“Either way, Lorelei, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to hug
someone this much.” She got to her feet and did just that.
“You’re just pleased that I got enough ice in your drink.” My
cheeks burned up as she hugged me. When she let go, I rubbed the back of my
neck.
“That too.” Her eyes twinkled. She strolled back to her chair and
picked up the glass.
“You think she’ll recover?” I asked. The injury had felt serious.
No matter what freedom she now had, she was pretty beat up.
“That depends on her body and a lot of other odds. She’ll need the
best care.” Frei sighed. “Which she has now, thanks to you.”
“Least I could do.” I turned to the fridge and wondered if I stuck
my head in it if it would calm my throbbing cheeks down.
“Aeron?”
I stopped at the fridge door and risked glancing her way. My face
was on fire as it was. I weren’t great with compliments. “Yeah?”
“You’re not so bad, you know that?” She smiled and lifted her
glass in a toast. “To a recovering free-woman.”
I pulled out a bottle of water and matched her toast. “Let’s hope
she gives my dear mother a hard time.”
Frei’s chuckle said more than words ever could. She’d opened up to
me, let me in, and the relieved smile on her face said that she wasn’t
regretting it. She was happy not just to be a survivor anymore, not just a
leader, or anyone else but just plain old Ursula Frei.
Funny because it felt as though, in this place of all places, she
realized that she had friends. More important was that no matter what this
place had thrown at her, she’d beaten them.
Just like the girl, she
was
free and that was definitely
worth a toast.
Chapter 27
THERE’RE TIMES THAT even though I love Renee, she tests my temper
to the limit. She’s fiery and feisty which I understand is part of her
character. It makes her intense and amazing at her job. The fire drives her to
do what is necessary but sometimes in the process, she can also drive me nuts.
After seeing what Frei went through when the girl fell, it didn’t
take any kind of burden to understand that she felt every loss of a child deep
inside. A couple of days after, even though Lilia had called her to tell her the
girl was just fine, Frei was still suffering.
I decided, after a weird flash, to cheer her up by taking her a
popsicle. The heat was beyond unbearable as it prickled my face as I walked.
The ground shimmered with it, buildings too. Walking from the villa to Frei’s
building had left me with sticky hands from dribbling popsicles.
There were four students left in Frei’s age-group due to
“graduate.” They were busy doing something circus-worthy with their bodies as I
headed inside. For somebody who couldn’t touch my toes, I was fascinated at how
they could stick their legs over their heads. Nan had always said that if God
had wanted her to touch her toes, He would have put them on her knees. I
chuckled to myself at that as I stared at these contorted kids. I was
fascinated and slightly creeped out.
“Is that for me?” Frei said to my right, making me jump and
splatter drops from the icy treats all over the floor.
“Sure,” I thrust one dribbling excuse for a popsicle her way.
“Catch it while it’s melting.”
Frei didn’t need asking twice. I’d never seen someone attack a
frozen treat with such fervor. My flash must have been right.
“Is it a prerequisite for them to look like they’ve been shut in a
suitcase?” I thumbed at the kids as she led me outside to the porch area.
Frei licked her stick clean. I handed her mine.
“You need to get into some tiny spaces.” She took my offered treat
like it was treasure and grinned. “But that’s not what they’re doing.” She set
about devouring the popsicle. “They’re doing Yoga.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Mrs. Stein went to yoga at the Scout’s Hall
back home . . . I can’t see her doing that.”
The visual it provoked made me hope she didn’t either.
“Different levels,” Frei murmured between nibbles. “It’s good for
your back. Keeping your spine healthy is key to your body being healthy.”
“My spine is happy holding me upright.” I shrugged as she
chuckled. “Yoga looks like it’s for short folks.”
“You think?”
I nodded. I was
sure
. Small folks could reach their toes
’cause they were nearer to them. Mine were much further away.
“I taught them.” She finished the second popsicle and chewed on
the stick.
“You exceed all expectations.” I shook my head at the stick in her
mouth. “Next time though, I’ll just bring the cooler with me.”
“I’d give it my best shot.” She gazed out at the baking ground
between her building and mine. “Before . . .” She smiled, let out a long
breath, and shook her head.
“Tell me.”
Frei met my eyes, hers misting up. “You don’t want sob stories.”
“I do.” I leaned against the wall as she sat on the window sill.
