My heart stopped. I got up from the stump, moving toward it.

  “What’s going on?” Mr. Blackbourne asked.

  I didn’t know how to tell him. “Put me on a video call,” I said.

  He did it instantly. I aimed the camera, showing him the shack, and the L.

  “Your mother...” he said, coming to the same conclusion I did.

  “Maybe.” I went to the door, though I hesitated to open it.

  “You can do it,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “Miss Sorenson, if you’d rather wait... but I think you should.”

  I did.

  There wasn’t much inside the shack, but lot of rotten junk, gray with time.

  However, the inside was covered in color. Every inch was painted in a vibrant display. Flowers mostly. Horses in a meadow in one scene.

  And her name, Lyric, inscribed in different spots across the whole thing.

  Mr. Blackbourne spoke, “Seems like your mother had herself a little hideaway spot.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. She had such a talent.

  It was a connection I hadn’t realized we had. She, too, tried to escape her own parents sometimes, when they kept her isolated on the farm.

  She had let me go, so I wouldn’t go through the same thing.

  “Miss Sorenson?” Mr. Blackbourne called to me when the phone had drifted a little as I was busy looking at the art.

  I picked the phone back up, reverting the image back to my face so he could see I was there. “Yes?”

  His face was calm. He gazed at me, and almost too still, because I thought the connection froze.

  He suddenly shifted to check something near him. “Your uncle is telling the police that it was he who called them, that the others are there as his guests, but the robbers have been stopped up the road.” He returned to looking at me through the phone. “They caught them. It’s over. He’ll testify, but you can’t stay there tonight.

  I nodded. “I might need to come back.”

  “You will,” he said. “You don’t have to leave town.”

  I sighed.

  “Miss Sorenson?” he called to me again.

  “Yes?”

  “Where would you like to be?” he asked. “There? Near your grandmother? You say the word, and we’ll make it happen.”

  He said this so calmly, and I understood his meaning. He was asking like how Kota had been asking.

  What do I want?

  “No,” I said quietly. “I’m coming back.” I paused for only a moment and then said. “I’m coming home.” It might not happen tonight. It might still be a week or so when we straighten everything out.

  But I was coming back.

  He stared at me, but I caught the edge of his mouth, the millimeter smile.

  Though now it might have been two millimeters.

  ~A~

  Gabriel stood on the doorstep of his Uncle Leo’s house. Kota actually found it quickly after he came up. A little courthouse digging gave him the address.

  Gabriel should have thought of that. They all had been a little distracted.

  It had been a long couple of weeks since the funeral, and this was the last task.

  He just needed to say hello.

  And he could do it himself. He dove into a fire. He had a fight and won even with his hands burnt up. They’d gotten her uncle to keep Sang a secret, even if he wasn’t happy. London had admitted to being too drunk and angry. He was embarrassed by his behavior.

  He might have still been angry with his mother, but he admitted it wasn’t Sang’s fault. Especially after all of her friends fought to protect the house from the robbers.

  And everyone agreed, it was better to let it rest, for now. Sang could come back later. London promised not to press for ownership of the house. Not yet at least.

  Kota waited beside Gabriel, and smiled at him. “You ready?”

  Kota was wearing jeans that didn’t fit, a black shirt that was likely North’s. The change in appearance was delightful to Gabriel. He hadn’t tried black on Kota very often, but each time, he was impressed on how it made Kota almost... dashing.

  Kota didn’t pack. He even took his mom’s car since his was broken.

  Sang’s grandfather dying had been his last straw. The only reason the others didn’t join him was they couldn’t.

  Gabriel stared at the door of the house. “Thought after everything else, this would get easier.” He felt his was probably the last thing he needed to do right now. This wasn’t important.

  Not every answer was answered, but Kota insisted this didn’t have to take long. It just needed to be enough that Gabriel could put in a vote for adoption by the Academy. He even volunteered to drive him, especially since Gabriel’s hands weren’t exactly healed yet.

