ELUDED
North emerged from the woods first, checking the parking lot before letting me go on.
“No cars I recognize,” he said. “But put the hood up. Let’s not take the risk.”
We were in view of the highway as well. While further in the street, you could see any new and unidentified cars coming, the diner was a more dangerous place to try to get to, even though it was close.
I pulled the hood over my head, having to tilt to see out since it fell over my forehead. North put a palm against my scalp through the material and rubbed once, released me and then nudged me forward.
He led the way to the back door, unlocking it with a key and then holding it open to allow me to go inside ahead of him. I glanced once at the cars and the street. Nothing interesting.
We went down a narrow hallway that led to an office, what was once the minister’s office in the former church but was now where Uncle did his paperwork.
North sat down heavily in a wood and leather rolling office chair behind a desk, facing the computer. The desk was dark wood, in sharp contrast to the off-white walls and beige utility carpet. There was a faded beige and brown plaid couch along the wall, and a shelving unit behind the computer chair, similar to the ones in the pantry, only this one held paperwork and folders and a small printer. Nothing elegant, simply functional. The only decoration was a Virgin Mary painting on a very small canvas, framed in gold above the door; another leftover from the church that didn’t get removed.
I lingered near North, not wanting to stray too far. I hadn’t seen anyone on the way in, but I could hear the clank of dishes and the low murmur of customers through the walls. The diner wasn’t too busy at the moment, but there was a whole lot of clanking coming from the kitchen.
“I just want to clear his schedule,” North said, typing at the computer. “I may go ahead and give him the week off. That’s a good break.”
“Are you going to have to take over the shifts?”
“Not all of them.”
I went to the couch, sitting quietly on the edge of it, pulling back the hood. My nose wrinkled at the smell of must from the couch. Couldn’t they have gotten a new one? Maybe the next time I worked here, I could bring in some cleaner. “I could help,” I said.
“No, you should focus on Luke. That’s more important.”
I agreed, but I was still feeling a bit weird. This was a little intrusive of Uncle’s business. We didn’t really have permission. “Doesn’t Uncle wonder why I seem to disappear all the time? Sometimes for a week?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but he knows there’s Academy people working here. They come and go all the time.”
“But I’m not Academy.”
North blew a breath out from between his lips and looked up at me. “Luke just tells him you’re busy with school. I vouch for you, too. Don’t worry. He’s not going to fire you.”
I shifted my feet against the carpet, but stayed quiet. It was my first real job and I couldn’t help but want to do the right thing, be a good employee. Uncle was nice enough to let me babysit the register on slow days and do small projects around the place. Not many bosses would let you disappear for a week or more and then pop in again.
North stood and stabbed a forefinger at the Enter key. “Done. I guess. I never know if this software actually works. Sometimes it deletes what I’ve done.”
I got up slowly, smoothing the hem of the hoodie down over my hips. “Should Victor upgrade it?” I asked. “Or fix it?”
“We’re lucky we’ve got it at all. Luke and I talked Uncle into it. He wanted to us a paper-based schedule. Only with our crew, the schedule gets reworked a lot. Pages got torn, it looked a mess.” He stepped around the desk and headed toward the door.
“Do you like working at the diner?” I asked, standing to follow him.
He turned at the door, taking a step back toward me and tilted his head. “What? Why are you asking?”
“I mean, you do it a lot. I know you like to keep busy, but I was wondering...do you enjoy it?”
North brushed a palm against his shadowed chin. “I don’t keep busy just to keep busy. There’s lots of shit to do. To be honest, I spend a lot of time here, when I should be back at the house fixing it. I haven’t made that much progress. And then there’s the car maintenance I’m behind on. I end up being the one covering shifts when people are out.”
I remembered the old Victorian house out in the middle of nowhere. Luke and Uncle lived in the house now and North continued to live in the trailer across the yard. There was a large metal garage in the back, too, filled with a lot of black vehicles. I heard from North that he’d work on cars from other Academy people, too. I thought of it as the Taylor Compound for all the buildings and the seclusion. “You’d rather be there?”
“Cooking isn’t really my thing. Unless it’s for you.” He put a hand on my head and this time, he kept it there. “The few times you eat vegetables is when I cook them.”
I hated to tell him I liked his cooked vegetables or he might have me eating them all the time. It was true, but I did like other things. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders a little. “I didn’t realize you didn’t like cooking so much.”
