The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy) (35 page)

The moment we were ready, Luke headed to the door. I tiptoed behind him, stuffing my feet into my shoes.

He held a hand back, looking at me, and did some sign language. “After I open the door, head left to that door and stand there. Don’t look out. Look at the door.”

I nodded. I understood what he was asking me to do. I just wished I knew the full plan and what was going on.

Luke waited for another buzz of his cell phone and then jumped to life, pulling the door open.

I moved ahead of him, toward the door to the left. I turned, not looking out. I waited there, my heart in my throat.

Luke slammed the door shut and then leapt over until he was standing at the door next to the hotel room we’d been at. He fiddled with the door, pretending to shut that one. Then he put an arm around my shoulders, kept me between the wall and himself, and moved toward the stairs.

Questions continued to pile up but I bit them back, knowing it wasn’t the time.

Luke moved quickly through the building to the parking lot on the other side and went directly to a dark town car. He opened the passenger door for me. I got inside. He ran around to the driver’s side, got in and turned the car on.

I turned to him immediately. “Now?” I asked.

“Shhh,” he said. “Not yet.”

I pushed my lips together. Could someone still be listening to us?

I waited on the edge of my seat. Eager.

“Turn your head,” he said. “Look at me.”

I did. The wig was itchy. I reached up, trying to get in between the wig material and my scalp to scratch it. “What?”

“I hate that hair color on you,” a voice said from the back. I jumped, and the wig hair fell into my eyes. I scratched at my face to get it out of the way so I could see who had spoken.

“Shhh,” Luke said.

I leaned over to check the back seat.

Gabriel was down on the floor, crammed in with his legs partially sticking up.

My heart lifted. He was here! We were doing something...I wasn’t sure what, but we were on the move. I wanted to say a lot. There was so much to say. But I couldn’t do it now.

Instead, I reached out to him and caught his knee. I held onto it, because I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t do anything else. I needed to touch him. To connect.

He moved his knee out of my grasp and instead took my hand. He held on to it so tightly, my bones hurt.

I didn’t care. I was so excited to see him.

“Check it out,” Luke said, his wig-covered head nodding toward the hotel rooms, back where we’d been.

I turned in the seat. People were returning to the hotel room. It looked like Kota and next to him...a girl? She had her hair swept up in a clip. She wore a skirt and limped a little.

“Who is that?” I asked, staring.

“That’s Sang,” Luke said. “Duh.” He grinned.

“Can I get up now?” Gabriel asked.

Luke said, “Looks like Mr. McCoy and Mr. Morris are now parked together on the other side of the lot. They’re watching.”

My insides bristled. “Who is with Kota?”

“Sang,” Luke said. He looked at me and winked. “Can’t you see?”

Kota and the other Sang moved into the room we’d been in. Luke pulled onto the main road and we were out of sight before I could see anything else going on.

I turned in my seat. “Now what?”

“Now, we get the hell out of Dodge,” Gabriel said, climbing off the floor. He sat back in the seat, breathing in deeply. “I don’t think I could take another minute of that girl.”

“Huh?” I asked. “Who?”

“
Sang
,” Luke said, smiling. “She’s a little pushy.”

“She thinks she knows how to do everything,” Gabriel said. “The Academy spoils her because she’s a girl.” He looked at me. “Sa—, I mean...Shit. What’s
your
name?”

I blinked, my eyes wide. I almost said my name, but realized we were pretending we were other people while “Sang” was in the hotel room. I didn’t know how to answer him.

“Stacy,” Luke said. “You’re not very good with names.”

“She doesn’t look like a Stacy,” Gabriel said.

“What do girls named Stacy look like?”

“Shut up,” Gabriel said. He nudged my elbow. “Turn that mirror a bit. I can’t see behind us.”

“I’m trying to drive,” Luke said.

“And I’m trying to see if anyone is following. I can’t see behind this car that’s right behind us.”

I looked for a way to move the side mirror. “I think I have to reach out to move it.”

“That’ll be too obvious,” Luke said. He adjusted the rearview on the windshield. “Use this. I’ll use the side mirrors.”

