House of Korba: The Ghost Bird Series: #7 (The Academy) (13 page)

Above our heads, leaning out one of the windows, was Luke. Some of his long blond hair hung loose as he peered down at us. He addressed Kota and Mr. Blackbourne. “There’s hidey holes and exits all over this place. These blueprints of the original construction don’t include all the new additions and where walls were moved. And the grounds are just expansive. Then there’s that inn they’ve built on down the way. This will take more cameras than we’ve got at the school. It’s going to take more than ten of us to handle security.”

“We may need to reconsider our position here,” Kota said. He raised a hand and motioned to Luke. “Come on down.”

Luke nodded and then in a flash, he was scrambling through the window, clinging to the side of the wall. He held on to the bricks and slowly climbed down.

“Don’t...” Kota said, stopping short and then grunting when Luke touched down to the lawn before he could finish. Luke jogged up beside us and Kota shook his head. “I hate it when you do that.”

“What?” Luke asked, blinking, but there was a curve to his lips; he knew what he’d done, and was amused by teasing Kota.

“Let’s try to not overestimate the stability of this place,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “We also shouldn’t show off. It’s good to keep your skills up to par, but we also don’t need people knowing exactly what you can do.” He motioned for everyone to come closer. Luke moved to wedge himself between me and Kota, standing close to me.

“So what are we doing?” Victor asked. “I mean, we can’t just let whoever it is roam wild with another bomb threat. Even if it’s just another empty box, this isn’t the type of venue that will allow a threat to go unnoticed. The news crew will get called in. There will probably be someone from the news team here to cover what’s going on, anyway.”

“We need to take care of these ongoing bomb threats now,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “And as quietly as possible. We’ll bring in the Academy.”

The others seemed to be holding their breaths like I was, only I think I was holding mine for a different reason. Bring in the Academy? Weren’t they the Academy?

“We can’t do that,” Kota said, although in a voice much softer than before, like he wasn’t sure.

“We can’t ask them,” Victor said. “We can’t afford it.”

“This is beyond the scope of our mission,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “And we’re risking the lives of students every day we let this go. I’ve given this a lot of thought. This isn’t about uncovering what Mr. Hendricks might be up to. This is about safety and this is an historic landmark. It’ll be in the Academy’s interests to preserve it, and to save the reputation of what is already a dangerous school. We’ve got a time and location that more than likely will be a target. We should take advantage of it. We need to set up a trap.”

“How?” Luke asked, echoing my thought.

“We’ll undercut all the other offers for catering and security. We’ll swarm the place with our people. We know he’ll be here. We want around the clock monitoring up to and through the entire event. We want the event to be controlled by us. We’re the band. We’re the photographers. We’re the decorators. We’re involved in every piece. We set up the net, and anything that passes through those doors or enters these grounds, we’ll know about.”

“If this is Volto,” Kota said, “if he’s monitoring at all, he’ll notice if we start calling in Academy members.”

“If it is Volto, and he does notice, then we’re more in trouble than we thought, and we need to know as soon as possible,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “We need to find our security breaches, if there are any. Playing in the dark is not what we do. We’ll lure him out and expose him.”

The more they talked, the more my heart sped up. The Academy. They’d be here. I tried to picture it, more people like them, smart, strong, secret. For the longest time, I’d imagined their small circle to essentially be the majority of the Academy. I knew there were more people, but they were all I knew and I couldn’t imagine what the others might be like.

“It’s risky,” Victor said. “We’ll be exposing a lot of us to Volto and Mr. Hendricks.”

“We end this now,” Mr. Blackbourne said decisively. “Another bomb threat is another distraction away from Mr. Hendricks and we can’t afford to lose out on this job. We can’t sacrifice these kids for that, either. Safety first. Whether it is Volto or not, this constant threat has to go.”

“What about Sang?” Luke asked.

I perked up, looking at Luke, but he was focused on Mr. Blackbourne. Kota’s head turned toward me, though, and I met his gaze. He wondered, too, as did I.

What about me?

“Miss Sorenson will be here,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “As expected.”

