Push and Shove: The Ghost Bird Series: #6 (The Academy) (58 page)

“I found your clothes. Think you can move in?” His pitch rose. His fist flew at me, catching me in the shoulder. He pulled it back and knocked me in the side of the head. “Did he tie you up? Is this some sick, twisted thing you do?”

There was a tug at my arm. Liquid splashed on my skin. A spot burned. The IV stand clattered to the ground.

“Didn’t think I would find you?” he bellowed. “I saw them all running from the house, going to Erica. I knew you were here. Stay out of my house. Stay away from Nathan.” He gripped my shoulders, shaking me.

Anger flooded through me. Sheer hate. He hit Nathan. All I could see was him hitting Nathan repeatedly in the head. I could almost imagine little Nathan as a kid, being beaten, watching his mother get beaten. I fought. As hard as I could, kicking out with my legs, keeping him away from me, fighting him for Nathan.

I landed a kick against his flesh.

Mr. Griffin’s screams increased and became unrecognizable words. He cupped his inner thigh where I’d kicked him.

I wasn’t done yet. All that came to my mind was what Nathan showed me. Fight them. Fight them until they’re down and you can get away.

I cried out and snarled and yanked my body, trying to get out of my restraints. I wasn’t just fighting him. I was hitting Jade. I was hitting Mr. McCoy. I hated them all so much. My stepmother hated me, but she was sick and was treated horribly by my father. She had an excuse. For the first time, I felt everything she was trying to tell me before was true. The world was a horrible place, with horrible people and it was best to lock yourself away.

And with every ounce of strength I had left, if he came near me, I was going to bite or spit or do whatever it took.

He landed on me hard. Mr. Griffin held down my shoulders. His knees bit into my thighs. He was screaming at me, but I couldn’t hear him over my thundering heart, my thrashing and my own attempts to scream back at him. He slapped my head. Then his hands moved around my throat.

“Sang?”

Marie?
It couldn’t be her. I was so hysterical, my tears had already blurred my senses.

She said my name again. It
was
her.

I panicked. I’d promised my father I’d make sure she was safe. I promised Marie I’d leave and I wouldn’t bring any more chaos into her life. I’d failed.

“Who are you?” Mr. Griffin got off of me, out of range of my knees and biting.

“Who the hell are
you
? And what did you do to her?” she asked.

I was screaming for him to stay away from her, but my voice wasn’t working. My throat closed off.

Marie was standing by the door, her hands behind her back. Her angry eyes were on Mr. Griffin. “Get off of her. Go away.”

Mr. Griffin snarled at her. “She’s fucking my son. Are you, too? You’re part of this, aren’t you?”

“You’ve been drinking,” Marie said. She pulled one hand around from her back, holding up the phone. “I’ll call the cops.”

At first, I was elated. Yes! That made sense, didn’t it? Calling the cops.

Then I remembered she couldn’t.

“Call Nathan,” I cried. “Call Kota!”

Mr. Griffin started after Marie, but stopped suddenly.

“Don’t come any closer,” Danielle stood beside Marie. She held out a black plastic thing I didn’t recognize.

Mr. Griffin put his hands up but snarled. “You’ve got her tied up. You’re going to threaten me?”

“You’re crazy,” Danielle said. “Get out.”

“You should leave,” Marie said.

I was breathing heavily, my heart thudding in my chest. What were they doing? He’d hurt them.

There was a cry from Mr. Griffin, who lunged again, at Danielle this time.

Then he howled.

He clutched at his chest and then buckled to the floor.

“Give it to him!” Danielle cried out.

Marie started to kneel beside Mr. Griffin.

“Don’t!” I wasn’t sure what they were doing.

Marie plunged a needle into Mr. Griffin’s arm. When it was done, they both hopped back at the same time.

Mr. Griffin snarled, getting up. He glared at everyone.

He stopped and turned to me. He lunged at me. His hands flew out.

His legs started to buckle and while he landed a punch on my leg, he fell to the floor beside the bed. His cursing subsided.

I heard Marie and Danielle talking, but it all faded away as I lost consciousness.

––––––––

I
woke with the thick, cold gloss of old sweat lingering like a ghost over every inch of my body. My hair was stuck to my neck and around my face. My clothes were bunched up uncomfortably until my shorts felt like underwear, and my T-shirt wasn’t covering my breasts.