They’d dressed me up as a different girl, gave me a different name, and then...now what? Where were we going? How long did they have to keep calling me Stacy? The more I learned about this plan, the more the questions piled up. There was a level of secrecy still between them, though. They weren’t going to talk about it here. I sat back in the seat, willing my tongue to stay still and not dump all my questions on them. It was the hardest part of the job right now.

We were in the car for a good hour. I nodded off a couple of times as the car was quiet.

Luke pulled into a neighborhood somewhere south of Charleston. He drove on until we came to a house I wasn’t familiar with. It was at the end of a cul-de-sac, one story. The neighborhood had small homes, but tidy yards. Luke pulled into the drive. Gabriel got out of the car, and opened my door. Luke hopped out of the car, and went to the door of the house, and then fiddled with the handle, opening the door and stepping inside.

I hesitated. The neighborhood around us was asleep. I wasn’t sure what time it was. I looked behind us to see if any other cars had followed. The last time I went inside a house with Luke like this, we’d broken in to someone’s home. Were we doing it again?

I didn’t have much choice. Gabriel captured my arm and dragged me in.

The moment I was inside, Gabriel didn’t stop to let me look around. All I caught was a heady scent of cinnamon and pumpkin. Like someone was cooking pies.

I was led into a bathroom, small and with a thick red rug on the floor. The toilet was covered in the same rug material, red. The cabinets were stark white. It was a blurring contrast that hurt my eyes.

Gabriel followed me in and then immediately opened a cabinet door. He pulled out a bag that had been waiting inside. The confident way he moved, he’d been here before. He knew what was here.

“What are we doing?” I whispered. “Where are we?”

“Shhh,” he said.

I waited quietly as he rooted through the bag. He pulled out another wig, a set of girl clothes, a baseball hat, and some clothes for a guy.

He passed me the wig and the girl clothes. He started undressing quickly and nodded toward the clothes in my hand. “Get those on.”

Again? I groaned a bit, but started moving. I wanted to be in the Academy. This was part of the job. I just wished there had been some sort of warning.

I turned my back for some privacy and got dressed. I was now in jeans that were a little tight in the legs and a dull blue loose sweater that draped down over my hips. It hung off of one shoulder, something I’d seen in fashion magazines. In the bottom of the bag was a pair of boots with fuzz on the cuffs, exactly my size. I put those on and then traded out wigs, a blonde one this time.

Gabriel had taken time out to pull together these outfits for me. What we were doing now, this felt like his plan. I smiled, touching the strands of hair in the wig. This is what Gabriel could do for the team. He had his role. He belonged.

Gabriel had put on baggy cargo pants, and an oversized shirt that really hid his shape. He put on the baseball hat backwards, tucking in his blond locks. He reached into the bag again, pulling out a makeup kit. He opened it, pulling out a sponge and then looked at me. “You say one word of this to the others and I’ll kill you.”

My eyes widened. I was frightened enough. Did he have to be so scary now?

He turned to the mirror, and started putting on a thick layer of makeup. He was making his skin tone darker than what it was naturally. He started with his eyes and with areas that were harder to get around. Once those were done, he did broad strokes around his cheeks and bigger areas.

When he was done, he looked like he had a deep tan. It was an odd color on him. I didn’t like it. It didn’t look horrible, but it wasn’t Gabriel. The clothes weren’t him, either.

“How do I look?” he asked.

I couldn’t think of anything. I was so elated just to be seeing him and I wanted to say something very nice so he’d know I had missed him. I spit out, “B…beautiful.’

Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “What?”

My cheeks heated and I covered my face with my hands. Oh, that was so stupid.

He turned, checking himself out in the mirror.

“What’s your name now?” I asked.

“’Sup?” he said, and then smirked. “Yo, I’m T.”

I paused. “T?”

He snorted. “Oh my god. I can’t. I’m going to laugh through this. I swear.” He breathed in and then blew it out slowly. He applied the same makeup to his hands and arms and then put the stuff back into the bag and shoved it under the counter. He reached for my face, touching my chin and looking me over. “I hate this one, too,” he said. “Looks like shit.”

I think he meant the wig. This one was blond, a lot lighter than my normal hair color. It was also really long, falling along my back. It was heavy. I scraped at my forehead just to get some of the hair to pull back. Gabriel stuck extra pins into the wig to secure it to my scalp.