“They’ll...” Luke started to say, and then pressed his lips together.

“They might notice her,” Victor said softly, like he was trying to finish Luke’s thought.

I picked up my head, waiting for more of an explanation. Were they talking about the Academy people? Were they still worried about it?

“They’re already starting to notice her,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “She’s not invisible. We can’t hide her forever.”

“What if they want to meet her?” Kota asked. He never once turned his gaze from me, like somehow I held the answers.

“Are you going to stop her or deny them?” Mr. Blackbourne asked. “The more we’re quiet about her, the more suspicious they’re going to be about why we’ve taken her in and don’t want to talk about her.”

A silence settled in. Kota’s eyes started shifting, and I knew that meant he was thinking, calculating. The others seemed to be sorting out this information, too.

The question popped out of my mouth. “Do we not want them to...to know about me?” I asked quietly.

Looks were exchanged, and a silent communication happened, first with Victor and Mr. Blackbourne, and then Victor was checking out the others. There was a flash in his fire eyes, something strong. Panic? Worry? It was hard to tell.

“We can’t control everything that might happen,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “It’s inevitable. One way or another, they’ll want to talk to you, whether you know it’s them or not.”

“Why wouldn’t I know?” I asked.

“They may not tell you,” he said. “At first, they may talk to you without you ever being aware of who they are. They’ll feel you out, see if you’re receptive to their ideas. They’ll try to figure out how much you know about us and how you feel about—”

There was a sudden crash, like a door slam, or something being dropped, somewhere inside the building. At the sound, everyone turned, Victor and Luke stood beside me, drawing in close and hovering protectively.

Mr. Blackbourne motioned to Kota. Kota signaled to us to stay where we were, and stay together before he followed Mr. Blackbourne, like his shadow.

The two of them went back inside to investigate, leaving us out in the yard.

“We’re not the only ones here, are we?” I asked. “I mean we shouldn’t be surprised by some noise.”

“It’s probably that security guard,” Luke said. “He’s been mostly sitting in the office, but I bet he has rounds.”

“Can’t take any chances,” Victor said. He tugged my arm, encouraging me to walk. “If we’re here to talk about security, we need to know who works the grounds and find out what is normal around here. Come on, let’s check out the garden.”

My heart was still busy thumping against my ribs, and my body was alive with not only the beautiful place, but the news about the Academy, and my role in it. I’d been thinking about joining, unsure if I wanted to be involved for the right reasons. The boys were involved, and I wanted to be part of what drove them, but I still didn’t feel like I fully understood what the Academy was about. It was hard to feel like I could be a part of something if I didn’t understand what they did.

The others were a mix of either encouraging, or on the fence and leaving it up to me. Sometimes the way they talked, I wasn’t so sure.

Victor walked toward one of the patches of gardens, and followed it along, closer toward the canal that seemed to weave through the grounds. At some point, it was Luke walking beside me, and Victor ahead of us as he explored.

When Victor got to the center of the garden, he stopped, looking out across it, with hands in his pockets and a pleasant smile.

“Always has to take center stage,” Luke said quietly beside me. He winked at me and walked toward Victor to join him. I followed.

Victor started pointing toward a distant tree-lined ridge. “We could put people up there,” he said. “Within the gardens and then circle around the whole place.”

I scanned the area and then noticed a large building that looked like a barn not too far from the main building. “What is that?” I asked. “I mean, do they have animals here?”

“Probably,” Victor said, and turned to look at what I was talking about. “I think I heard chickens around here somewhere.”

“They’ve got sheep,” Luke said. “And there’s horses for carriage rides. And there’s all these hiding places. Mr. Blackbourne was right, it’ll take the entire Academy to cover the grounds. This is the worst location with it being so open.”

“Isn’t it the worst place to put a bomb, then?” Victor asked. “I mean, the main house is going to have people inside, then there’s these other buildings and the barns. But the dance is happening out here, with tents and along the lawn. This guy wants his bomb to be noticed, not overlooked. And with so many witnesses, how is he going to drop a box around here and just walk away?”