  Gabriel wasn’t all that worried about it. These answers weren’t that important to him. Not anymore.

  But Kota clamped a hand down on his shoulder. “Just one bump in the road.”

  That was Kota. See the molehill on the mountain. See the drop in the bucket.

  What felt like hours later, Gabriel eventually knocked and then rang the bell on the small white house with the white picket fence. It was a small house, in a single street of older starter homes. Small yards. Small houses. Yet the street was filled with cars, like a lot of people lived here.

  A woman came to the door shortly after he’d rang. She had all black hair except for one white strand off of one ear. Her eyes were very dark and her expression was cool, but not totally without curiosity. She wore a sweater and jeans and fuzzy boots.

  And she carried a two-year-old at her hip.

  “Yes?” she asked. Her accent was thick.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Gabriel said, wondering if they’d found the wrong address. Again. “My name is Gabriel Coleman. I was looking for...”

  Her eyes widened enough at him saying his name that Gabriel stopped.

  “You’re Gabriel?” she asked.

  He nodded, encouraged since she seemed to recognize the name. “This is my friend, Kota.”

  Kota waved shortly. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Is my uncle home?” Gabriel asked. “Leo?”

  “Yes, he’s here,” she said and she opened the door wider. “Wait in here I’ll get him.”

  She bounced the baby on her hip as she carried it with her into a hallway and out of sight. She left them to enter on their own.

  Inside was a simple nearly all white living room. The couch was pale paisley. There was a white piano to the right and a painted fireplace to the left. It was a simple living room, for a simple, small house.

  Suddenly in the doorway of the room, Uncle Leo entered.

  This was a face Gabriel very much remembered. Uncle Leo had a calm demeanor, with dark features. He wore his Ale-8 Bottling Company uniform still.

  “Gabriel?” Uncle Leo said in surprise.

  “Hey,” Gabriel said. “I was just in the neighborhood.”

  Uncle Leo smiled, and he crossed the room, reaching for Gabriel’s hand before realized they were bandaged. “What happened to you?”

  “A little accident. Don’t worry.” The burns did hurt still, but mostly because it was his hands. He’d been treated, and now it was all left to time to see how his hands healed up.

  Gabriel explained about Kota, and Leo shook Kota’s hand.

  “Haven’t seen you in years,” Leo said to Gabriel.

  “Yeah,” Gabriel said. “How’d that happen? You lose my number?” He said it as a joke, but then, he didn’t mean it as a joke.

  Maybe he was tired of skirting around what he really wanted to know.

  Maybe he was learning to simply ask and say what he was thinking these last few weeks.

  Leo only faltered slightly. “As a matter of fact, I did. Though I don’t blame Pam. Heard she got a lot of calls from your other uncle. Steven?”

  “Him?” Gabriel asked. Pam had said as much. Though he wondered about the details. “Do you know what happened?” He just wanted to hear from one more person what really happened back then. “What was Steve doing?”

  Leo shrugged and his uniform bunched at his shoulders. “No good, per usual.” He motioned for him to sit on the couch. “Would you care to stay a minute?”

  Gabriel and Kota sat on the small sofa together. Leo sat in a chair that was across the room.

  He was about to say something else when a kid came into the room.

  He had eyes just like Gabriel’s, and maybe a few years younger than him.

  The kid carried a small cardboard box, but he paused at the door.

  Leo coughed shortly once and motioned to the kid. “Kai, come on in. It’s your cousin. Give me the box, I’ll dress your foot.”

  Kai was wearing a plastic wrapping like a boot around his foot. He came into the room quietly and sat on the coffee table between Gabriel and Kota, and his father in the chair.

  Leo took the box from his son, and started taking out first aid supplies, gauze and antibiotic ointment. He undressed the boot for his son and started unwrapping a long, winding bandage. “Don’t mind him,” Leo said, tilting his head toward Kai. “Just stepped on a nail. Good thing we kept up with the shots.”