“Round two,” he said. He opened the door and shoved me through it, grabbing my hand.

I was getting the hang of this. I wasn’t sure why we were doing it, but we’d moved to a different location and changed our disguises. I suspected there was someone still following us. We were throwing them off by appearing to be someone else, hoping they’d leave us alone?

Gabriel pulled me through the living room and back out the front door.

Gabriel went right for a Moped parked outside. He got on, and then gestured for me to get on.

No helmets. Kota would kill us. I dug into my wig for one of the pins, hoping they were tight enough to secure it to my head. No wonder Gabriel added a bunch more.

I climbed on behind him and grasped Gabriel around his stomach to hang on.

He reached down, holding onto my hand for a moment, squeezing.

My head bent forward, stuffed up against his shoulder. I held on tight. He was back. He was here. If I wasn’t scared about who was chasing us, and so excited to see him, I could have cried.

Luke wasn’t anywhere in sight. The car was missing. Had Luke taken off earlier? I didn’t have time to ask about him. The bike lurched forward as he hit the gas. Gabriel took off on the Moped, made a loop through a neighboring cul-de-sac and out of another street.

Through the darkness, Gabriel drove the Moped. He took abandoned streets. He weaved into neighborhoods, and then back out into alleyways. He even drove in between buildings a couple of times.

For miles, he didn’t stop. My heart raced along with the Moped. Whoever he was trying to lose, I thought for sure we lost them long ago. He was being very careful, covering his tracks, backtracking to see if anyone came around. If any car followed us even a little, he’d make a turn.

I held on tight and went along for the ride, content to sit behind him and go wherever he took me. Gabriel was back. To me, that’s all that mattered.

TOGETHER, WE WILL

I
t was an hour of this weaving through streets and small communities before Gabriel ventured out of the area and got onto the highway. I held with one arm to him, and the other to the wig on my head. He headed north and then hunkered down and kept going. He didn’t stop until he pulled into a small motel. The only thing next door was a gas station. The parking lot was dotted with only a few cars. Miles of farm fields surrounded the tiny hamlet of a town.

Gabriel pulled the bike in front of the motel’s lobby and then turned off the engine. “Whew,” he said. “Long drive.”

My legs were cramped. I climbed off the bike, wobbling. I took a few shaky steps, willing my calves to flex. I wiped the water from my eyes from squinting into the wind on the bike. My entire body vibrated after having been on the bike for so long.

Slowly, my heart settled and I studied our surroundings. “Why are we here?”

“To sleep,” he said. “Duh. I’m exhausted.” He stretched up, twisting his arms high in the air. He yanked off the baseball cap, letting his hair down and ruffling it a little so it wasn’t as flat.

I reached up to my wig, feeling the windblown strands and a few tangles. I was surprised it stayed on, but the hair pins kept it secure.

Gabriel took my hand as we entered the lobby. I squeezed his fingers; I didn’t want to be away from him for a moment.

The lobby we entered was small, with a desk and a small sitting area. At first, it looked like no one was there. The door slammed shut on its own behind us.

An older woman stood up from behind the counter. She was plump with curly hair and tired eyes. She took a long look at both of us and then spoke to Gabriel. “I need to see ID.”

Gabriel smiled, flashy and big. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He found an ID and showed it to her. “What? I look that young? Geez. I’ve got to yank this thing out every time I go to a bar, too. It’s embarrassing.” He nodded to me. “She’s worse. She can’t even buy cigarettes.”

It had to be a fake ID. We were old enough to even rent hotel rooms? Didn’t you have to be eighteen? Gabriel was talking like he was over twenty-one… I studied him. I wasn’t sure if I’d pin him as that old, but possibly.

How did Kota and North rent them?

They all carried around false IDs? I tried to remember to ask some day.

She glanced at the ID, looked at me, back at the ID and then at Gabriel. She took it and moved over to a Xerox machine to make a copy of it. She came back while the machine was warming up and handed Gabriel a card to fill out. “It’s forty-five for two queens, fifty-one and a quarter including tax. We don’t have any smoking rooms left.”