Capturing Them

Chapter Eighty Five

"Maybe we could ask some of the Academy hospital staff to help out?" Luke suggests.

"The request has already been put in," Owen says, a thoughtful expression on his face. "In fact, it was put in a few weeks ago."

"I know that. I even told Mom that we had managed to find staff to help, but she said it's only getting worse."

I tilt my head curiously to the side but Raven places his hands on either side of my head to straighten it before running the comb through my hair. I force myself to sit still as Corey says, "I'll log in tomorrow and see if I can figure out what's going on. I'll have to go to the hospital though and use their Wi-Fi."

"No need," Victor says. "I did the system myself when it went through an update. I have a laptop with the software that's on it, we can use that."

"Clever," Corey murmurs.

I scratch my finger at the bridge of my nose, frowning as I try to keep up and put puzzle pieces together. "We could also get Dr Roberts to look into it. Maybe even ask him to go there himself," Axel says.

"That would help," Sean gratefully says. "I can't go there myself because Erica made me promise to not interfere when they had something similar happen just before the summer. We managed to get that fixed pretty quick though."

"Something else is definitely going on," Owen muses and everyone nods their heads in agreement.

"So, your Mom knows about the Academy?" I ask Kota.

"She knows of it, just not the extent of it. She's also not stupid. I never confirm or deny her theories whenever she throws them at me; sometimes she hits the nail spot on, other times she's so far off the spot..." he trails off and shakes his head. Pushing his glasses back up his nose he smiles over at me.

We all fall into a comfortable silence, watching as Gabriel opens the last bag and starts going through it. Luke is quick to reach for the items to pull off the tags, adding them to the pile he has in front of him. With Raven doing my hair, I feel my eyes start to get heavy. It's getting really late. In fact, when we got back it was later than we expected it to be and Gabriel insisted that everyone see my hair tonight. Luckily everyone had just about finished doing what it is they were doing when he sent the text out.

"You do know that everyone is going to stare tomorrow at school," Nathan says softly.

I blink my eyes open before nodding my head. "I know. I'm tired of hiding. They'll be bored next week. Besides, it's only my hair. I'm still going to wear my normal clothes despite the shopping spree this afternoon."

"Do you know what time your father will be home?" Brandon asks.

I shake my head. "No. He's only ever told me what sort of time in the day to expect him. He said Friday night so that could be anytime from nine until early AM."

"Probably best for us to stay out of the house tomorrow while Sang is at school," Axel says, looking at Brandon, Marc, Raven and Corey in turn.

"We'll come round for breakfast as usual," Marc says. "We'll also make sure nothing of ours is where it shouldn't be."

I shrug my shoulders. "That's up to you, but I think I'm going to tell him that some of you guys have been staying here." Raven's hands pause in my hair and fourteen sets of eyes focus on me. "Obviously I can't tell him about Owen and Sean, but..." I trail off, worrying my bottom lip. I focus my eyes on Owen. "Maybe I shouldn't?"

Owen's spine straightens and he rolls his shoulders back before saying. "No, Sang. You do what you are comfortable with and if you wish to tell your father that you're dating, then you do that. I think we are just surprised. Our...relationship isn't normal."