A flash of excitement crossed through Jaxon’s eyes, then he smiled and returned to his food. They were such a unique couple. I was excited to see more of them together over the course of the summer.
“Is that a yes?” Kyle asked Sicily.
Sicily snapped his fingers and threw up finger guns. “Hell yeah that’s a yes.”
Kyle frowned. “Did you just throw finger guns at me?” He looked at Brayden. “Did he just throw finger guns at me?”
Brayden chuckled and looked at Sicily. “Don’t do that.”
Sicily put his hands down. “Right. The Royal Court is finger-gun-free. Got it.”
“Well then, with that matter sorted, I’m requesting to move Cherri down from Queen to Princess,” Kyle said. “Does anyone have any objections?”
No one said anything, least of all me, but then Colette raised her hand. “Who will be Queen?”
“Well, I suppose that goes part and parcel with my next request, which is that Nathan moves back up to King, and Nikita moves up to Queen with him, and I’ll of course move back down to Prince in Line for now.” Kyle explained. “No offense, you guys are fun, and I love you more than anything, but you stress me out. I’m going to relax, enjoy spending time with,” he gave Brayden a quick glance, “everyone, and bask in the glory of not having all the responsibility.”
“Aw, but I like being retired,” Nathan whined.
“That’s too damn bad,” Kyle replied.
“I’m in,” Avery said.
Alistair nodded. “Yep. Me too.”
Everyone else gave their own messages of affirmation and then Kyle picked up an unpeeled banana and banged it on the island like a gavel. “So ordered, and thank god.”
“Well, then what’s next, your highness?” Colette asked Nathan.
He looked back at me. “What’d you guys learn from driving blindfolded?”
“Brayden did amazing,” I said. “He was able to get us to a place that we’re relatively certain Connor was meeting him in, but it’s all locked up. He’s pretty sure that there’s a back entrance that they pulled him out of when Nikki and Jaxon eventually found him, so the next step is to have Jaxon and Nikki take us back to where they found Brayden and see if he can walk us back to the back entrance, and hopefully it’ll be an easier one to get into.”
“Oh good. We’re adding breaking and entering to our list of leisure activities,” Alistair said.
“Well, only a few people have to go,” I said. “I’m pretty certain he’s not in there anymore, so we’d mostly be looking for any new leads or clues. I’ll go, obviously. Brayden will have to be there, so Kyle will be there. Nathan, you should probably go because you know the most about your dad, and then we’d just need Nikki and Jaxon.”
“Yeah, and breaking and entering is already on our repertoire,” Jaxon said, and Nikita chuckled.
“I’m going,” Avery said. “I’ve seen this thing through this far.”
Alistair put a hand on Avery’s. “Baby, I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you guys got caught and got arrested or something, Yale could pull your scholarship.”
Avery opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off before she could. “Avery, I agree. The rest of us don’t even know what we’re fucking doing yet, but you have so much at stake. You’ve been awesome up to this point. Let us take over from here.”
Avery eyed me, and I could see in her gaze that she was upset, but she took a breath and then nodded. “Fine.”
The relief on Alistair’s face was easy to read, and he looked at me as if to say ‘thank you,’ but allowed the words to remain unspoken. It was one thing I just wasn’t going to do: ruin anything else for my friends while trying to make things right. They didn’t even have to fight, but they were because they loved Nathan and they loved me. The least I could do was not drag them into situations they had no business being in.
“We shouldn’t waste any time then,” Nathan said. “Let’s finish up, and those of us who are going can ship out.”
We divided into two cars again, Kyle, Brayden, and me in Kyle’s car and Nikita, Nathan, and Jaxon in Nikita’s. Kyle led the way back to the spot that Brayden had led us to and then pulled his car over so that Nikita could pass him. She took the lead and drove a couple of blocks away, down a block that ran between the backs of two sets of abandoned stores, and parked.
We all got out and followed Nikita and Jaxon about halfway down the block where Nikita said, “This is where we found Brayden wandering.”
“You said you ripped your blindfold off at some point, right Brayden?” I asked. “Is there any chance it’s still around here?”
“It’s not like Postings is shelling out all their taxpayers’ dollars on keeping this area clean, so it’s possible,” Kyle said. As someone who lived in North Postings and would see the same pieces of litter hanging around in the streets for months at a time, I knew that to be true.
Brayden did a couple of circles with a look of determination on his face, and then he started walking up the block. Nathan noticed first and started following, and the rest of us eventually fell in line. Both expectedly and not, he stopped in a spot and bent down and picked up a black bandana that was laying on the ground and he handed it over to Nathan.
Nathan ran his thumbs over the fabric and then nodded. “Yeah. This is my dad’s handiwork.”
My stomach bottomed out. “You… recognize it?”
Nikita was next to Nathan in a second, rubbing his back. “Let’s not talk about that right now. If it’s confirmation that it was Connor’s, then we’re on the right track.”
“Bray, do you think if we blindfolded you again that you could walk backwards like you did last time?” Kyle asked.
Brayden was totally unresponsive. He had a look of horror mixed with sadness on his face as he watched Nikita console Nathan. It only took Kyle a few minutes to take notice of the situation and he looked away, his expression breaking as he did. It was heartbreaking.
Someone exhaled next to me, and I jumped a little before realizing it was just Jaxon. He was watching the scene before us with a pensive look that was befitting his more observant nature.
“Things are pretty fucked aren’t they?” I whispered to him.
Jaxon shook his head. “You have no idea.”
“So maybe we don’t do the blindfold,” I said, louder. “Maybe just close your eyes?” I was less concerned with finding the place, and more with breaking up the unexpectedly tense situation we’d found ourselves in.
“I can do that,” Brayden said.
He closed his eyes, his chest raising and lowering a little more dramatically as he did so, then he turned around a couple of times again and started off. Kyle trudged behind, and I rushed up to stay between Nathan and Kyle. It wasn’t that I thought Kyle would hurt his best friend for any reason, but they needed some space. We followed Brayden down the block and across the street, and then he started to hesitate. He started to go left, then backtracked and tried to go straight. His movements got uncertain, and every time it seemed like he was off, he’d stop and turn around.