Secret

CHAPTER 34

Quinn was in French class Wednesday morning when the call from the guidance office came.

And just like that, she knew.

She’d been living with Adam, and she’d told him it would only be a few days, until her mom dried out. He’d told her she could stay as long as she needed. And the longer she went with a quiet home, a clean shower, and eight hours of sleep, the less she wanted to leave.

But she knew that was unrealistic. Adam had one bedroom and one bathroom. He was dating Nick, and she felt like more of a third wheel with them than she had with Chris and Becca.

She hadn’t heard from Tyler since she’d seen him kill the Guide.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him, either, but it hurt that he hadn’t reached out to her.

And now, walking down empty school hallways, terror settled into her muscles, slowing her pace.

They couldn’t make her go somewhere, could they? Brittany Asher had been in foster care, and she’d told horror stories around the lunch table about gross foster fathers sneaking into her room in the middle of the night. Or foster mothers whose tempers would rival Quinn’s mom’s.

Quinn stopped in front of the door to the office.

She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes blurred.

She had to run. She could hide.

“Quinn?”

Quinn swiped a sleeve over her eyes. Becca’s mother stood there, signing in for a visit to the office. Quinn almost didn’t recognize her in street clothes—the woman practically lived in nursing scrubs.

And Quinn was standing here with a running nose and heaving shoulders.

Mrs. Chandler abandoned the sign-in book and put her hands on Quinn’s shoulders, rubbing gently. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

Quinn shook her head. “I don’t—I don’t—they’re going to take me—”

Then she couldn’t hold it in anymore, and she was crying on Mrs. Chandler’s shoulder, clutching at her sturdy form. This was what a mother was supposed to be like: all soft curves and gentle hands and quiet support.

“Please don’t let them take me somewhere,” Quinn said, clinging to any possibility that an adult could fix this. She knew she wasn’t making sense, but she couldn’t stop begging. “I want to go home. Will you tell them it’s okay? Tell them to let me go home. Please—”

“You can’t go home,” Mrs. Chandler said gently. “Not now, Quinn.”

Quinn cried harder. She couldn’t stop shaking. “Please. Please help me.”

“Oh, I’m going to do that. Calm down now.” She stroked Quinn’s back. “Let’s go inside and talk about it. We’re supposed to be doing this with your guidance counselor.”

Quinn lifted her head. “What?”

Mrs. Chandler pulled tissues out of her pocket. “I called to set up the meeting. I just found out about your mother, and your brothers, and what’s been going on in that house of yours.”

Quinn sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “But I didn’t—Becca doesn’t know—”

“Well, she will soon. If I get my way in here, you and your younger brother are going to stay with me until your mother can get into a treatment program.”

“But—but—”

“But nothing, Quinn.” Her voice was gentle, but stern. “I’ve always told you that my door is open to you. We’ve never had any secrets between us. I wish you’d told me what you were going through.”

“I’m sorry.” Fresh tears welled. “It got—it got out of control so fast—”

“I know. I know. Come on, let’s go inside and see if we can work something out.”

Quinn nodded and wiped at her eyes again, scared to let herself feel something like hope.

But when Mrs. Chandler pushed at the door to the office, Quinn said, “Wait. If Becca didn’t tell you, then how did you know?”

“Your friend called me this morning. He said he got my number from Michael Merrick. He wanted to help you, but he wasn’t sure how. He sounded pretty upset about what was going on, but he didn’t want something bad to happen to you.”

Quinn’s heart was pounding. “My friend? Who?”

“Nice young man. Said he knows Becca, too. Tyler Morgan.”

By Wednesday night, Nick and Gabriel had settled into an uneasy truce.

Well, Nick had settled into one. He lived in the house and went through the motions of living with four other guys, but where his twin was concerned, he went out of his way to avoid him. He caught a ride to school from Michael or Hunter. He went to the studio at night to watch Adam and Quinn dance. He studied in his room with the door closed.

At first, Gabriel had dogged him, begging for a chance to apologize. Nick had ignored that.

Then, true to form, Gabriel had turned antagonistic, mocking his silence. That was even easier to ignore.

But tonight, Adam had class and Quinn had texted that she was busy, so Nick was home. He’d been ready for more hassling from his twin, but Gabriel was the one staying out late.

Nick wondered if his twin was avoiding him, now, if he’d made it so uncomfortable that Gabriel didn’t even want to be in the same house with him.