“I appreciate what I’m doing, providing food for people, and I respect what Uncle does and enjoys, but food service is a bit too repetitive for my tastes. Cook a dish, serve a customer, wash the dishes. The routine is nice sometimes but I miss the challenge of figuring out what’s wrong with a car, or figuring out how I’m going to build a bookcase into a wall.”
I nodded my head, easily picturing him building things and working on cars. I could understand he’d prefer solving puzzles and creating something new. I imagined it to be more fun, too.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I blinked, unsure what he meant. Did he want my approval of his car and house building work? “Uh...”
“The diner?” he asked. “Are you telling me you want to work here more?”
“Oh,” I said, lifting my brows. I sorted through my thoughts to think of something polite. I stuffed my hands into the hoodie pockets. “It...it’s fine. It’s my first job.”
“But it’s not your life dream?” he asked. “I mean, do you enjoy it enough to do it forever?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I could see the security in routine work, and I could appreciate it, but I wasn’t sure I enjoyed it that much either. Some of the waitresses really loved their work, loved the customers and the tips. I was too shy to be a waitress. Uncle seemed to always be under pressure to cook something quickly. Other than babysitting the register on slower days, and maybe washing dishes, I didn’t know if I could handle the work. “I don’t really know what I want to do.”
North smirked. “Life’s changed a bit for you. I don’t know what you pictured for yourself before you met us.”
I didn’t really have much of a picture at all. I spent a lot of my time trying to survive my parents. Now my parents weren’t around. My dad was gone. My step mother was still sick. Back before I met the guys, it felt like I was living in a fog, in a bubble my parents had created, even when I managed to slip out and take a walk in the woods. I was still tethered to my parents and their will to keep me as cooped up as possible. My only desires were to be released and have the opportunity to live a life that was normal.
Little did I know there was a darker reason why my real mother had deposited me on their doorstep. My stepmother disliked being reminded that my father once had an affair...or from the way she said it, had raped my mother and left a little girl for them to take care of. And my father...I imagined he was trying to forget and avoid the mean-spirited wife my stepmother had become since she got had fallen ill and had become so bitter.
Since I’d been given a chance to be normal, life wasn’t normal at all, at least, not what I thought it would be. The guys and the Academy had me so wrapped up, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now.
North watched me, waiting for me to answer but I couldn’t express what I was feeling. I wanted to, but the words slipped around my tongue and everything sounded like a complaint, blaming it all on my parents. I’d only wanted out of the life I had lived, but I had no idea what awaited me out in the real world. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. “I don’t know,” I said.
He nodded slowly. He reached out, holding my chin, and looked at me. “You still want to be with us, don’t you?”
I nodded enthusiastically against his hold. “Yes,” I said quickly. “I just don’t know what that means, really. You do Academy things and you have this job at the diner, and school and your cars and construction. I don’t really have the Academy, at least not yet. I haven’t thought of what type of job I would want, and I don’t have anything that I’m good at.”
“It means you need time to think,” he said. “And you’ve got plenty of options. There’s no rush.” He slipped his fingers up my jawline, brushing his rough fingers across my cheek. “We are still young, Sang. You shouldn’t expect to know it all now.”
It felt like I should. I hadn’t realized how out of balance my life was. Most students around us were thinking of college, or a specific job, or backpacking across Europe after graduation. Even sophomores like me were thinking of junior classes, of which ones colleges would want to see, or what would be most helpful to learn for the future.
I couldn’t make plans, because I wasn’t sure what I wanted. A lot of it depended on the guys, on this Academy that I still didn’t really understand. If they accepted me…I couldn’t picture what would happen after that simply because I didn’t know.
There was a shuffle at the door, and North dropped his hand from my face and turned.
Uncle was at the door. He was bald, wearing a black bandana around his forehead. He was tall, his body wiry. I’d started to see a few similarities between him and Luke, like the jawline and they had the same nose. He had on a blue shirt, jeans and a blue apron with the Bob’s Diner logo on it. He looked at North, at me, and then his eyes widened and he looked at North again. “What are you doing back here with her?”
“Talking,” North said, his lips dipping instantly into a frown.
Uncle’s eyes narrowed at his face. “Alone? Back here?”
“This isn’t the 1800s,” North said. “I didn’t compromise her reputation.”
The odd conversation had me taking a small step behind North, shy. I moved to put a finger to my lip, but my hand got stuck in the pocket of North’s hoodie.
Uncle’s attention wavered from the angry look he was giving North as he turned to me. He focused on the hoodie. “Isn’t that yours?” he asked.
