Cracked Kingdom

  Shit. I should have contacted her earlier. I need to get home, I decide. I won’t go in, but I need to see Dylan and talk to her, let her know if anything happens, I’ll be there for her. This time I don’t take the bus. My parent’s house is only a ten-minute drive from Parker’s, so I call for a car. It’s a minor miracle, but I arrive at the same time that my sister is being dropped off.

  "Dylan!” I rush up to catch her attention. “Did you have a good time?"

  She stops, a big smile on her face. “Yup.”

  She smells of hay and manure and sweat, but her smile is so pretty it doesn't matter. I want to hug her but am afraid she’ll reject me. Screw it. I go in anyway, swiftly giving her a two-armed embrace. She barely squeezes me back, but she doesn’t push me away so I call it a win.

  I glance over my shoulder, wondering how long I have until Mom comes out and chases me away. “Do you have your phone on you?”

  Dylan’s brows crash together. “Yeah, why?”

  “Because I got a new phone and want to add you. That way we can text during class and stuff.” And at night, in case you need me.

  She slowly pulls out her phone. “I guess. I don’t really text much.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll try not to bother you.” Come on. Come on, I silently urge her. "What kind of riding do you do?"

  "I'm jumping now." She unlocks her device.

  "Wow. That's awesome. Can I come watch?"

  "Why would you want to?" she asks, suspicion coloring her face and voice.

  "You're my sister and you're doing something cool. Seems like the question is, why wouldn't I want to?”

  "You never were interested before." Her fingers hover over the screen.

  "I was obviously a shit sister before," I joke, but inside I die a little at this. Dylan's so young and she needed support, but apparently, I was a heartless jerk. "The head injury knocked some sense into me."

  "Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you? Because I don't," my sister responds.

  "No. That's not my intention at all.”

  The door creaks open behind me. Ah, shit. “Your number,” I say urgently.

  She scowls. “Are you leaving me again?”

  Again. God, how can one word wreck me so much? She was hurt that I went away to boarding school.

  I blink away the tears before nodding. “No. I’m here. I never wanted to leave in the first place, but I can’t change the past. I’m here now. That’s why I want to exchange numbers. Please. Please, Dylan.”

  She glances over my shoulder.

  “Dylan, it’s time to come inside,” Mom says coldly. “Your sister won’t be joining us tonight.”

  “I thought you weren’t leaving me,” Dylan cries.

  “I’m not. I promise you. I’m staying in Bayview. Maybe not here in the house, but in Bayview. Okay? Please. Your number.”

  She hesitates, and I hold my breath.

  “Dylan, come inside,” Mom says again.

  My sister nods and starts walking. I want to die inside, but as she passes me, she mumbles seven digits under her breath. I close my eyes with relief and then hurriedly enter them into my phone. The door shuts behind Dylan, but Mom remains on the step.

  “Since you remember you have an apartment, I suggest you go back there. This hasn’t been your home for three years. You’re not welcome here until you stop with your lies and slander.”

  Then it looks like I won’t ever be coming home. I clutch Easton’s jacket in my hand and burn my very last bridge. “I’ll be back, but it’s going to be to take Dylan away from you.”

  I turn on my heel and walk off. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to make it happen.

  I take the bus to the apartment. I hope Easton doesn’t mind sharing. When I arrive, the second-floor lights are on. A warm sensation starts to thaw the cold that set in on the ride over. I run up the stairs, noting that the light above the door has been replaced and that the handle is more securely attached. The stairs are still rickety, but I'm beginning to love this shabby home.

  I knock lightly but don't wait for an answer before walking in. Easton's at the stove, naked from the waist up. His black knit joggers with the white stripe down the side barely cling to his hips. I lean against the door and allow myself to ogle him for a good thirty seconds. I deserve it, I think. After entertaining about ten different naughty thoughts, I roll my tongue back into my mouth and check the corners of my lips for drool before greeting him.

  "What's for dinner?"

  "Spaghetti," he says without turning around. "It's the only thing I know how to make. Ella taught me. Want to set the table? There should be a bag full of plates and shit.”

  I peel my gaze away from his shoulders and land on a small wooden kitchenette set. “Since when do we have a table?”

  “Since today. I did some shopping.”

  That’s an understatement. The once empty apartment is now stuffed full. Besides the table and two chairs, there’s a new beautiful gray sofa, a white-and-gray-and-black rug, and a mattress set upright against the wall. A number of bags with a familiar red bull’s-eye sit on one end of the sofa. I sort through them until I find plates, glasses, and even a box of silverware. There’s also a colander, which he’s going to need for the noodles.

  "Hope those are okay."

  Is that nervousness in his voice?

  "They're great." I collect two of everything and bring them over to the sink for a quick rinse. There’s not much room in the kitchen, so I have to squeeze in next to Easton to get to the sink. He shifts over, but our elbows rub together as we work.

  It’s so nice after the horror that happened at my house. I don’t think I ever want to leave this place.