“I’d like to know more about you.”
Frei stared out at the buildings opposite. Her back rigid, her
eyes intense. “We lived by the sea.”
“Sounds nice.” I’d never seen the sea.
She frowned as she replayed some memory in her head. “I was young.
I can only remember snatches.” She frowned. Her blonde brow twitched. “A storm.
Big one. Swept a whole load of people away.” She stared off into the distance.
“They find a lot of slaves trawling after natural disasters, conflict zones. Easy
to assume that the kids are lost.”
“You remember your parents?”
She sighed. “Don’t think life was easy.” She glanced at me. “One
memory of them stuck.”
“I’m guessing that’s where your love of the
popsicle comes in?”
Her eyes wrinkled up as she smiled. “My sister and I were with
them. We sat on a pier. The wood was warm underneath my thighs, the sea was
freezing on my feet. My mother had my sister in her arms. I sat beside my
father.” Life shone through her, pulsed from her eyes. “We were eating these.”
She flicked the stick with her finger. “My sister’s hands were covered with
more of it than went in her mouth.” She laughed a laugh from somewhere deep
inside. “I can hear my mother telling her that she was always covered in
something.”
I smiled. I got the impression that Frei had tried to take care of
her sister.
“Didn’t the storm . . . ?” I shook my head.
“Sorry, forget I asked.”
“Same day.” Her eyes dimmed, the twinkle gone. “An hour later
everything changed. I was holding onto my sister on our roof . . . or a roof .
. . she cried. The water swept so much away.”
I put my arm around her and bumped my head to hers. Her voice
showed that she’d accepted it some time ago but it was, and would always be, a
scar on her heart.
“I can’t remember anyone calling us by name.”
I squeezed her.
Frei nodded. “My mother gave me her wedding ring that day. I used
to wear it on a necklace.”
My eye was drawn to her left hand and the silver ring that seemed
bonded to her. “You think she knew?”
Frei lifted her hand and flexed her fingers to make it glint.
“It’s expensive. Why would you give a child your wedding ring?”
“That’s where Huber found you?”
“Rescue crew who sold us to Huber.” She stared down at the ring.
“I tried to find out what would have made her leave, who she was. It was no
good.”
It was an elaborate ring with markings I had no clue of what they
meant. “Maybe someday you will find out more?”
I watched Jed wander past to my right from the direction of the
dining hall. He spotted us and waved, not an ounce of teenage coolness in
sight. I liked him.
“Huber doesn’t know. Even if he did, he wouldn’t tell me.”
I wanted to take the ring off her but I knew those burdens were
gone too. I could’ve told her where she was from. Maybe I could help her find
out.
“I will try again someday.” Frei raised her eyebrows at me.
“You’ll all throw a party then. You’ll be Frankenfrei free.”
I sniggered at the nickname I’d given her. “Depends on if you stay
the cool person I know now or you stick your walls back up.”
She sucked in a breath. “Sounded loaded, Lorelei.”
“It was.” I rested my head on top of hers.
I weren’t good at showing comfort to folks. I didn’t do physical
affection but I could feel sometimes when somebody needed it and something told
me, right now, she needed it. When I huddled in, it filled her with the
reminder that she wasn’t alone. She didn’t have to fight alone. She was opening
up, slowly, but I could feel her starting to trust me.
The more she trusted me, the more I could see past the ice. If
that meant I had to hug her every couple of minutes to get her through this, I
would. Anything to stop this place getting inside and tormenting her. She had
friends. We were by her side.
“Renee, huh?”
I sighed. “Pretty much. It’s so hard to keep up with her moods
since . . . well after Oppidum.” I closed my eyes, the cool shady porch lulling
me into a doze. “I don’t know if she can stand the sight of me sometimes.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
I “mmmed” my agreement. “So have you, and you ain’t blowing hot
and cold on me.”
“Different backgrounds.” Frei sounded as sleepy as I felt. “Don’t
give up on her.”
I opened my eyes at that. “I didn’t say
nothing about giving up.”
I smiled as Frei crinkled up her brow, confusion in her eyes.
“When I’m on your side, when I care, it ain’t easily changed.” I
could see her warring with herself. Did she trust those words. Did she dare let
me in. “I got your back.”
A barrier dropped and her eyes filled with warmth. She threw
herself into a hug, knocking me off balance. It was like she thought I’d take
it back or run.
