Page 12 of The Knight

My heart twists as I consider every variation of the truth, and the lies, I could tell them. "They haven't told me much yet. I tried to give a description of the men, but it's all a little fuzzy. I think... I think they were organized crime. That's all I know, really."

"Oh, sweetie." Mom squeezes my hand. "Did they... hurt you?"

She wants to know if they sexually assaulted me. Dragging that sort of information out seems like a bad idea, but thankfully for both of us nothing of the sort happened. "No. They just knocked me out and put me in the trunk of their car." I find myself cracking a yawn, and realize with a start that I'm tired. "It was a cramped fit."

"I'm just glad you're with us now." Mom reaches out to smooth my hair back from my face, and I lean in to the gesture, trying to take comfort from it. Another yawn leaves me involuntarily. "You should get some sleep, baby."

"Don't want to." I force down a third yawn, ignoring Wally's bemused smile. "I was out for so long. I want to just... stay awake."

Wally points out, "That wasn't sleep, Brenna. You should get some real rest. I'm sure the professionals around here would agree."

"No." I shake my head, looking over at Mom. "I can leave soon, I'm sure. There's no reason for me to be admitted."

It takes her a moment to realize what I'm worried about. "Oh, sweetie, don't try to stay awake on my account. Your Aunt Cheryl has agreed to pitch in what she can to help pay your bills, and the church will help with the rest. If you need to sleep at the hospital, that's what's going to happen."

"Also," Wally adds, "I'm pretty sure you're not the one who gets to decide whether or not you'll be admitted. They have doctors for that."

He has a point. And if it's not going to be an impossible burden for Mom, then there's no reason for me to turn down a little bit of sleep.

"Let me just stay up for a bit longer," I tell them. "It's been so long since we got to see each other. And it's almost Christmas. I don't want to miss out."

A while later I find myself passing out, head on the pillow, barely aware of my surroundings.

I dream of sweet-smelling clothes that pull me down into an open grave, where my brother's body waits, his skin cold and clammy, his eyes open and staring back at me.

In the dream, I don't scream.

Fear feels so far away from me now.

Instead I just close my eyes and let the coffin build itself around me one plank at a time.

* * *

I'm woken by a gentle light streaming in through the curtains of the window near my bed. My mom is sleeping on a bench cushion beneath the window, while Wally must be out somewhere, because he's tucked his jacket around Mom's shoulders and is nowhere to be found.

Turning onto my other side to get away from the sunlight, I find myself staring at Silas's laptop. My heart races as I realize that I almost forgot about it; once I sent that lawyer after it I let it leave my mind and tried not to worry about it.

But here it is, right in front of me, only inches away.

"Some man brought it while you were asleep." Mom has somehow woken along with me; it must be those extra senses only mothers get that jerked her awake just as I woke too. "He wanted to stick around, said he was your lawyer, but I told him I'm your mother. His number is over there—when did you get a lawyer? Nevermind, I don't want to know. Just tell me what homework you can possibly have that's so important you had a very well dressed man fetch your brother's laptop while you were convalescing in a hospital bed."

It's so many words at once. I don't know how anyone can keep up with my mother when she gets in an anxious mood like this one. She looks, and sounds, like she guzzled a whole liter of caffeine, then fell asleep anyway. But I'm just glad she's back to nagging me instead of crying into my shoulder and making me feel like I'm the parent instead of her.

"It's not homework that I wanted to do," I tell her, before realizing my mistake too late; now she'll have follow up questions. I don't want her to know all of Silas's secrets. Just the accusations that came out about him thatweren'ttrue were enough to almost send her to an early grave of despair and heartache. Scrambling to come up with something plausible, I tell her, "There's a game on here. And some... some emails."

Mom raises her brows. "Oh? Any boy in particular?"

Four of them, I find myself thinking, only to immediately discard the thought. The Elites aren't boys that I'm interested in or might date. They're four predatory wolves I made the mistake of kissing, and the sooner my deal with them is done and they're out of my life forever, the better.

"There are no boys," I tell Mom, hating that it feels like another lie. "Just friends and stuff. You know us Gen Xers and our social media. Can't get enough of the stuff."

"Speaking of!" Mom reaches across me and pulls something off the table next to my bed. "I plugged your phone in with my charger. It was dead, you know. We called you on the way here and you never picked up."

"Thanks." I take the phone from her as she turns it on, afraid there might be something on it—though what, I don't know. "I should let my friends know that I'm doing better. I'm sure everyone is worried about me."

Another lie. My friends—Sasha, Tricia, Hector, even Chrissy, who I know now was never the victim she pretended to be—probably don't give a shit that I'm in the hospital at all. They saw Georgia's presentation exposing my lies, after all. When I ran out of the Blind Ball they didn't even try to follow me.

It was only the wolves who followed me: Cole, Lukas, Tanner, and Blake. Four boys who cared even less than my supposed friends, but were the first to visit me here in the hospital. The first to see me when I was down.

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