  Kai sheepishly made a face.

  “Anyway,” Leo said, “as I was saying, your uncle was giving Pamela a hard time. Kept wanting to take the house. Wanted the car. She wanted to keep it for you...”

  “The house?” Gabriel asked.

  “No,” Leo said. “The car. The land. Everything your grandparents owned. It wasn’t a lot. Your uncle had no claim on the trailer, it was everything that was left to your father. Once she heard about your Uncle Steve, learned he wasn’t any good, she fought for you. And hard. He threatened to keep everything from you, and she barely stopped him from suing her, which would have taken all her money just to defend and left you both homeless. She wasn’t sure she would have won any of it, so she signed off after some negotiation.”

  Gabriel never knew this. “We didn’t have any money. And the car...”

  “It was everything you had a right to, because it was technically your father’s. It was left for him, but he never came to pick it up. I think your uncle wanted you because then he could claim ownership easier. It wasn’t until Pamela basically said he could keep it and she’d sign it all over...” Leo finished dressing the foot and handed the boot over to Kai. “You can put this on.”

  Kai did, but he didn’t leave the room, but he did shift to sit on the floor, listening.

  Gabriel shook his head, his mouth hanging open. “She never told me that.”

  “I don’t blame her,” he said. “She was fiercely protective of you. I offered to adopt you, but she told me no. She didn’t have the heart to take you from your friends. And in truth, I think she needed you, too. Needed someone to care for after her husband died, you know?”

  Gabriel agreed with him, but he was lost in thought as well. It was as if his uncle knew he would come one day and was ready with what to tell him. A lie to keep Gabriel from taking what was really his. Tried to sweeting Gabriel up by showing him photos, by showing him the car. Lying...

  “Maybe I could have tried harder,” Leo said. “But she seemed nice. I thought she could handle you.” He smiled a little. “I was pretty busy anyway. Kids to raise. Job to do.”

  “You’re doing pretty well?” Gabriel asked eventually.

  “Sure,” he said. “Going on several years now at the bottling company. Deliveries are an easy gig. Let’s me see the family more.” He reached down, musing Kai’s hair.

  Kai waved him off, blushed, and then knee walked across the room goofily, disappearing into the hallway.

  Leo laughed after him and then turned back to Gabriel. “So how are you doing?”

  “Not bad,” Gabriel said, and it was true.

  Maybe it hadn’t been that bad.

  It was a pleasant visit. Gabriel traded numbers and addresses where he could reach them. He mentioned his ex-aunt who wanted his address if he wanted to be on the Christmas card list.

  They spent some time talking about Gabriel’s mother. It wasn’t a lot. Most of it, Gabriel knew. His mother had kept Leo in touch far more than Gabriel had known. Leo knew about birthdays, that Gabriel liked art and music, and had friends, and was doing well.

  He only missed out on the last few years, when Pam had changed numbers to avoid Uncle Steve, who even after she signed things over, kept calling her for money, or to sell the trailer and give him the money from that.

  The visit was pleasant until Gabriel was about to leave. At that point Gabriel thought he’d asked all the questions he had in him.

  Until he got to the door, and he thought to try once more, though he didn’t have hope that Leo knew the answer. “Can I ask you one more thing? My dad... and my mom... why did they move so far away? And why did they fight with Uncle Steve? Was it just over money?”

  Leo tilted his head, seeming puzzled. “Well, unless he’s changed over the years, he just never got over his brother marrying someone Hispanic.”

  Gabriel blinked, assuming it was a joke of some sort, even if a poor one. He waited for more of an answer.

  “That was it?” He asked when it was clear Leo had nothing more.

  Leo grimaced. “He hated her from the start. Your grandparents hated it. Your father couldn’t take it anymore and suddenly applied for a job miles away. I was a little sorry to see him go, but I didn’t blame him one bit. Too bad it was that far though. We never got to get together for Christmas. It was too hard to travel. Money was tight and everything.”

