Accessory: The Scarab Beetle Series: #4 (The Academy) (27 page)

The day room was just a large lounge with a lot of chairs and one wall that was a wide window with an unobstructed view of the outside. Right now, that view was the river.

Blake was in one of the lounge chairs. He was crumpled up on his side, his back to us, and not moving. Someone stumbling on him might have thought he was taking a nap.

I didn’t see anyone else in the room. I walked slowly toward Blake. Axel moved ahead of me, checking behind each of the lounge chairs and then opened a single closet door in the room, finding only a stack of extra pillows that matched the chairs.

I hovered over Blake. His eyes were closed. His blond hair was stained red at the nape of his neck. Horror struck through my heart, and my stomach tightened more. This was my fault. I had told him to go after the blond man. Had he gotten caught?

I bent down, touching his forehead gently, checking for other injuries. “Blake,” I said.

Nothing.

I shook his arm. “Blake!”

He shifted, breathing, but not totally waking up. As his head moved, I spotted more blood dripping along his neck and pooling at his shoulder. It stained the white mat of the lounge and his grey shirt. I gasped. Was he dying?

Axel materialized next to me. He eased me aside, checked Blake’s pulse and then lifted his hair, revealing the deep cut and developing bruise. “Knocked out.” He turned Blake’s head gently and shook his arm. “Blake! Wake up.”

There was a moan from Blake, a cough and then groaning. His eyes fluttered.

My heart exploded, and then washed over in relief that he’d woken up. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Peachy,” Blake said, his voice rough. He groaned again and then stopped short to cough. He lifted his hand to his hair. “Please tell me I’m not ugly now.”

“Someone hit you on the head,” Axel said. He stood up, looking around the room. “This place is clean. Did you start out in here?”

Blake opened his eyes, the gold flecks fuzzy and out of focus at first and then he spotted me and his attention zeroed in. “Where am I?”

“The day room,” I said. “You said to come here.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. He breathed in heavily and then out again. “No, I was brought in here.” He reached out for my arm, I thought just to get my attention but then he pulled on me, leveraging against me to sit up.

“Wait,” I said, putting my hand around his wrist, encouraging him to stop. The blood was worrying me the most. It looked like there was a lot. “Shouldn’t you like lay down? Do we need a doctor?”

“There’s a hospital on the ship,” he said. He continued to sit up and then steadied himself with one hand on the lounge cushion as the other tenderly touched his head, close to the injury. “What I need is a strong dose of Tylenol. My head is killer.”

“Who hit you?” Axel asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The blond crewman might know though. I don’t know. What’s his name...”

“You were following him,” I said. “He did this?”

“He couldn’t have done it,” Blake said. “He was standing in front of me when it happened. I was watching him go into one of the spas and then he walked out a few minutes later. I don’t think he saw me.” He pulled his hand away from his head and then unbuttoned the shirt he was wearing and took it off, exposing a white tank underneath. The gray shirt was stained. He balled it in his hand and held it to his head. “I could use some ice.”

“Can you move?” I asked.

“I’m just trying not to throw up right now,” Blake said.

“Then we do need to get you to the doctor,” Axel said. He touched his ear. “Corey, we need someone in the fourth floor day room. Take Blake to the hospital on the ship.”

“We can take him,” I said.

“We need to get away from him,” Axel said. “Someone attacked him. We need to pretend we were never here.”

“But...” I couldn’t just leave Blake like this. That he’d gotten hurt felt like my fault. Whatever was going on, they didn’t want anyone else knowing about it. They were willing to attack Blake for it. Who would do such a thing? We’d just gotten started.

Axel came to me, and grabbed my elbow, pulling me away. “Kayli,” he said. “If you want to get anything done while we’re here, you need to stay away from Blake for now. If you want a reputation of being a fund manager and you want this to work, then you and I need to go make an appearance and give no indication we know what’s going on. He’s got an enemy onboard and we need to show we’re not acquainted or we’ll become targets.”

“Go,” Blake said. He waved me off. “He’s right. You need to keep yourself visible as much as possible to the people we’re here to talk to. I’ll spread your little rumor. I’ll give you a background and reputation. I can do it without us being friends, so whoever attacked me won’t get to you.”