Luke shook his head and pointed where the water stretched out, surrounded by trees. “There’s just a lot of places for him to walk onto the property from a distance away, drop one off and then run away again to make his phone call.”

“He hasn’t made a bomb yet,” Victor said. “He might even know how. It might just be another empty box.”

“Technically, he doesn’t even have to actually make one,” Luke said. “He just needs to make a scene. It doesn’t have to be real to get attention. Rumors can be worse. You should know. They’ll write about you, too.
Victor Morgan victim of a prank while attending an event at historic Middleton
.”

Victor scratched at his eyebrow. “I think they’re more interested in it being Middleton Place. The city isn’t going to take it lightly that it becomes a target of a bad prank.”

“It’s just bad that it is this school,” Luke said. “If Ashley Waters is the school having the event, and there’s a bomb threat here, it means they blame the school, and they could get banned for forever from here and other locations. Plus, the police will make a very public investigation.”

“We’ll have to make sure it doesn’t happen,” Victor said.

“Mr. Blackbourne wanted a trap,” I said. “How do you set up a trap in a place like this?”

The breeze started to pick up. Luke tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “Well, the event itself is the trap,” he said. “A time and a place is hard to pick out when dealing with someone who seems to work at random. Knowing a likely time and place is being a step ahead. It’s just catching him in the act. We have to visually see and identify who is leaving the box, if there is one.”

“We might have to set up a network,” Victor said. “At the school, he called the main line. But with so many calls coming in and out during the day, it’d be a mess to sort through and wait for him to call. The problem here is, who is he going to call when he leaves his box around? It’s not like there’s a main line. I mean he could call the security office.”

“He’d leave a box first, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe not. Maybe we’re too worried about a box. But really, he doesn’t even need a box,” Victor said. “All bomb threats get checked out, box or not. He doesn’t even need to be here. He can be on the other side of town and call something in.”

I followed the boys around the house and across the front lawn. They started angling toward the stable and the long line of fencing protecting sheep, chickens and horses.

“Let’s go,” Luke said, pointing to the stable, which had the doors wide open.

“Should we?” I asked.

“It’s what we’re here for,” Victor said. He reached back for my hand and tugged me along.

I wasn’t exactly sure what we’d do in a barn, but I was curious. The smell was overwhelming to me, though. The closer we got, the more the scent of hay and barn animals thickened around us. I wrinkled my nose, holding a finger to it, wanting to sneeze but unable to.

At that moment, my phone buzzed. I lifted it from my bra and checked it while the guys moved ahead toward the barn.

It was from Silas, a text message. When I opened it, I was surprised to find a picture.

He had his arm lifted to take the picture, showing a bit of his muscular bicep. But the photo was mostly his face and his shoulders. There was the slight curl of his lips in a smile.

Seeing him now, looking right at the camera, I froze as if he was right there looking at me. My heart fluttered, excited, wanting to stare and at the same time feeling as if he was in person on my phone. I remembered the photos we’d taken together at one football game. I often forgot I could take pictures with my phone.

A text message followed.

Silas:
Aggele
, send me one of you?

My lips parted, and I rubbed the edge of the phone with my finger, thinking. It took a moment to fiddle with the camera to get it right.

I took a shaky photo. When I was sure I’d captured my face, and it didn’t look too bad, I send it to Silas.

His reply took only a minute.

Silas: Send one of you smiling, my flaxen angel.

My mouth dropped open this time and my cheeks heated. He’d never called me that before, and I was unsure how he meant it. If he was teasing...but he didn’t seem to be.

I glanced at the others. Luke was waving at a sheep but Victor had turned around and was looking at me. His head was tilted, his eyes swirling with flickering flames, curious.

I aimed the camera, trying to smile and capture another photo. I sent it along and hurried on to Victor.

“What are you doing?” Victor asked when I got up beside him.

I was about to answer when my phone buzzed in my hand again. I gave in to the knee-jerk urge to check it.

Silas: I love it. You’re so beautiful when you smile, my little night flower.