The room felt wrong to me, because the light poured in from the wrong side of the bed. The smell of Cypress overwhelmed me suddenly as I breathed in deeply. It was only then that things started to make sense and I realized I was in Nathan’s room.

Nathan’s bed had been stripped of everything except a maroon sheet below me. I felt the corner of it by my foot had come loose, covering my ankle.

The clock glowed eleven.

I sucked down air. Every part of my body hurt. My arms, my legs. Everything. Wasn’t I restrained before? I moved my arms a little, testing, and was relieved when I could swing them freely. I had more control over my muscles now.

Memories flooded through me in small waves. Marie. Mr. Griffin. Dr. Green. Mr. Hendricks.

Jade.

I shouldn’t be in Nathan’s room. Mr. Griffin could return.

Panicked, I started to get up, felt dizzy, and collapsed back on the bed. I fixed my shorts a little, tried to fix my shirt and got it at least down over my stomach properly. I relaxed again, trying to find a little bit of energy to sit up. All the soreness, all the pain I was in, I needed to sit up and stretch. My joints felt uncomfortable against the bed. I’d been down for too long.

“Easy, Sang,” Dr. Green’s voice reached me as a pair of soothing hands cupped my cheek and my arm. His warm, concerned face floated in front of me. “Not so fast.”

“I need to sit up.”

He backed up, but kept his hands on me for support. I blinked away the groggy sleep still lingering in my eyes, and used my palm to wipe them clean.

Dr. Green sat down next to me. He kept an arm around my back. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

“I’m not sick,” I croaked out. I swallowed. “I’m really sore.”

Dr. Green laughed. The sound was so good to me, I wanted him to continue. I looked at him; his eyes were shadowed, his face unshaven. He wore the white T-shirt alone with a pair of gray sweatpants that looked too big for him.

I looked out, spotting an unrolled sleeping bag on the floor.

“You stayed here?” I asked.

“Had to watch over my patient,” he said. He beeped my nose. “Someone was high as a kite and takes up the entire bed when she sleeps it off.”

I stretched and checked myself over. There were bruises around my wrists, arms and legs. I sucked in air and yawned. “How long was I asleep?”

“Two days.”

My eyes widened. He had to be kidding. I’d missed two days of school? I opened my mouth to talk.

He covered my lips with two fingers. “And well deserved. As far as Hendricks knows, you’ve got the flu. Even Marie confirmed it.”

“Marie!” I tried to stand, thinking I should get up and find her. “I promised her she wouldn’t have to talk to Mr. Hendricks.”

“We convinced her to do it one more time,” he said. He snagged my wrist, drawing me back. “Now stop getting all in a panic.
We
haven’t been sleeping for two days. We’ve got you covered.”

I fell back but then tried again, getting my feet off the bed. I tried to stand, wobbled. He stood with me, holding me around the waist.

“Sit back down if you need to,” he said.

“I need to stretch.”

“I can imagine,” he said. “But go easy on yourself or you will get sick.”

“What happened to Mr. Griffin?”

He sighed. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yeah.”

That could mean a lot of things. Did he disappear like Mr. McCoy? I swallowed again, trying to put the pieces together. “Danielle zapped him. Marie doped him with those needles.”

“We gave those to them, and told them to watch out for Mr. Griffin in case he tried to get in the house. The dummies went back upstairs and let him get in. But they took care of him. And now he’s at the hospital.”

Maybe Marie could take care of herself. “He’s at the Academy hospital again?”

“In detox,” he said. “He’d been warned the last time. Nathan was going to turn him in after he got punched in the face, but let it go when Mr. Griffin promised he’d sober up. But Mr. Griffin got drunk again, went after Erica—“

I gasped. “Erica!”

Dr. Green gripped my shoulders and massaged my muscles. “She’s fine. She locked herself into the bathroom and he left before the boys got there. He never got close to her. Somehow he rerouted into the woods and ended up at your house.”

“He said he saw you guys leaving my house,” I said.

He nodded. “Figured as much. He didn’t know where you lived before. He was on a rampage looking for you. He found your clothes. He got to Erica because he thought Nathan might be at Kota’s.”

