And then that look she had given him. It felt like they were abandoning her.
They returned to the edge of the parking lot. A few cars lingered in front of the diner. Deep, threatening voices carried to them as they got closer to the trailer.
What now?
Sean raced up the steps ahead of Owen, throwing open the door to get inside.
“Like hell we’ll leave her there now,” North was saying. He stood face-to-face with Kota.
Kota met him dead on, shoulders back, features tight. Nathan and Silas stood behind him, glaring. Victor stood behind them, arms crossed, leaning against a table.
North had Gabriel and Luke behind him. The trailer wasn’t wide, so the entire group took up a lot of the floor space that wasn’t already taken up by chairs, a couple of desks and some cots leaning up against the wall.
One of them shouted something that was quickly overwhelmed when Silas boomed out a groan. Arguing erupted, with everyone shouting loud enough that no one could hear anyone else.
At least no one was swinging fists yet.
Owen walked in, saying nothing. Sean stood beside him, watching them.
No one acknowledged them, and they might not have really noticed them entering. They continued to argue.
“We’re not busting in,” Kota said in sharp tones.
“We’re taking her,” Gabriel said. “Fuck all this shit.”
“She hates all this,” Luke bellowed. “You haven’t seen her—”
“I saw her earlier,” Kota said. “You’re not listening to what she wants. She’s there now, asking for the next plan.”
“We need to ask her,” Victor said. “See what she wants. She may want to wait it out.”
“She’s never going to tell you to take her out,” North said. “We tell her to stay strong. To stick with it.”
“It’s fucked up,” Gabriel said. “She’d never tell us to get her out because we tell her this is the best way.”
“Taking her may mean losing her,” Silas boomed at them. “An Academy council won’t approve if Carol calls around about a kidnapping.”
They continued, shouting in circles. It was impossible to hear anyone.
Sean gazed at Owen, but he only stared at the group quietly. When they continued to argue, he took out his phone and hit a few buttons quickly.
Within seconds, each of the boys shut up as they got a small electric zap. They all jerked at once, taking their phones out to look at the screens automatically.
“Enough,” Owen barked at them in the silence.
Faces twisted to look at him, some scathing, others confused. Emergency buttons weren’t meant for that.
Owen dismissed the looks and continued. “The plan failed. Fine. What’s our new strategy?”
“Walk in and take her,” North said. This was followed by a couple of the others agreeing with the idea.
“Wait it out,” Kota said. “See if Carol calms down.”
“Wait for her to find out the truth?” Gabriel asked. “And let her keep Sang under her thumb? And how long before Marie snaps and tells her about us?”
Owen snapped his fingers. “Stop it. This isn’t a strategy. This is speculation and it isn’t acceptable.”
“We don’t know what to do,” Kota said. “We can’t know in two seconds.”
“Then take five,” Owen said sharply. He turned on him, his shoulders pulling back. “Take ten. I don’t care. But yelling about what might happen isn’t solving the problem.”
“Then you make a suggestion,” Sean said in a grumble. “You wanted to wait.”
Owen turned on his heel to stare him down. The black of his clothes made those eyes of his stand out and appear wider. “You barged in without asking anyone, telling them you were her friend. That was never approved. Now you’re going to blame me for this?”
“I did what I thought I had to do.” Sean pointed to his own chest. “I looked for a way in. I took action when it seemed reasonable. You wanted to play into this game. I was playing.”
“I said wait. I said learn. I didn’t say invite yourself over. You knew she was controlling.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I told you, if you made Sang seem willing to play along, Carol would make her a puppet. She does it to every weak person around her. Mr. Sorenson is being used by her to get what she wants. Now she thinks Sang will do whatever she says, too. And we were the ones pushing her to do it, even if she wanted out.”
Owen frowned, but his shoulders dropped. “We weren’t on the same page here.”
“We never were,” Sean said with a glare. He pointed a finger over them to the general direction of the Sorenson house. “Sang is physically weak. Her cortisol levels are through the roof. Her mind is clouded. She’s got a list a mile long of all the stressors in her life.”
“She needs to rest,” Owen said quietly. “She can do it without risking more at the moment.”
“She’ll never rest if she lives in the place where the stress is coming from,” Sean said, his voice dropping and the emotion coming in. His voice cracked as he continued. “She’ll never get better there. Her blood pressure will continue to wreak havoc on her system. She won’t feel like eating. An afternoon out here and there won’t cure that sort of stress.” He shook his head and held his hands out toward him. “We’re not helping her by trying to play this slow game. We’re killing her.”
Owen stiffened. The others relaxed their fists and stopped glaring.
Since they weren’t willing to speak, he would. “It isn’t about Carol, damn it. It isn’t about her father and that whole mess being discovered. Don’t you all see? Even before we were here, she was stressed out, living in the shadows, abused and neglected. We gave her what we could, but there’s never been a moment in her life she wasn’t stressed out. We had her temporarily, only to fight with Volto and the Academy to keep her with us...but always, always there was a shadow at her back called her parents discovering her. She was stressed, and we sent her to camp, where we stressed her out more, and now she’s here, facing down a few months, at best, of more stress and disappointment.” He shoved a palm to his chest, over his heart. “It’s killing us, too. This isn’t us. None of this was right.”
“We were doing it the right way,” Owen said quietly. “Finding the information we needed to break her free as quietly as possible.”
“Rushing won’t help,” Kota said. “All of Carol’s actions will be seen as normal by any authorities. Getting her out of the attic space. Putting her on bedrest. Hearing the school is dangerous and deciding to homeschool her...”
“Sang doesn’t need normal,” Sean said quietly. “We’re lying to ourselves to think we can just follow the rules with her, not when everyone else isn’t playing the same game. Do you think she wants to spend the next several months locked away in that house? Well, no, she’s not staying, is she? They’re moving to Georgia. We play their game, and wait, when they get to rush around and do whatever they feel like on a whim. Move to Savannah. Homeschool her. Whatever Carol wants.”
“We can fix it,” Owen said. “I need time.”
Sean shook his head, turned and went for the door, his shoulders tight, his stomach in knots.