  "I bought them at Target," he tells me as he dumps a bottle of red sauce into a pan with browned beef. My stomach rumbles in appreciation. "That place is the bomb,” he continues adorably. “It has everything. I got this table there and the chairs, plus all this kitchen shit. I also picked up the mattress, but I can’t figure out how to put the bed together. They had towels and shampoo and everything. Like, that's the only store we need."

  I love how he uses the word we. I don’t feel so alone anymore. I set the strainer in the middle of the sink and take the dishes over to the table.

  “Incoming,” he says. I turn around to see him carrying a big pot over to the table. “Can you grab the bread? It’s in the oven.”

  I grab a towel—also new—and pull the tinfoil-wrapped garlic bread out of the oven. "How did you know I was coming?"

  "Mmm, maybe not knew, but hoped?" He sits after I do, a gentlemanly act I hadn't realized I liked until he did it for me.

  If I was told I’d be hungry twenty minutes ago, I’d have called that person a liar, but the smell of the sauce and the buttery bread along with the sweet treatment from Easton makes me ravenous. I scoop about ten servings of noodles and sauce onto my plate and dig in.

  "What do you think of my cooking?"

  I hold my thumb up. "It's awesome."

  He winks at me before attacking his plate. We eat in silence, too busy stuffing our faces to speak. The giant pot of noodles and sauce is almost gone before I call a halt.

  I push back from the table and stagger to the sink with my plate in my hands. "I feel like I ate a whole factory of pasta."

  "It was good, wasn't it?" He sets his own plate down next to mine. A big smile is stretched across his gorgeous face. He's so pleased with his accomplishment that I want to pinch his cheeks.

  But if I touch him, I won't want to stop.

  "The best," I agree. "Go sit down while I clean the dishes."

  "I can help," he protests.

  "Nope. You did the cooking, so I clean. It's the rules."

  "What rules are those?"

  "Our house rules." I shoo him out of the tiny kitchen area.

  He saunters over to the mattress frame and pulls out a baby-pink plastic container. "Do you know what these are?"

  "No clue. A haird
ryer?"

  "This is real man stuff." He flips open the case and displays a set of screwdrivers.

  "How do you figure?"

  "Because real men put shit together, Hart. How do you not know this?" He unpacks the tools and lays them beside the metal frame.

  "Apparently because I have a vagina."

  “No. I think it’s because you haven’t had enough contact with real men.” He pauses to flex for me.

  I pretend not to be impressed by the obvious muscle definition. “If you say so.”

  “It’s probably because you went to that all-girls’ school for so long. Not that I’m complaining. The fewer guys you hang around with, the better for me.” He flips the screwdriver in his hand and grins.

  I pause, water dripping from my hands. “Did I ever say the name of the school?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Because I think I need my medical records.”

  He sets the pink screwdriver on the ground, abandoning his mini construction project. “What happened?”

  “I confronted my mom and she said that I broke my wrist at school and that the school tried to place the blame on my family to get out of a lawsuit.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he swears. “Why would you lie about this shit to me? I practically forced you to admit what happened. You didn’t want to tell me, so it wasn’t for attention or sympathy. It was the truth.”

  “Okay, but how do I prove that? It’s been three years. I’ve been thinking all day about how to get Dylan away from my dad, but that’s the only thing I can come up with.”

  He scratches his head. “All right. We find out where your old school is located. We search the hospitals that were around there and we get your medical records.”

  “What about the fact that I’m a minor?”

  Easton taps his fingers on the ground. “I have an idea. Get your jacket. We’re going to see someone.”

  Chapter 26

  Easton

  Someone is Lawrence—“Call me Larry”—Watson, a behemoth of a guy who somehow, for all his size, doesn’t look like he has an ounce of fat on him.

  “Larry plays on the O-line,” I explain to Hartley, but her face registers no understanding. I forgot that football isn’t her thing.

  Despite Larry’s skill on the field, football isn’t his thing either. Computers are, though. When he was fifteen, he moved into the apartment above his family’s second garage, saying that he needed more space. Never mind that his house is bigger than a couple gymnasiums. His parents let him because they figured it would foster his huge brain.

  "This looks like a branch of NASA," Hartley comments as she takes in the five computer screens in the dimly lit room Larry calls an office.

  "NASA wishes its set up was as sweet as mine," he brags. "This baby has twenty-four cores of computing power on a dual 3.0 gigahertz Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 topped off with thirty megs of Smart Cache per processor.”

  Hartley's eyes glaze over. She's a musician, not a coder. I step in before we lose her. "Here's the deal, Larry. Hartley's lost her memory."

  "Oh, that's for real?"

  I scowl. "Yeah, of course it is."

  He shrugs and swivels around to face his desk. "I was just asking. No need to bite my head off."

  "It's fine," Hart assures me, placing her hand on my shoulder.

  I take a deep breath and squeeze her fingers. If she's okay with it, I need to be okay with it, too.

  “What do you want me to find?”

  “Hartley’s boarding school. It’s in New York and it should have the word North and Academy in it.”

  “That’s it? You guys should have been able to do this?” He types a few things and a screen loads that says Astor Park Prep at the top.