“You’re something else, you know that?”
“Cozy.” Renee’s venomous tone made me look up. Her gray eyes
narrowed, hands on her hips. Anger pulsed from her in waves.
Frei sighed and pulled away from me. She rubbed at her tears as if
being given comfort was a crime.
“What’s happened?” I asked. Renee must have been worried or upset
to act so strange. Her normal reaction would be to check why, to ask why I was
comforting Frei and offer help. Was it her cover?
“Maybe I should be asking you that,” she snapped.
I folded my arms. Frei couldn’t even look at her. She stared at
the floor. I wracked my brain, trying to figure out what Renee was so mad
about.
Was it code?
Frei couldn’t ask her, she weren’t supposed to know her. She
couldn’t look at her because she was staff. Renee must be trying to tell us
something.
“Jed get your prize student drunk again, Worthington?” I shot her
way in my best bored tone. Jed had been heading toward the gym so I couldn’t
see how but maybe that would give her a place to start.
“Missing students,” she snapped back. Her entire focus was on Frei
as if she wanted to flatten her just with her eyes. “Six gone from your group.
Don’t think I didn’t notice the helicopter.”
I glanced at Frei whose eyes sharpened into chips of ice at the
tone. Hurt and anger pulsed up from somewhere deep inside her. I looked from
one to the other, not knowing what was going on.
“Why don’t you focus on your own failures, professor?” I hoped my
tone told her to quit being so mean.
Renee rounded on me. Her intense focus, a wave of heat. “I don’t
have the deputy principal drooling all over me. Maybe that’s why your kids are
safe.”
Was she mad about the fact a madman was drooling over me? I was
pretty sure she wouldn’t want him finding excuses to “drop in.”
Every day he found something to come and talk to me about. My group
found it funny, I didn’t.
“No, but you’ve got the delightful Professor
Smarmy to do that.”
Renee blinked a few times like I’d stunned her. “That’s what you
think of me? A set of big eyes and I’m easy?”
Now I was confused. That sounded personal and my senses were
sounding the alarm that she wasn’t talking as an agent now. What did she want?
Why was she mad? Was she mad or pretending?
I needed my burdens.
I missed my burdens.
Did I ask her straight out what was bugging her so I could fix it?
I glanced at Frei for help. Her angry bubbling look at Renee made me glad she
weren’t armed. At least I hoped she wasn’t.
I’d missed a chapter somewhere along the line and ended up in a
different book. I needed Nan. I needed my burdens. Normal sucked.
“I don’t know you, Professor Worthington,” I muttered, Nan would
have told me what was happening. “You don’t know me.”
I pushed off the wall to straighten up. “If the deputy principal
got better taste than you, what can I say?” I gave her, what I hoped, was an
arrogant grin.
Frei’s eyes twinkled with unspilled laughter but Renee looked like
she was gonna skew me any second. “Maybe he doesn’t realize how unavailable you
are.”
Her blunt tone drove home the insult. Frei’s eyes hardened.
I stood there staring at her. That was way beyond cover. I’d told
her stuff in my sessions back in Serenity. I’d told her, feeling vulnerable
doing so.
I felt stupid for admitting it. I didn’t know if I could feel the
way normal people did. I didn’t know if I was just picking up on what everyone
around me felt. It made me feel stupid, inadequate, and made me feel three
inches tall.
Anger rumbled up from below. She’d said some mean things but that
was by far the worst. It hurt that she had said it. It hurt that she’d even
thought it.
“Bite me.”
I stormed off, ignoring her shocked look, ignoring her attempt to
grab for me.
Frei’s words not to give up on her rolled around in my mind.
Why did Renee have to be so mean? Why did she say stuff like that?
Why was she so intent on pushing me away? What was the deal with her being such
a jerk?
I stomped into the gym and over to the weights. She was being a
massive jerk and I hadn’t done nothing to provoke it. I’d been a kicking post
for most of my life but I weren’t gonna be no more.
For her, or anybody.
URSULA STOOD IN the shade of the porch, trying to control her
temper. She had a very good idea why Renee just spewed so much venom. Ursula’s
withdrawal to the side would have vindicated Renee’s ridiculous thought
pattern.
This was madness.
Renee was getting more and more erratic not calmer and it all kept
adding up as evidence that Ursula should have medically retired Renee after St.
Jude’s.