North groaned but stared at the wall instead of looking at him. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “It was cold. I let her borrow it.” He grumbled and then rushed to say, “She’s here to get Luke. She asked to take him out on a date tonight.”
This lightened up the darkness in Uncle’s eyes. His white eyebrows arched up. “Oh really?”
The issue he took with North doing things that, to me, seemed simply friendly made me nervous. What would he think if I’d told him I’d actually kissed North, and I hadn’t officially kissed Luke yet? Or that I’d kissed the other guys? Or even the secret plan North and I were working on to keep the family together?
I only nodded to confirm what North had said. “Is that okay?” I asked.
“Fine by me,” Uncle said. He pushed his palms to his back, holding it like it was sore. “That boy gets into more trouble around here without you.”
By his expression, I could tell Uncle meant it to be a compliment, although it had me worried about Luke, especially given the current circumstances. Had he been in trouble?
North’s phone buzzed. He took it out, looking at it and frowning.
Uncle lifted a brow. “Need a moment alone?”
“Yeah,” North said. He looked at me. “Find Luke.” There was more to it, but he wasn’t going to say it out loud. I wondered if it was about the masks. Maybe Kota finally found the one outside his window. Either way, he wasn’t going to talk to me more in front of Uncle.
“We’ll go find him,” Uncle said. He reached out and tugged at my arm. “Come along, little bird.”
I kept looking back at North, feeling odd. Was Uncle a member of the Academy? Yet North wouldn’t talk in front of him about Academy things? I understood the Academy had different teams. Why wasn’t Uncle part of North’s team? They were family. North and Luke were stepbrothers.
And what about Volto? What if he was back? If Uncle didn’t know about Volto, then he might be in danger. The whole of the diner might be if there were other Academy people working there.
I followed Uncle out into the hallway, leaving North alone in the office, hearing him shut the door behind us. I was worried about him, too. It wasn’t good for him to be alone. Volto seemed to like to splinter us, for one reason or another. I was paranoid, knowing if it was him, he was obviously close by, and wanted our attention.
Uncle headed to the kitchen. There was another chef at the stove, cutting meat up with a metal flipper for a steak sandwich. Another man was washing dishes at the sink. They were familiar, but I didn’t know their names.
“Luke must be out front,” Uncle said. “I haven’t seen him, but I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.” He went to the silver table in the middle, looking at a printed list attached to a clipboard. “So you want to take him out on a date, huh?”
I nodded, but then realized he wasn’t looking at me. “Yes,” I said. “Unless you’re busy and...”
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “He’s been weird lately. He’s always been a weird kid, but you just get a feeling something’s off sometimes. I was wondering if there wasn’t trouble at school.”
I checked behind me, looking to the hallway, worried he might walk in and hear. “He has been kind of distant lately,” I said. I didn’t know how to admit to the truth, and Uncle couldn’t possibly understand, but I wanted to see if he had another possible cause for Luke’s recent mood.
Uncle returned his dark eyes to me and leaned against the silver table with his arms crossed over his chest. “Listen, little bird, if you want my opinion, you should become a little less friendly with North.”
My lips parted as I tried to come up with a reply. Less friendly? “But...”
“I know you’re friends with him,” he said, “but you’ve got to understand. You’re a pretty girl. North’s very particular about girls and you’re one of the few he tolerates. You spend a lot of time with him.”
This made me question North and what other girls he tolerated on a regular basis. I smothered the thought. “We’re friends,” I said. What else could I say? It’s not like I could explain the new plan, or what it might mean. It was hard enough to comprehend within our group. Would Uncle ever understand it, if we chose to make it a reality? I needed to talk to North.
“I get that,” he said. “He’s also a young man full of hormones. Spend your time with Luke. North will find someone else if you leave him alone long enough.”
I tried to hide my tension with a small smile and a nod. He wanted North to find another girl. It made sense. Or it would if things were different for us. It made me consider how this whole situation would work. Uncle could run into North and I one day, or even one of the others. Maybe what we were thinking was impossible. Good in theory, but no one else would understand and accept it.
Uncle tapped a finger on the table, the metallic sound echoing. “If you like Luke, that is,” he said.
I lifted my head and nod more. “Yes,” I said. “I do.” That wasn’t the problem.
He smirked and rubbed a palm across the bandana on his forehead. “Save the I dos for when he asks.” He turned from me toward the stove and started cleaning up his area.
