Page 46 of Blade
It was hidden from the access road and also from the main house. Surrounded by evergreens and woods, it had no outside lights. Like it didn’t want to be found.
Kayla felt the car slow down and lifted her head.
“No!” she shouted again.
But Hugo pulled to a stop and turned off the ignition.
“Let me talk to him first.” He reached over and placed his hand on the side of her face. “Just trust me, okay? He’s my friend.”
Jolene glanced back at Kayla, then at Hugo.
“Give me the keys,” she said. “If you’re not out in five minutes, we’re leaving.”
Which he did, with a disappointed sigh, like he was trying to take care of them and why wouldn’t she believe him? He would talk to Emile and Emile would just—what? Help them with no questions asked, and not tell Dawn or anyone at The Palace?
They would give him five minutes because that wasn’t enough time for anything bad to happen, even if Emile called the police or Dawn—they could still drive away and get Kayla somewhere safe, miles and miles from here.
Hugo had sacrificed his shirt to cover up Kayla’s wounded body, but so what? Ana thought. That didn’t mean they could trust him.
Hugo walked down the path to the entrance of the guest cottage, and Jolene pulled out her phone and checked the time.
“Five minutes,” she said, like she was asking for their approval. “That’s it.”
Kayla nodded and said, “Okay.” Ana and Indy did the same.
And when the seconds turned to minutes, Kayla started to sit up, the one eye open and now looking at her red bra. She reached for the sides of her torn shirt and pulled them together, her knuckles scraped and blackened with sap from a pine tree, and Ana sat closer so she could feel her body on one side and Indy’s on the other. The protector now in need of protecting.
“Just go back to Avery,” Kayla said, giving up on Hugo, but then her eyes shifted to the figure coming down the path, the distinct limp of their coach, which they all knew in an instant.
With Hugo following right behind.
Coach Emile stopped at the side of the car and looked at Kayla.
“Jesus,” he said, his face steeped in concern. “You poor thing. Come on. Come inside.”
He opened the door, and Indy got out, making room for him to reach in and take Kayla into his arms. Even with his damaged knee, he carried her like a small child all the way up the stone path and inside the house. Hugo and Jolene slipped ahead to open the front door, leaving Indy and Ana to follow behind.
This vision of Kayla in Coach Emile’s arms, broken and helpless, stirred something rebellious inside Ana. They didn’t need him. They didn’t need anyone. They could help Kayla all on their own.
But then came a burst of something else. A feeling so primal it made her vision blur: that she should run to Dawn, who was right down the driveway. Run there, right now, and fall inside her blue puffer coat and beg for help, plead for her to make all of this stop.
“Ana ...” Indy’s voice pulled her back. “What if he tells?”
Ana shook her head. She had no idea what they would do then. Maybe they would all get kicked out. Maybe this was the end for all of them. Their punishment for going to the field. Mio’s warning coming back to her now. “Nothing good is happening there.”
But it was too late to heed her warning.
They went inside to a room with a couch against the wall. A round table with two chairs in front of a refrigerator that buzzed, and a wood cabinet with a stove on top.
But it was the bed that Ana’s eyes returned to, a plaid duvet twisted up with white sheets, two pillows piled on top of each other. Unmade. Emile, their coach. A grown man. And why did this send a shiver through her body—being this close to the bed where Coach Emile slept, where he had just been sleeping?
He carried Kayla to it and laid her down on the pillows.
“Get me a towel from the bathroom,” he said to Jolene, who followed where he was pointing. She came back with the towel, and Hugo brought a glass of water from the sink while Indy and Ana stood side by side, staring at their friend in their coach’s bed.
As if this wasn’t completely messed up.
Emile took the towel and began to clean her. Wiping away the blood from her mouth and the rest of the makeup from the one eye. Jolene brought ice from the freezer, and Emile gently placed it over the other eye. He drew a bath so she could clean the rest of her. Then he gave her a button-down flannel and a pair of gym shorts to wear.