Good.

Actually, tonight, Nick was glad for his twin’s absence. He found Michael sitting in a dim kitchen, hunched over his laptop.

A stack of invoices sat next to him.

Nick stopped short. “I can do that.”

“I know you can,” said Michael. “So can I.” He looked at Nick, then nodded at the pile of papers in his hands. “What do you have? Something for school?”

“Sort of.” Nick hesitated. “I need to tell you something. Ask you something. Whatever.”

Michael uncapped a bottle of water and took a sip. “Shoot.”

Nick pulled a chair free and eased into it. “My physics teacher said he needs a decision about that semester of math and science at Maryland this spring.” The words were rushing out, and he couldn’t figure out Michael’s expression, so he kept talking. “It’s college credit, and they only accept a few students from each high school, but it’s also a lot of work. I don’t want to take time away from the business, because I know spring is our busiest season.”

His brother frowned. “Are you asking me if you can do it, or trying to get me to tell you not to?”

Nick took a breath. “I have no idea.”

Michael closed the laptop and pushed it to the side. He leaned in against the table. “Forget the business. What do you want to do?

“I can’t forget the business, Michael. It’s—it’s not like it’s your side job or something. I’m not going to cut back on my hours if that means the family needs to live on ramen noodles for the entire year.” He rolled his eyes. “We might not even make it to spring anyway, so I don’t know why I’m even considering this.”

“The same could be true of anyone on earth, Nick. When the Guides come, they come. We keep doing what we’ve always done. Not revealing our true abilities.”

Nick didn’t say anything to that. There was a warning there.

Michael studied him for a long minute. “Stay here. I want to show you something.”

He wasn’t gone long. When he returned, he had a beat-up white Teflon envelope stuffed with papers. He tossed it on the table in front of Nick.

Nick glanced at it, then back up at Michael.

“Go ahead. Open it.”

Nick slid the contents out of the envelope. The papers were wrinkly and a little worn. On top was a college letter addressed to Michael. From five years ago.

Welcoming him to LSU.

Nick read the next line and snapped his head up. “They offered you a baseball scholarship.”

Michael shrugged. “I had two offers, actually. Money from a lot of other places, too. The letters are all in there.”

“But why didn’t you . . . why . . .” He didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.

He knew why.

He met Michael’s eyes. “Does anyone else know?”

“Nope.”

“I won’t tell.”

“It’s not a secret, Nick.” Michael paused. “Mom and Dad knew. I’m surprised they didn’t have banners made. You’d have thought I won the lottery or something. But when they died, there wasn’t any question of what I needed to do.”

Nick’s throat felt tight. He couldn’t meet his brother’s eyes.

Michael put a hand on his arm. “Stop. Look, I didn’t show you this to make you feel bad, Nick. I could never have gone off to school and left you guys. This isn’t a guilt trip.”

Nick nodded. But he felt the guilt all the same.

“You’re a smart kid, and you work your ass off.” Michael squeezed his arm. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to throw away an opportunity. They would have been proud of you, too.”

Nick made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “Would they have been proud of all of it?”

“Yeah, Nick.” No hesitation. “They would have been proud of everything you are.”

Nick swiped at his eyes and looked back at Michael’s letters. “Do you regret it?”

“Regret? No. Do I think about what ifs?” He shrugged again, then smiled a little ruefully. “Yes. Every spring when I watch Chris play.”

“What are you going to do with the business, though? If Gabriel and Hunter are going to take the EMT course, and—”

“Nick, it’s fine. I’ll hire some people.”

He dropped the words so simply that Nick felt like an idiot for not even thinking about it. “You’ll—wait. What? You can do that?”

Michael leaned back in his chair. “Sure. I’d probably like it. I could do a job with someone who won’t give me a load of crap at the dinner table or sneak out of the house.”

Nick studied him. “You sound like you’ve been thinking about that for a while.”

Michael paused, and now he looked a little hesitant. “At dinner, Hannah’s father had some thoughts about how I could expand the business . . . maybe do more with it . . . I don’t know. It’s something to think about. Maybe this college course is a sign.” He grimaced. “And honestly, Nick, you’ll need all the help you can get. You know we don’t have a lot of money for college.”

“Well,” said Nick, “maybe I can help with that.” He shoved his original stack of letters across the table.

Michael read the first. Then the second.

He didn’t even get to the third.

He was too busy pulling Nick out of his chair to hug him.