by W. J. May
The two locked eyes for a moment before quickly looking away.
“So that’s where we should start,” Benji said authoritatively. “With the PC registry for all retired and active tatùs. Since Lily just had her orientation, there’s a chance old Hidgens is still on campus. Granted, the psycho probably keeps the thing on his person...”
“Wait a second, there’s something we’re missing here.” James turned to his sister, staring into her eyes. “Say we actually find this killer. What exactly do you intend to do?”
Like a tennis match, the others looked from brother to sister—staring expectantly as well. A sense of silent responsibility descended upon Aria’s shoulders, but she didn’t shy away from it. On the contrary, she felt as though she’d been waiting to carry it for a long time.
“One step at a time...”
WHATEVER BIG PLANS the friends were making, they’d have to wait. The campus was on lockdown, Aria was under unofficial house-arrest, and they’d already been marked truant. They decided to let things cool down long enough for her to return to school before launching into a full-fledged investigation the second she got back. In the meantime she’d question her parents and see what dirt she could dig up back in London, while the others would troll around campus looking for clues.
“You guys had better get back before the final bell,” she warned, glancing towards the main road and wondering where Lily parked the car. “Last thing you want is to get stopped at the gate.”
They nodded and started heading off through the park, chatting excitedly about the best way to get the tatù registry list from Hidgens. James headed back to the house, eager to slip inside before his parents realized he was gone. Only Jason remained, lingering awkwardly beneath the trees.
“So, uh...sorry about my mom.”
Aria’s head snapped up, surprised he would say it so directly. “It’s not your fault. Not her fault either. She didn’t know what she’d find.” A secret smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she played back the tragic moment in her mind. “Besides, that’s an image I’ll cherish for life. The two of you sitting on that bench, heads bowed, hands folded...”
He gave her a playful shove, fighting back a grin. “You’re just lucky it wasn’t your mom. At this rate, I’ll never be able to go home.”
She chuckled softly, raking back her hair. “Yeah, my mom tends to react to those sorts of things with fireballs and dismemberment.”
A sudden shiver ran across his shoulders as he lifted his eyes to the house, considering the possibility for the first time. “Do you think she wouldn’t approve?”
Aria froze where she stood, unable to think of a single reply. Truth be told, she had no idea what her mother would make of her kissing Jason. She still wasn’t sure what to make of it herself.
“Jase—you coming?”
Thank the maker.
The awkward moment vanished as the two glanced back at Lily and Benji waiting impatiently in the trees. Jason lifted a finger, turning back to her with a frown.
“What do you think was up with Oliver?” he asked under his breath. “The whole ‘looking for something in his car’ excuse. We both know he was driving.”
She gazed into the trees, shaking her head with a frown. “I don’t know. I almost said something right then, but I can’t imagine he’d actually have something to do with Dorf. And then when your mom cleared him...”
Jason nodded decidedly, digging his hands into his pockets.
“To be honest,” she continued slowly, “I was more bothered with Alexander...”
Bothered. That was a bit of an understatement. In truth, Aria had no idea what to make of the guy. He was cagey, and abrasive, and entirely too bold. But there was something scared about him.
...something scary as well.
Jason’s face darkened with a look she’d never seen before.
She knew firsthand that he was capable of ranting just as furiously as his father, but he didn’t do it now. Whatever he was thinking—and he was clearly thinking a lot—he kept it to himself.
“Alexander Hastings...he bothers me, too.”
A sudden silence fell between them, filling with a thousand things neither was prepared to say. It went unchecked for several seconds before Aria broke it with a sudden question.
“He said something about going to see a Mr. Phelps. Do you have any idea who that is?”
“Yeah,” Jason admitted. “Phelps was the school counselor before my mom took over. As far as I knew, he was retired. I have no idea why Hastings would want to see him.”
More questions. They never stopped coming.
“Well, whatever the reason, it didn’t look like it was his choice,” Aria added darkly.
She remembered the look on Alexander’s face when he was forced to submit to Natasha’s ink. The way he’d hesitated. The way he’d asked if it was a condition.
Whatever that means...