This was so wrong. What was I doing? I was in way over my head. Was this what Blake was going to try to do alone if I hadn’t been around or had refused to join him? I had already been questioning my sanity in even agreeing. Axel had been right. They were dangerous men. The boat hadn’t even taken off yet and he’d already been attacked. “We should have been more careful,” I said. “We should take this slower.”

“We will,” Blake said, waving at me again before pressing the shirt harder against his head. “Now go away. Just give me a bit. I’ll be back on my feet.”

Axel tugged at my arm and I followed reluctantly. I wished we could have stayed until someone got there. I didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone.

Blake said nothing, just nodded at me as I was leaving. His gaze on my face told me to keep going, he’d be fine.

I trailed Axel slowly out into the hallway. Why had they just knocked him out and left him?

And why the need to knock him out in the first place? Blake hadn’t said a word to anyone, he hadn’t talked to any of the guests yet. The only potential witness was the blond man, and that’s if he’d seen anything at all. Was he working with whoever had knocked Blake out?

Too many questions. Once I was away from the day room, Axel led the way, and I simply followed. I was running away from enemies we couldn’t even see.

It convinced me more than ever that, even though I was terrified, we needed to be here. Blake couldn’t handle this himself.

ROUND TWO

W
e backtracked to the lobby and then on out to the hot tub and entry deck. It felt like it was nine or ten in the morning still, although I didn’t have a watch to check. The sun was a little stronger, although the breeze that came in from the ocean had picked up.

The deck had become more crowded with new guests. The beach bunnies had moved on somewhere else. No Mr. Smith. An older couple had joined Ethan and Avery. Additional cars were in the parking lot. Crewmen and women zipped by with luggage. The ship was going to be crowded soon with the flow of people starting to board now.

It could have been Mr. Smith who had knocked out Blake. We were in the study long enough for him to walk by.

But then, when I thought about it, it could have been anyone outside of Axel and me. There were a lot of crew members.

And a few of the Academy boys who didn’t like him.

I didn’t want to consider that. They wouldn’t. They might be angry with him but I didn’t think they’d stoop to that. Plus, they knew we needed him.

We walked the deck of the ship in silence together. Now anytime I passed a face, I wondered if he or she could have been involved.

Axel and I started browsing the several guest levels of the ship. It gave us time to get to know the layout more while more people arrived.

As we walked, Axel eventually reached out to hold my hand. At first, I hadn’t noticed at all. I was walking in a daze. My head was a foggy mess. I was trying to remember exactly how many jewelry counters I’d passed on the boutiques floor. I wondered why any ship would need three luxury spas, and that’s just the ones I’d found.

When we passed by anyone, I moved up against Axel, even if there was plenty of room to pass us by. I was wary now, unsure and untrusting. Paranoia was rampant. If Blake was dragged to the day room, it was like being kidnapped all over again. The more I considered what happened, the more I remembered being kidnapped myself and I was jumping at every noise, every flicker of light overhead. My stomach was in knots, and only the prior medicine probably kept me from getting too nauseated and puking.

Axel squeezed my hand after I’d nearly ducked behind him when two people passed us in the hallway. “You can’t keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Cowering,” he said. “That’s not like you.”

I pressed my lips together, not wanting to admit to it. No. It wasn’t like me. But I was tired and foggy and was feeling incredibly vulnerable.

Axel stopped walking in the hall, forcing me to stop as well. He faced me, a touch of a frown on his lips. He gazed down at the floor. “I’m sorry I didn’t hurry when you said something was wrong with Blake,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize he was hurt. I thought you meant...I don’t know.”

“We’re facing off with dangerous men,” I said quietly.

He looked up and down the hallway we were in and then walked to a door marked Children’s Play Room, opening it and waving me in. There was no one in this room, perhaps no one was bringing their kids to the ship. There was a thick blue mat on the floor and rainbows painted on the wall. Toys were contained neatly in bins along one wall.