I shifted from foot to foot, considering what he might have meant. Then I considered leaving to find Luke, but I didn’t want to go out front alone. I considered going back for North, but given the circumstances, I wasn’t sure if I should.
Uncle shouted over his shoulder. “Hey, Tony!”
“Yeah?” said the guy washing dishes.
“Go find Luke.”
Tony was a lanky guy with dark hair and an olive complexion. He looked at me once, wiped his hands on his apron, turned off the water and walked out of the room.
He didn’t ask why. Then I realized the two other people in the room had probably heard the conversation. Heat washed over me, until I was sure my whole face was red.
I was flustered and embarrassed that they thought I’d been getting too close to North and needed a reminder of who I was dating. Why did Uncle have to say all that in front of them? Maybe he thought it was innocent enough…It was my own circumstances that made me uncomfortable. If they only knew…
I considered washing dishes if I was just going to stand there anyway. Uncle turned back to cooking. The other cook finished up his sandwich, walking it out to the hallway, where a waitress took it to the dining room.
Nathan came through the door into the kitchen. He still had on his jeans, but had traded the red shirt for one of the blue Bob’s Diner T-shirts to match with everyone else. The chest was a little tight, showing off his muscles.
He approached the silver table that separated the sink side from the stove and oven side and spotted me. His reddish brown hair shone a bit redder under the fluorescent lights of the kitchen. He stopped mid-step and turned with a puzzled expression in his blue eyes. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“I came to see Luke,” I said carefully, unable to give him the full answer. I made my eyes go wide, letting him know there was more to it and I needed him to go along with it. “I was going to take him out.”
He slid a look from me to Uncle and back at me. “You thought he might be here? I thought he was still at Kota’s. I’ve been waiting for him.”
I pressed my lips together before I could utter the surprised sound that had started in my throat. I forced a smile at him. “He said he was headed here, to relieve you from work, but...” I wasn’t sure what else to say in front of the others. This wasn’t good. Luke wasn’t here. What was I supposed to do?
“He’s probably run off again,” Uncle said. He hadn’t turned around, still cleaning up. “You should call him. Make him come pick you up.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll do that.” I pressed my teeth together, grimacing at Nathan. I needed to talk to him, but away from Uncle.
Nathan’s face shifted from curious to something much more serious. He frowned and then took off his blue apron. “Is anyone else here?”
“North’s in the office, or he might still be.”
“Let’s go find him.”
Uncle made a noise, and I put my head down, feeling guilty but unable to help it. Did he expect me to avoid North completely?
I followed Nathan out into the hall, right on his heels. Even on the short walk, I wanted to reach out to him, to hold his hand or touch him in some way, but I feared Uncle would see it, even through the walls.
Nathan opened the door to the office. I stood on my tiptoes to peek around his wide shoulders.
North was still inside, looking at the computer but then picked his head up with a dark eyebrow lifted as we came in. “Don’t complain to me. It was her idea to give Luke the night off. But don’t worry. I’m not going to keep you. I’ll take over...”
Nathan ignored him, waving a hand through the air. He stepped inside, giving me room to enter. When I did, he closed the door and hit the lock. He turned to me, his hands on his hips. His shoulders rounded out and his blue eyes took on that serious expression again. “What’s wrong?”
I hoped no one was listening in on us. I needed to talk to someone about Uncle, but finding Luke seemed to be more important right now. “Luke left us not too long ago to relieve you from working,” I said. “But if he’s not here, then…”
“Well, then he’s run off again,” Nathan said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I haven't seen him. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“But now there’s a problem,” I said. I checked in with North, who shrugged but then nodded. “Volto might be back.”
Nathan’s face reddened, and he turned toward North. “Are you serious? Where?”
“Just wait a second,” North said, raising his hand. “We don’t know if it’s really him yet. Now that Luke’s not here, I’m wondering more if it was him playing a prank and then realizing he needed to hide because it was too over the top. So you haven’t seen him at all?”
“No,” Nathan said. “I’ve been working since I left Kota’s. I was waiting for someone to show up. Tony said she was here looking for Luke, so I came back to check it out.”
“We need to find him,” I said, feeling the panic in my heart. What if Volto had taken him? He’d done the same to me. Luke had been alone on his way here. I turned to North and Nathan, my finger fluttering to the base of my throat. “What if he’s got him?”
“Calm down,” North said, standing and pulling out his phone. He pushed a button and then held it to his ear.