Out of reaction, I checked the closet, but everything appeared to be in place, so if Mr. Griffin had been in here, they must have cleaned it up. I wiped at my forehead. I needed to collect myself before I thought about this anymore. “I need a bath.”

“That’s fine. You should use the other bathroom though.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Griffin broke a lot of things in this house. Nathan’s bathroom is messed up. Toilet is busted. The shower got ripped apart. We haven’t had a chance to fix it yet.”

I nodded and then looked around, checking myself out again. “Am I good?” I asked. “Is the stuff out of me?”

“I think so,” he said. “We found the sample you had in your book bag. We’ve managed to figure out the sequence so we can compare it. Your blood work was normal. I think you slept for so long because you’ve been weak for a while. You took it really hard.” He backed up, heading to Nathan’s low dresser. He picked up two bottles. He shook both in his hands. “You should eat, but here. I want you to try these.”

“What are they?”

He twisted the cap off of one bottle, and then shook out two gummy fruits into his palm. He handed them to me.

“Candy?” I asked.

He laughed. “Try it.”

I did, chewing on them both. They were sweet strawberry flavored. I swallowed them down.

He followed up with two orange tablets. I chewed those, expecting orange, and got a papaya flavor. They were really sugary, like PEZ candy.

“Vitamins,” he said. He shook the bottle again of the gummy pieces. Then he shook the other one with the orange tablets. “And papaya enzyme. That should help with the stomach aches.”

“Sugar,” I said. “Mr. Blackbourne approved it?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a doctor,” he said, pointing to himself with his thumb. “If I prescribe you something, you have to take it.” He went back to put them on the dresser and then combed his fingers through his hair. Then he smiled at me and walked over. He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Welcome back to the land of the living, by the way.”

I sighed and smiled at the same time. I raked my fingers through my hair, trying to comb out the snarls. “I really need a bath.”

Dr. Green smiled again and was going to say something but was interrupted by a hard knock at the door.

We both turned. The door opened and Nathan appeared. He spotted Dr. Green first and then his eyes landed on me.

His lips went taut. He stared for the longest time. His reddish brown hair was mussed all over. He wore dark blue jeans and a red T-shirt. He was barefoot.

No school? For either of them? Were they faking being sick, too?

He looked back at Dr. Green and narrowed his eyes at him. “I need to talk to her. Get out.”

“Nathan,” Dr. Green said. “She doesn’t—“

“I really need to talk to her,” Nathan said, cutting him off. “Please.” His tone was even, deep. He was asking, but he really wasn’t.

Dr. Green looked at me. “You ready for this?”

I wasn’t sure what I was ready for. I nodded anyway. Nathan needed to say something to me. My heart was in my throat wondering what he had to say that Dr. Green couldn’t hear.

Dr. Green squeezed my hand gently, reassuring me.

Nathan held open the door for Dr. Green as he left. He closed it behind him and then snapped the lock. Nathan leaned against the door for a moment. He stared quietly at me.

“Nathan?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You okay?” he asked, though his voice was different. Deeper.

I nodded. “I’m better. I feel kind of gross.” I said this while wiping at my skin. It was cool to the touch, but I still felt the film of sweat and from not bathing for a couple of days. It was like I really had been sick with the flu and was getting over the fever.

Nathan moved away from the door. His eyes were firm on my face. His jaw clenched. I’d seen this before, when he approached others ready for a fight.

I startled at his swiftness, backing up half a step. My hands went up protectively, not understanding. I trusted him, but I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. “Nathan?”

He grabbed my hips and backed me up further. I followed his lead, putting my hands on his chest to stop myself from falling over.

My back met with the wall. A karate poster behind me crackled as my head rolled against it.

Nathan zeroed in on my mouth.

His lips enclosed around mine. They parted and he took up every available space. His palm at my hip released me and then pressed against my cheek. The other joined it on my other cheek. He held me by my face, tilting slightly one way and then the other. His lips followed everywhere he turned me.

I gasped against his mouth. My eyes closed. I gripped at his T-shirt, hanging on to it, and when it didn’t have enough support, I hung on to his shoulders.

He shoved himself against me and my arms went around his neck. His face rasped against my cheeks as he kissed me. He hadn’t shaved again.