Axel closed the door behind himself and then turned toward me. “Kayli,” he said quietly. “Say the word, and I’ll get us all off this damn ship, including Blake.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes. I was tired, uncomfortable...and afraid. Terrified. I had been so confident before, cocky, even, but hadn’t been at it for ten minutes before pinning myself as one of Mr. Murdock’s closest employees, a dangerous position to be in. And then Blake had gotten hurt. I’d been seasick. I wasn’t prepared at all for this.

I just didn’t want to admit that I might have gotten in too quickly, and was already starting off out of control. “I want to help,” I said, “I just don’t know what I’m doing.” My lips trembled and I cursed, pulling away from him to stare at the wall. I wasn’t going to cry on top of this. The tension was just getting to me now. Stupid girl reaction.

I sensed it when Axel stepped up behind me. He kept his distance though, simply standing there. “I was worried this was too soon.”

“I’m fine. I’m not sick anymore.”

“I’m not talking about the physical.” He reached out, rubbing my shoulders, massaging deeply. “Kayli, no one goes through what you’ve been through and doesn’t have a reaction. You’re human, like it or not. I don’t just mean your past, either.”

I bit my lip, biting back emotions. I didn’t dare admit he might be right. I wouldn’t. I was Kayli Winchester. I was the girl in school who could fist fight with the boys and walk away with a few bruises…but I walked away. I never cried in front of a boy ever in my life. I’d always been so aware and sure of my next moves, and now I had no idea what to do.

“We all went through it,” he said quietly. He bent his head to the back of mine, his lips pressing to the crown of my head against my hair. “We were there, too. We know.”

“I can’t stay in the apartment forever,” I said, thinking he meant we should just go back and forget about everything. Impossible, even if I wished I could. “I can’t keep hiding like that.”

“No,” he said. “We can’t. We also don’t need to be here. I know you’re mad at us for keeping you away from Blake and Ethan. It’s not that I don’t care about their fight. I do. My first concern, though, is you.”

Why did he have to say it like that? It broke through a barrier inside me. Axel had an uncanny way of getting me to talk about things I wanted to bury and forget about. “I thought I could do this,” I said. “I still think we can. If I wasn’t so tired from that medicine. And...”

“It’s not just the medicine.” He turned me slowly until I was facing him. I looked at his collarbone instead of his face though. He kept massaging my shoulders. “We do need to take things slower. So far, we can get by with whatever you’ve told Mr. Smith, and let a rumor spread about you. You don’t have to do any talking. We’ll see if anyone approaches you.”

It took me a moment of staring at his shirt before I got what he was saying. “If they hear the rumor, and talk to me, then it’s them approaching me about those investments.”

“And we might be able to put data together quicker,” he said. “We can claim he never gave you names, just account numbers and deposits. You would need any account number and amounts these people invested and the exact amount. We need any info he gave them. We’ll see what we can gather from that.”

“We don’t know where the money went.”

“Someone does,” he said. “Someone who will be very upset to hear someone else is masquerading around as the manager. We may not have to hunt whoever it is down. He may come to us.”

I shifted on my feet. An unknown manager was going to be a new risk for all of us. We had no idea who it might be. “I’m going to get shot at.”

“The bullets would have to get past me first,” he said. His hand slid up my neck until he cradled my jaw in his palm.

“I don’t want anyone getting hurt,” I said, although I was starting to forget what we were talking about. His touch made me want to let go, to let him take over. I wished I hadn’t said what I had, but now at least we knew what we were facing. It would have been worse not knowing.

He bent his head down and his lips touched my forehead. He whispered against my skin. “You keep telling me you’re fine, but I know you’re not. You haven’t been fine since I met you. With us...you’ve gotten worse.”

I almost said I was fine again. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Not part of the bargain.” He kissed my forehead and then released my shoulders so he could wrap his arms around them. “You were itching to leave us before. You wanted out. You didn’t want to get too close to anyone. Now, you can’t leave, and you’re lost. You don’t know how to stay put. You don’t know how to trust us and let us keep you safe.”

I couldn’t say anything to this. It was a surprise that he knew such things and would dare say it out loud. Yet each part he brought up, I couldn’t deny. I closed my eyes, rather than look at him. I was worried, terrified again, mostly of him and what he was saying. How could he do this to me? And now?