I eased closer to the desk. “Who are you calling?”
“Him,” he said. He waited and then held it out so he could look at the screen. “He’s not answering.”
“Track him,” Nathan said. “We should find out where he is. I don’t think he’s on any Academy assignment. Kota would have known.”
“Should I call him?” I asked. “Maybe he’s thinking you’ll yell at him. I could try.”
“Yeah,” North said, and then pressed at his phone. “I’ll track him. You call him.”
I came deeper into the room to distance myself from the door, and then sat on the couch again to steady my shaking. I pulled my phone out but before I called Luke, I looked at Nathan for a brief second, feeling strange about the situation. I just hoped it would work.
Nathan pressed his lips together in a grim expression. “Do it.”
I looked at my phone, finding Luke’s icon—a stack of pancakes—and pushed the buttons that would call him.
The phone rang and kept ringing. At first, I wasn’t sure he would answer.
Right before a voice mail message would have started up, the phone clicked. There was breathing on the other end amid other sounds, but no voice.
My heart stopped. Volto did that. I breathed out slowly. “Luke? Is that you?” I tried not to sound panicked, but my voice was soft.
“Sang?” Luke said through the phone. “Everything okay?” His voice was concerned now.
My heart crashed back into my chest at hearing his voice. I brightened a bit, looking at the other guys and nodding. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
North started waving at me, getting my attention, and signaling that I shouldn’t let on that we were looking for him. “I just...came by the diner. I thought you were here.”
“Oh,” he said. “I was going to, but...I don’t know. I got distracted.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t want to get after him about not going to work. Hadn’t he had this same discussion with North where he’d promised he’d relieve Nathan? How could he skip out and make it sound like it was akin to daydreaming during class? “I was going to see if you wanted to...maybe...do something tonight.”
“Tonight? Like what?”
I bit my lip and looked at Nathan and then North. I couldn’t think of what to say, feeling awkward that they were watching me while I was trying to ask Luke out and find out what was going on at the same time. “Oh, I thought we’d get a pizza and watch a movie? Or maybe something else? Whatever you want to do.”
“Are you asking me out? Sang, if you’re feeling threatened by that girl giving me her phone number, there’s nothing to worry about.”
I swallowed and continued, unable to turn back now. Nathan was looking at me, a frown on his face and it was more than the situation. I was worried about jealousy. It made it more awkward to be sweet to Luke and try to lure him to take me along wherever he was going. “Maybe it’s a little bit of that,” I said closing my eyes so I didn’t have to look at Nathan. “But to be honest, I...thought we should hang out. We never get to. I haven’t gotten a chance since...”
“Sang, listen, I want to, but I’m halfway across town right now and I might not be able to get back.”
I sent a puzzled look at North. He looked at his phone and was shaking his head. “Oh,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment. “Where are you going?”
“Academy stuff. You know how it is. Save some pizza for me? I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
I frowned. He’d said he was distracted. Now he was saying it was Academy stuff and he’s too busy? This didn’t seem like him. “What time will you be back, Luke?”
“Have to go. Bye!”
He disconnected. I pulled the phone from my ear, looking at it in disbelief. I’d never been brushed off by any of them like that before. I recalled what he’d just said, and it made me question the Luke who had been at the house earlier, friendly and funny. He didn’t even seem like the same person.
I turned to North. “At first he said he was distracted, like he was doing something else… and then he said he was doing something for the Academy. He said he was halfway across town.”
“According to the GPS on his phone, he’s...” North’s eyebrows moved together, and his lips twisted in confusion. “Back at our house.”
“We should go follow him,” I said. “He shouldn’t be alone. If he didn’t do the prank, then Volto...”
“Shouldn’t we warn him about Volto?” Nathan asked. “If we aren’t, then we need to keep an eye on him so he isn’t alone.”
North sighed and then went to the door, opening it. “Sang, you go with Nathan. I’ll stay here and cover the shift. Uncle will get the wrong idea if you and I leave together.”
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” I said.
“I’m not,” he smirked and then tapped me on the nose. “Uncle’s here. As are a couple other people...”
He meant there were plenty of Academy people here. Volto would have to get by all of them to get to North. Kota and Gabriel were still up the road, too. “Just be careful,” I said. “Don’t go home alone.”
North rolled his eyes and walked into the hallway. “Stick by her Nathan.”
Nathan grunted in agreement. He took me by the elbow and nearly carried me out to the hallway and toward the back door. “Let’s go find Luke.”