The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy) (12 page)

“What about the Academy?” I asked. I was getting lost in her list of things to remember. “If they don’t like it, would it be better to not join at all?”

“Join if you’d like,” she said. “Though you don’t have to. The problem is, depending on who you are, the Academy may ask, and even entice you to join them. They may offer things that you might want for your team, in exchange for you listening to their requests, like trying out other teams.”

“Like a bribe?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, nodding. “They did that with me. Several times. They sent me to different girl teams, promising me that they’d trade favors and money in exchange. I thought about it for a long time. I saw it as an opportunity to better the boys, and to get out of their hair. To not be in the middle and to prevent fighting...no, that’s what
they
believed. The Academy. Even the
thought
of me leaving made them miserable. It was better for me to stay.”

“So you said no?” I asked. “If I want to stay with my team…” Was it that simple? To listen to the Academy try to bribe me away from my team, but in the end they’d simply let me remain with them?

“You’ll have to resist,” she said. “That was my mistake: to even consider leaving. But hopefully that won’t be yours. They’ll want to test you with another team. If you truly want to stay with your own team, you’ll have to ignore their promises. Thick and thin, you need to stay where you belong. You’ll have to find a way to prove to them you simply can’t join another team.”

It sounded like she was asking the impossible. “I still don’t fully understand the Academy,” I said. “I don’t know a lot about it.”

“Don’t you?” she asked. “You’ve talked with me for a good while. It seems like you know a lot about the Academy, and what you do know, you discovered on your own.”

Did I? I tried to recall what I’d said and what I knew. “It’s a secret school, sort of,” I said, as if saying things out loud to her would point out what I knew, and where I lacked information. “They have rules. Family first. Family is a choice...” I tried to recall the others.

She held up a slim finger and started to recite, smiling proudly as she did. “The Academy has four main rules to remember. The first, trust your family.” She held up another finger and counted off as she continued. “Two, family is a choice. Three, family first, Academy second. Four, when your family can’t be there for you, the Academy always will be.”

My eyes started to water, especially at that last rule. The Academy always will be. A promise hanging in the air, that the Academy would look out for you even when your family couldn’t. Just like how Kota and the others looked out for me when my own real family wouldn’t. Now Lily was telling me if Kota’s team couldn’t, the Academy would.

“I see you’re understanding,” she said, smiling and dropping her hand. “Yes, it’s what I love about the Academy, and why I can’t simply tell you to not join and stay as you are with them. The Academy helps your team and others. It’s a calling that those worthy of the Academy simply can’t ignore. If you’re eager to help out and participate, this is for you. It becomes your home, part of who you are.”

That sounded like what I suspected the Academy of being, and why the boys went off in the middle of the night to help each other and the Academy whenever they were called on. It was why even when they had some problems with me and questions about our future, belonging to the Academy was never in question. It was a constant in their lives. It always would be. Like it or not, it would be mine, too, whether I decided to join or not. Words came back to me from Mr. Blackbourne and the others, promises they’d whispered that I’d be okay from now on. It was the promise of the Academy repeating through them.

“There’s still much I don’t understand about it,” I said. “And they said I had to trust them in order to join.”

“It’s partially that,” she said. “You do have to trust your team. You also have to learn as you go. It’s part of your training. It’s not just CPR classes and learning how to listen and observe. Learning our purpose comes from participating in a family and pulling together. The Academy has very few rules, and the most important ones are first.” She curled up on the couch again, grabbing a pillow and holding it to her stomach. “But I feel I can help because I’ve been through it. If you have a question, you can talk to me. I may not be able to answer if it’s an Academy question, but I can tell you what to ask your Mr. Blackbourne or other people on your team. And I can explain what it might mean for you as a girl on the team. I’ll help where I can.”

I nodded. That sounded good. I understood there were things they couldn’t share, but if I was to join the Academy at all, I’d have to learn. Often, my problem was I wasn’t sure if I should ask or what I could ask. Some guidance would be helpful.

There was a knock at the door then. It opened, and the man with strawberry-blond hair poked his head in. He looked at me quickly and addressed her. “They’re getting antsy,” he said, his voice deep and scratchy. “I think they want her back.”

“Of course they do,” she said, winking at him. I got the feeling she was toying with him. “They might not be the only ones who want someone back.”

He frowned and closed the door behind him.

“That’s one thing you’ll learn from the boys,” she said, sighing and tossing the pillow to the corner of the couch. “They want you within eyesight. I can barely read in here without one of them eventually coming in and sitting nearby.”

That sounded familiar. “I haven’t had much time to myself since I’ve met them.”

“Ask for it when you need it,” she said. “That’s another thing I had to learn. I don’t often need to now, but every once in a while, I take the car to shop or do something away from the boys. It does them good to miss you every once in a while.”

I couldn’t imagine the boys letting me take the car alone, to shop or do anything else. “I don’t have a license,” I said quietly.

“Let me know if you need me to take you anywhere,” she said. “And depending on where you live, you might be able to take a taxi if I’m not available.” She stood and moved to a desk that was nearby. She pulled a card from it, and then wrote on the back. “This is my cell phone number. And on the front is Henry’s number, too.” She held it out to me and I glanced down, noting the front of the card was information about some nonprofit organization.

“Thank you,” I said. I stood, waiting for her cue to leave.

She watched as I rose from the couch, studying me. She nodded quietly. “This will be a long road,” she said. “But you’re not alone. Not like I was. I hope I can be of some help.”

“I’m just not sure what to do,” I said, revealing the worry I had most often. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“I know,” she said. She lifted a hand and clasped mine that was still holding her card. “I’m here to tell you, it’s okay to love them in your own way, and in your own time. And for them to love you in return. Things may change over time. Some may move on, or come back. If they love you, they’ll always remain in your heart and nearby. It works out. It always does.”