  I grit my teeth in frustration. Did Larry not hear me? “We don’t need her Astor Park records—”

  “Look,” Hartley interrupts, pointing to the screen.

  Larry’s not looking at Hart’s transcript, but her entire student file. He flips through the digital pages, stopping on the ones that have Northwood Academy for Girls at the top. “All-girls’ school, huh?” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Kinky. Any hot girls there?’

  “I assume they were all gorgeous,” Hartley says. “We had lesbian orgies every weekend. We rubbed lotion on each other, had tickle contests, and every night ended with a silk pajama pillow party.”

  Larry’s jaw grows slack.

  “She’s kidding,” I insert.

  “Man, who cares if she’s kidding?” He winds his hand in a circle. “Keep going. I don’t care if you’re making up these stories or that shit actually happened, just keep going.”

  “That’s it, sorry. Other than the orgies we held every third Sunday as part of our worship to Nyx, the goddess of night. It was quite the ritual. We’d select one freshman from the neighboring boys’ school, strip him and then castrate him before feeding his balls to our cats.”

  Larry sighs. “You just had to ruin it, didn’t you?” He turns to his screen again. “I don’t see anything interesting here. Good grades. No extracurricular activities. A note that says you don’t enjoy participating in group shit. That’s it?”

  He sounds disappointed.

  “No, actually, we’re trying to find her hospital records but didn’t know where the school was located. Can you figure that out?”

  His eyes brighten. “Hospital records? That’s a lot more fun. Let’s see.” He types in the address and retrieves the website of the only hospital in the area. “It’ll depend on how much they digitize, but most hospitals scan all their records because they have to send them around. Oh, look, a patient portal,” he chortles. “This isn’t even going to require hacking.”

  And it doesn’t. Larry is able to enter Hartley’s social, date of birth, and mother’s maiden name—information he’d gotten from her Astor records—to gain access to her patient portal, which has lab results, x-ray readings, and doctors’ notes. It’s laughably easy. The world’s a scary place, I think.

  I lay a comforting hand on Hart’s back, but she’s too engrossed in reading the details on the screen to notice. I guess the one who’s being comforted is me.

  “Shit, three weeks undiagnosed break. That had to hurt like a bitch,” Larry comments.

  “I don’t remember.” She rubs her wrist.

  I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it. I bet her body remembers even if her memory is shooting blanks, otherwise she wouldn’t always be reaching for that scar.

  “I’m a computer scientist, not a doctor, so what are we looking for here?”

  “Cause,” Hart explains. “How’d it happen? My story changes.” She points to the top of the screen. “When I was first admitted, I said I’d hurt it at home, but after the second visit, it says I fell at school.”

  “And the diagnosis part says that your injury is consistent with a ‘direct insult from bracing herself against a fall,’” I read.

  Hart and I blow out long, disappointed breaths. There’s nothing here that can help us. We can’t take this to the police or a lawyer as proof that Hartley’s father is a danger. Her shoulders slump and she runs an agitated hand through her hair.

  “We’ll find something else,” I murmur.

  She nods, but I’m not convinced she believes me. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and hug her to my side. She’s stiff as a board. I wish I could just go over to her house and punch her dad’s lights out, but, sadly, this is one of those times when violence isn’t the answer. Which sucks, because physical combat is about the only thing I’m good at these days.

  I thought I was so brilliant, bringing her to Larry.

  “Anything else you want to see?” Larry asks, popping a potato chip in his mouth, seemingly oblivious to the new tension in the air.

  Hart’s too discouraged to answer.

  “What else is there?” I ask for her.

  “I could create a profile by combining all of Hartley’s social media postings in the past so that you c
ould recreate your memories from there,” he offers.

  I guess he does pick up on her distress. “You’re a good man, Larry,” I tell him.

  He gives me a tentative smile. “Should I do that?”

  Hartley stares blankly at the screen. No doubt she’s thinking of Dylan.

  “Hart?” I ask softly.

  “I tried that before,” she finally replies. “And found nothing.”

  "What'd you search? Your name?"

  "Yes."

  He grunts. "No one uses their real names on the internet anymore. You have to know your handle."

  "I don't know those, though."

  "What about before—what IDs did you use before?"

  "I didn't have any accounts before thirteen. It was against the rules."

  Larry and I turn to stare at her in amazement.

  "What?" she exclaims. "That was what all the sites said. You had to verify that you were above the age of thirteen."

  "Why didn't you lie?" Larry asks the obvious.

  "I...because what if someone found out and then I got in trouble?"

  He rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to his computer. I bury my face in her hair to muffle my chuckles.

  "What's so funny?" she asks stiffly.

  "Everyone lies online," Larry says, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

  "Not everyone."

  "I can't believe you thought you were a cheater." I tug on a long strand of her hair that hangs down the middle of her back like a stream of ink. "You can't even lie to a machine about your age."

  "Whatever." She crosses her arms and glares.

  "Can you send me a pic of your face?"

  She leans forward to see what he's doing. "What for?"

  "I'm going to do an image search."

  "You can do that?"