in downtown Charleston
with the promise that my parents wouldn’t learn about where I was or why. I’d
skipped my last three classes to get here, with Mr. Blackbourne covering for
me. I wasn’t sure how late it was. I was worried we were running short on time
for me to get back into my neighborhood, preferably before my mother noticed I
was late from school.

“Just lay still for a second, Miss
Sang,” Dr. Green’s voice filtered through to me in overhead speakers.

It was difficult to be still. The room
was cold and the table I was on rattled with the movement of the MRI machine. I
was naked, except for the thin gown around me. I knew Luke, Gabriel, Victor,
Nathan, and Kota were probably watching from the same room Dr. Green was
sitting in.

I shifted my head to the side, trying to
glimpse into the glass window where I knew they were standing, but from my
position, and the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead, I couldn’t see
their faces.  

“I said be still, Miss Sang. You can
talk if you want, but don’t move.”

“You might want to listen to him, Miss
Sorenson,” said the disembodied voice of Dr. Philip Roberts. I’d met him
briefly before they chased me into the MRI room. He was from the Academy, I
knew, with white hair and age-spotted cheeks. He was Dr. Green’s mentor and
supervisor for Dr. Green’s internship and residency. I liked him immediately.
“If you move, it takes longer. We might have to start over.”

“It’s cold,” I said, shivering.

Kota’s voice cut through. “Didn’t you
wear shorts and that pink shirt to school today?”

I blinked, and worried if blinking
counted as moving. “Yes.”

“Why’d you take those off? They didn’t
have any metal. You could have worn them. It probably would have been a little
warmer than the gown.”

My mouth popped open. “Luke!”

There was snickering in the background
from both Luke and Gabriel.

“I hate you both right now,” I said.

“Oy, Trouble. You’ve got to have the
full hospital experience.”

“Yeah, Sang,” Luke said. “Rite of
passage.”

I grumbled. Earlier, it sounded
reasonable when they told me I
just had
to put the gown on. After all, I
was in a hospital and about to go into a very large machine. Medical dramas on
television always showed people in the gowns. I’d never been to the doctor
before. How was I supposed to know?

Victor’s sweet baritone voice sounded
through the speakers. “Do you want a blanket?”

“She can’t have one now,” Kota said.
“She’s in the middle of the MRI.”

“We can start it over,” Victor said.
“She said she’s cold.”

“She’s tough. She can take it. Can’t
you, Sang?”

I sighed. “Maybe.” I knew I could, I
just wanted to grumble. It distracted me from the loud machine and moving parts
around me. They were kind of scary.

“This machine costs an arm and a leg
just to push the ‘go’ button,” Dr. Roberts said.

“I’ll pay for it,” Victor said.

“We’ve already started,” Kota said. “Let
her finish. She’ll be fine.”

There was a softly spoken protest from
Victor but he quieted.

I swallowed back my complaints. I
thought of North and Silas, who were probably getting ready for football
practice out in ninety degree weather. They’d probably love to relax in a cool
room right now.

Nathan spoke, “Your ankle doesn’t hurt,
does it?”

“No worse than usual,” I said, although
his question caused me to focus on my foot. After Friday Fall and I’d jumped
from the second floor to the first, I’d ended up with what Dr. Green thought at
first was a sprained ankle. It’d been a couple of weeks and I was still
limping, despite applying ice packs and the boys berating me to sit down and
rest it. I couldn’t hide my pain walking through school and Dr. Green insisted
on bringing me in for an MRI, since the first X-ray didn’t show a broken bone.

“Give me a few more minutes,” Dr.
Roberts said. “We’ll find out what’s bothering you.”

“It’s probably nothing,” I insisted,
like I’d done for weeks. “If it isn’t broken, there isn’t much else that will
fix it besides resting it, right?”

“Will you let us doctors do the
doctoring here, please?” Dr. Roberts asked. “She’s a miss smarty-pants, isn’t
she?”

Gabriel chuckled. “If I hadn’t already
nicknamed her Trouble, I probably would have gone with Smart Ass. Or Pretty
Ass. I can’t decide.”

“Ugh,” I said, grateful the MRI machine
was hiding my blushing.