I was stiff as she touched me. My nerves were acting up, but I held onto the card. It felt like the key to answers. I had so many questions.

She released me and turned toward the door. She stopped midway and then faced me again. “One thing,” she said. “Tell your Mr. Blackbourne you’re working with me. He’ll probably approve, but you don’t need to keep secrets from him. I know it’s hard.”

“He wants to find out about my real mother,” I said. “About the past. But I want to work on us and joining the Academy.”

She breathed in sharply through her teeth. “You’ve cut right to the heart of it. It’s good to do that. Really... Actually, you’re right. You should work on you first.” She folded her arms together in front of her stomach and leaned forward a little to look me in the eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Family first. However, the Academy will want to know about your past, and will tell you that you should know, too. Hiding in the dark isn’t what we do.”

I looked at her, terrified of her answer. “The Academy will want to know?”

She nodded. “You should know before they do,” she said. “Because you don’t want them to find out and learn something that will get you to change your mind about joining the team you’ve got, or joining the Academy altogether. They want you to be fully aware of the options you’ve got, the choices that are out there, and if this is what you really want. It’s the fight we all go through with them. We know our past so we’re sure our future is what we want.”

A future with them was what I wanted. Couldn’t they understand? I raced for something to say for her, feeling rushed and not ready to leave when I needed someone to understand I wasn’t ready for the past. There had to be another way. Hadn’t she been listening when I told her my mother was dead, and my stepmother had accused my father of raping her? I’d talked so quickly, I couldn’t remember. She needed to understand. They all did. I didn’t want to know.

“Talk to Mr. Blackbourne,” she said. She stood taller and headed for the door. “Tell him what you’ve told me. You want to work on your team for now. You want to deal with the past later. He might just agree with you. Eventually, though, you’ll have to face it. It might be better if your team was all on your side and you were sure about the others. First things first.”

Terror struck through me, a sharp blade slicing tiny cuts into my heart. Mr. Blackbourne had to have known. It was why he had sought answers without asking me. The Academy would want to know, and would want
me
to know. He was going to find those answers for me.

Nothing could change my mind about the team, though. Knowing Lily was here with her team, I knew it was possible. I didn’t need to know the details of her past to understand it must have been complicated. The marks on her arm, the cautious way the guys guarded her, like Gabriel and Luke guarded me, told me that they were family. Like the boys were my family. They’d been through so much, and it had bonded them.

I was part of my team. I needed to get them on my side before my past came up to the Academy somehow.

Before we looked at it together, and might discover some reason for me to not join. Before they found out I wasn’t good enough somehow.

I held onto the card she gave me as she left the room and I followed.

I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but as I walked out of that library, I knew I’d return. I had questions I needed answers to, questions I hadn’t come up with yet. The thoughts running through me were overwhelming.

Together meant more than I’d ever imagined.

LIFE CHANGES

T
he sun was setting as Luke drove through the streets and headed back to the city.

“You were talking to her for a long time,” Gabriel said. “What’d you all talk about?”

How much did they know? Was I supposed to tell them what Lily told me? I thought I could at least be general. “She was helping me understand what I had to do to join the Academy.”

“Oh,” Gabriel said. He looked at Luke. Luke shared a look back. “How much did she tell you?”

I blinked. I’d been lost in thought from the time we left Lily’s house. I was thinking of her, of her team, of the library. Wondering how she got there, how her team managed to stay together. I was trying to figure out how I could mimic her. I hadn’t thought that the boys might have had a similar conversation with Henry, William and the others. “How much did
they
tell
you
?” I asked.

The boys looked at each other again, sharing a silent conversation. In a snap, their heads faced the windshield, focused ahead. Gabriel folded his arms across his chest. Luke gripped the wheel. “Nothing,” they said together.

Quiet followed. There was an intensity between them. Had the men told them something similar to what Lily told me, or something different?

Or did they not like what they heard?

The concept was momentous. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I understood it in a general sense, but it wasn’t reality to me. Lily and her team were together.
Together
together. They were okay with it. They were standing right in front of me, in their home that they shared. One girl, a handful of guys.

While the discovery of having to figure out my past had been startling, and had thrown me off, it wasn’t until we were in the car and we were on our way back that I couldn’t stop thinking of how they were together.

It wasn’t dissimilar to how I was around the guys when they were together. Why did it strike me as so crazy now?

Maybe because it was in a way that I wasn’t really willing to look at fully yet. They weren’t just friends living together. They were romantically involved with each other. The men with her.

They wanted her, and not another girl. They were willing to share.

It went against every romance novel I’d ever read, every romantic twist in movies. Even if there was a love triangle of sorts, the heroine always ended up with one.

This wasn’t normal.

I glanced at Gabriel. He’d sunk down low in his seat, staring out the window, his hands deep in his pockets. He was deeply lost in his own thoughts.

Luke drove. I saw some of his face in the mirror, but when I’d lean over to see his eyes, he would lean over the steering wheel, or shift to the side, avoiding my eyes.

I lowered my head, too scared to say anything.

I pulled my phone out, and realized I’d left messages from Silas, Nathan and Mr. Blackbourne unanswered. I was embarrassed then, realizing they might be worried or thinking I was ignoring them all. If they only knew…

While Luke was driving, I sent replies to all three in order.

Sang: Silas, miss you, too. Hanging out with Luke and Gabriel. Hope your day was okay.

Sang: With Luke and Gabriel. Not sure where we’re headed next. I’ll ask.

Sang: Sorry I didn’t answer before, Mr. Blackbourne. Sunday breakfasts sounds fine. Maybe we should work on a schedule like you mentioned.