  Got far enough away they couldn’t be reached. Or harassed by family.

  Gabriel said goodbye. Kota followed him to the blue sedan and opened the door so Gabriel could get in without hurting his hands.

  Kota took the driver’s seat, but he didn’t turn on the engine. “So?” he said.

  Gabriel still hadn’t really formulated what he wanted to say. He kept opening his mouth and then closing it. He expected some convoluted answer. Something else. Maybe not as strange as Sang’s story... no one could have predicted Sang’s story... but still...

  Really?

  One thing was for sure, who was on his adoption list for the Academy and who wasn’t... at least now Gabriel knew the answer.

  “Uncle Steve is out,” he said. “Though... maybe check up on Katie and those kids. They might need the help.”

  “Do you want to go back for anything? That car?”

  Gabriel frowned and slid forward, his knees pressing up against the dashboard. “Why? My grandfather hated my mother, too. Why would I want anything from him?”

  Kota smiled a little at him.

  “What?” Gabriel asked him.

  Kota smiled wider and shook his head. “I’ll buy you a car.”

  “You need to buy your own car! You drove your mom’s up here!”

  “Yeah, well, you need one.”

  Gabriel chuffed. Kota was trying to be nice to cheer him up. “Let’s get out of here.” He didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted to get back to Sang.

  Kota turned the engine to head back to the farmhouse. They’d meet up with the RV, leave the cars except for the SUV and they’d all trail back to South Carolina.

  Maybe they wouldn’t take the direct route.

  Maybe they deserved just a little more time off for good behavior.

  For a while, Kota was driving and Gabriel simply gazed out the window. Winchester had been okay. It was nice to visit a new town.

  But he was glad to go. It was time.

  And then suddenly, he got a phone out.

  Kota looked over at him. “You know, we’ve burned through a lot of those.”

  “I know,” Gabriel said. “But I need to...”

  Kota refocused on driving. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  Gabriel turned the phone on and dialed in Pamela’s number.

  Pam answered. “Hello?”

  He was prepared for her to yell at him again. “Hey, it’s Gabriel.”

  Pam chuffed into the phone. “Gabriel, where the hell have you been? It’s been weeks.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Do you know what I’ve been through?” she continued. “Clay left but he took way more than he brought in with him. Said he needed something to get him by until he could get a job.” She blew a raspberry into the phone. “Men...” she paused. “Sorry.”

  “I agree with you,” Gabriel said patiently. “He’s gone then?”

  “Oh I don’t even want to...” Another pause. “Gabriel, when are you getting back?”

  “Very soon,” he said. “Hey, Pam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for being there for me.”

  Another pause. “Aw, you’re welcome, Gabriel. You haven’t been all that much trouble. Much better than your dad, anyway.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “By the way, I know I said before that I was going to move out soon to be at the dorms when we transition to the college but...”

  “Oh don’t worry about that,” Pam said. “Listen, I know I made a fuss before about you leaving, but honestly, I’m going to need the extra room anyway. There’s so much to do around here.”

  Gabriel tilted his head, surprised. It was enough that Kota pulled his attention from the wheel to mouth “what?” at him.

  “What? Why?” Gabriel asked Pam.

  “Don’t you listen to me?” Pam said. “I’m going to need the room for the baby.”

  Gabriel’s jaw slackened.

  A baby.

  He didn’t hear the rest of it, but a lot of things in his mind changed in that moment. Including how everything turned out. He was grateful fate had put everything into place the way it had. For better or worse, they were going home, together. They’d live in Charleston. They wouldn’t be far from family who needed them.

  Because he couldn’t see himself leaving Pam alone with a baby.

  Acknowledgements

  A big thank you to whoever runs the Fandom Wiki. You've saved my bacon a few times with this book, for details I'd forgotten about and didn't have written down. You take far better notes than I do.

  A big thanks to Maggie Evans for some help in the last book and for continued support. (PS Go read her book Covert Hearts, it's pretty awesome.)