Code Lyoko: The New Girl (BK 1)

Chapter 56

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Knowing what she did now about Franz Hopper and Saphire's past, it was nearly impossible for Yumi to sit through dinner with her parents as they chattered on happily, asking her questions about how classes were going and the potential universities she had her eyes on for the following school year. Her insides were hot, her stomach was churning, and she couldn't keep her body still in her chair, try as hard as she did.

"Yumi, is there something wrong with the food?" Her father asked after he had noticed her squirming about. "You've barely touched your soup."

Yumi pressed her lips together, fighting off the nausea that was rising from the depths of her stomach into her chest.

"I'm just feeling a little under the weather." She forced out the words.

Not a complete lie. She told herself.

"You sounded fine on the phone though." Her mother reminded.

"Yeah. It was just a little chilly on the walk back."

Yumi feigned a cough but bit down on her tongue to keep from dry heaving.

"Do you want to go lie down instead?" Her mother asked, her warm eyes crinkling with worry.

The last thing Yumi wanted to do was lay in the dark of her room with those words — project, PTSD, bedwetting, punishment, kill — swirling around her head, infiltrating her mind, ready to penetrate her dreams. She was shaken to the core by the time she emerged from the woods and trekked back to campus. Shaking not from the cold nighttime wind nipping at her face but from the words etched onto decades-old paper, long forgotten. She was numb inside and out when she reached her front door; unaware of the steps and turns she had taken to get home, as if she had sleepwalked the entire perimeter.

Even annoying Hiroki couldn't break through Yumi's disturbed thoughts, and it was no easy feat to ignore the high-pitched shrill of his taunts.

"Maybe she's loooove sick." He tittered to himself.

"Yumi, are you sure there's nothing else going on?" Her mother got up and pressed her cool palm against Yumi's forehead and cheeks.

Yumi shut her eyes and shivered without meaning to. She gripped the edge of the dining table and rose to her feet.

"No. I'm just feeling tired. I'll go lie down." She grabbed her plates and brought them to the kitchen. "If I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll have a snack, I promise." She sent her parents a forced, reassuring smile that slipped off as soon as she turned her head toward her bedroom.

There was no way Yumi could keep her findings to herself. No way. She needed to tell someone. Not Ulrich. Even though he knew about Saphire's abusive past, he wouldn't be happy to know she had gone back to the Hermitage to dig around for evidence on a story that still made little sense.

Yumi sat on the edge of her bed and pressed her palms against her forehead. Why did she go to the Hermitage? Why did she go looking for something that was clearly none of her business? Saphire had warned her, had begged her to leave it alone, and Yumi had dismissed her, so this was on her. What would Saphire do if she found out Yumi knew about the..."project"? She couldn't even think of the word without gagging in response.

Who else could she burden with this knowledge?

Yumi took a deep breath in and sat up, reaching for her phone. She went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet to drown out her voice in case her mom came around to check up on her before heading off to bed.