But while he’d once had all the qualities of an excellent teacher, I still can’t imagine him confined to a classroom, teaching both me and my peers.
Right before the school year started two weeks ago, Darius accepted a semester-long contract to teach photography as part of Monarch High’s art class. The contract will be renewed in December so he can teach the full year.
For most class periods, he’ll teach an introduction to photography course. For students like me who already took the intro class last year, he’ll teach an intensive course focusing on mechanics, composition, and film processing.
The students and administration had been beside themselves with excitement over the announcement. Even before the hostage ordeal had shoved him into the headlines, Darius Hawke was famous for his award-winning photography of war and conflict. After he’d escaped from his captors and returned to the States, he’d attracted an even greater sense of intrigue and mystery.
When the school announced the photography teacher position, my father had been the one to suggest the job to Darius. Though Darius had come back to the States over a year ago, he hadn’t returned to his war photography work. I assumed that was because he’d spent the last year recovering.
Still, it’s strange that he’s ended up here, in this nothing California town where he plans to teach photography to a bunch of high-school kids. Bold, adventurous Uncle Darius…eating lunch in the teacher’s lounge and grading papers?
I don’t get it. But I also can’t imagine the trauma he endured, so maybe this is somehow part of his recuperation.
“Nell, you’d better finish getting ready.” My father sits at the table with his coffee.
Another change. Usually he takes it back to his office.
I deliberately take my time finishing my cereal before going upstairs. My father and Darius talk about some tariff deal in the news. Their voices float out from the kitchen, a harmony that inexplicably grates on my nerves.
Though I’m exceedingly grateful that Darius returned home safe and sound, his presence here is disconcerting. Even though we haven’t seen him in six years, and I know what he endured, maybe I did have some idea that things would be the same. He’d hug me, ruffle my hair, give me a present he’d brought back from Brazil or Egypt.
Which of course is all so completely stupid of me. I’m not ten anymore, and what was he supposed to bring back from almost eighteen months in captivity? A rope they’d used to tie him up?
I stuff my drawing sketchbooks into my book bag and hurry back to the stairs. Darius is coming up just as I’m coming down.
He lifts his head, and our eyes meet.
Again, a strange, winding sensation spools in my belly. What is that?
He steps aside, gesturing for me to pass him. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
I pass him, trying not to notice the bulk of his body. I’m used to my father’s quiet, studious aura, his calm. Not Darius’s obvious power and the taut energy winding through him.
I go into the kitchen to make my lunch. My father is washing his coffee mug at the sink.
“Does he have to stay here?” I yank open the refrigerator. “I mean, last I heard, his father can afford to buy the world.”
My father turns, his features settling into lines of disapproval. Shame rises to my chest. Ignoring it, I grab the peanut butter and jam.
Again, the basic facts are all I know. Darius comes from an extremely wealthy family, though his father Conrad Hawke—who owns the mega-conglomerate Hawke Financial—strongly disapproved of his son’s choice of career. Or rather, most everything about his son. The two men have apparently had a lot of conflict over the years, but as an only child, Darius remains the sole heir to a sizable fortune.
“Nell.” It’s my father’s look at me voice, edged with irritation.
A knot tightens in my stomach. Even during the most turbulent period in our relationship, my father remained—for the most part—levelheaded and composed. Though I’d hated his decisions at the time, deep down inside, I was counting on his stability, just as I had my entire childhood.
And now, still, I can’t bear his displeasure.
Taking a butter knife from a drawer, I lift my head.
“You don’t know anything about the kind of man Conrad Hawke is,” he says, his eyes dark. “Consider yourself lucky that you’ll never find out.”
I tighten my grip on the knife. My father usually recognizes the good in people, but his tone of voice implies that there is no good in Conrad Hawke to see.
“And I certainly didn’t ask Darius to stay here for financial reasons,” he continues. “I did so because he’s my oldest friend, and I love him like a brother. He has been through a hell few of us can imagine. I hope that in some small way, his teaching job, living here, and working on his book will give him a sense of peace that he has sorely lacked in recent years. I’m certain you can understand that.”
My shame intensifies. I turn away, slapping peanut butter on a slice of bread. I can’t articulate, especially not to my father, the root of my unease.
It’s more than just the fact that Darius’s presence is altering everything—our routine, our schedule, our dynamics—and that his scrutiny of me is unnerving at best. With just one look, it’s as if he can see my scars and the dark cloud still hovering inside me, even if I don’t want him to. I don’t know how to hide from his perceptiveness.
It’s also that he’s changed in ways I will never understand. I don’t know him anymore, not really. If Uncle Darius had come to stay here with all his raw energy and exciting tales of far-off lands, if his booming laugh had filled the house…I’d be thrilled.
But he’s no longer that man. He’s someone else entirely. And I don’t like having a stranger so close.
CHAPTER 3
Darius
She’s guarded. Untrusting. She reminds me of the children who have been shattered inside and don’t yet know how to put themselves back together. The ones who hide however they can—by wrapping themselves into a ball, by crouching in the rubble of a bombed-out church, by not looking at you. By running and hoping safety exists somewhere in the world. By praying they’ll find it one day.
Images crowd the back of my mind, ghostlike and substantial at the same time. Forcing them aside, I close the door and start to get ready for the day.
The guest bedroom is warm and pleasant, much nicer accommodations than I usually have. I won’t have any nightmares here. There’s a little vase of dried flowers on the nightstand. Framed prints of seascapes on the walls. Outside the window, an old oak tree spreads thick, gnarled branches halfway over the roof. The garden is overgrown with weeds.
My phone buzzes with a text. South St. & Oak. 11pm. Can get you in.
Several hundred other men have received the same street information, which identifies the location of an underground fight. Though I’ve been well acquainted with underground fighting since I documented the scene for a photo essay when I was twenty-three, I didn’t actually get into the ring until after my escape. Apparently the fight organizers have learned that I’m in California.
Out of curiosity, I punch the crossroads into an online map. A red dot appears in the middle of nowhere farther inland. Either an empty field or an abandoned site like a junkyard.