“Forget Hastings,” Jason said suddenly, gesturing back to her house. “We have a job to do, and the guy might be the world’s biggest prat but my mom cleared him, too.” He hesitated before continuing. “He doesn’t factor into anything that comes next.”
She stared at him a moment, then nodded quickly. “No, I guess not.”
Without another word, he flashed a parting smile and headed off into the trees. The others chided him teasingly for dawdling, but didn’t think anything of it. They didn’t even turn around before scampering out of the park and back to Lily’s car.
Aria stared after them until they’d vanished. She was still standing there when a distant engine started, then faded in the busy London streets. It wasn’t until she heard the voices of her parents, drifting out from an open window, that she turned suddenly on her heel and headed inside.
She didn’t know what this investigation of theirs might turn up. She didn’t know what they would do with the killer if they actually caught him. She only knew one thing for sure.
They were about to find out.
ARIA STORMED BACK INTO the house, brimming with fresh confidence. Determined to start her part of the investigation. Convinced she could get her parents to give up the goods.
She was quickly reminded of a simple truth:
They were covert agents. She was an eighteen-year-old kid.
“Good—there you are.” The second she stepped through the front door her father emerged from the back hallway, his arms laden down with old boxes covered in a heavy coating of dust. “Off not seeing your friends, who were most definitely not in the park, huh?”
She froze, wondering what exactly he’d heard, but a single look at his face convinced her that she was in the clear. He may have heard them talking, but he didn’t hear what was said. He was too busy having an urgent conversation of his own.
“Where’s Mom?” she asked, settling down on the couch as he dropped the boxes in a pile on the coffee table. “I’ve got myself all steeled up for family time.”
Devon flashed a nervous smile, then settled on the opposite couch.
“Actually, your mother had to step out for a few hours. She’ll be right back,” he added hastily. “Just a quick errand, then we’re back on track.”
Aria nodded slowly, fighting back a smile. “Dad...is this quick errand in France?”
He shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his daughter’s eyes. “It might be. Look—in the meantime, there’s plenty for us to do.” He gestured proudly to the pile in front of him. “I rescued these from the basement. Endless hours of fun.”
She raised her eyebrows, realizing what they were for the first time. “Wait...board games? You actually found board games?” She paused slightly, considering it for the first time. “We actually have board games?”
“Of course we do,” he answered stiffly, picking up the nearest one. “What kind of a normal family doesn’t have board games?”
“...a family that isn’t normal?”
He ignored this, blowing off the dust with a grand gesture. “Behold...Candyland
.”
I have stepped into an alternate reality. I must find my way out.
“Dad, you know this really isn’t necessary—”
“James, get down here! We’re playing Candyland!”
There was a sudden pause in the music upstairs, a comical silence as her little brother debated whether their father was having a mental break. A second later, a voice filtered down.
“Wish I could, but I’m sleeping.”
Devon shrugged as if such things couldn’t be helped, then unfolded the board—frowning slightly at the terrifying characters grinning up at him from a sea of processed sugar and fog.
“Wait a second,” he muttered, turning over the box, “is this some kind of gag gift from your uncle? Looks like an acid trip...”
And how would YOU know?
Aria leaned forward, taking it out of his hands. “You get that James isn’t actually sleeping, right?”
“Of course he is. You heard him.” He gathered the game pieces in his hand, offering out the various colors. “What color do you want? Green or blue?”
She gave a very ‘teenage’ roll of her eyes before tapping his hand. “Blue.”
“Trick question—I’m blue. Now roll the dice.”
Aria glanced down at the board, wondering if he’d ever seen it before. “There are no dice.”
He followed her gaze, glancing quickly over the rules. “Oh, uh...pick up a card.”
“Come on,” she pouted, “are we really going to do this? There was a murder on campus, and there’s a killer on the loose! Why can’t we talk about—”
“And we’re off!” He began playing for both of them, throwing down cards with the speed and skill of a Vegas dealer. “Oh look sweetie, you’re on the rainbow bridge.”
“Great,” she said sarcastically, slumping back on the sofa. “Do I even need to be here, or can you do this family bonding all by yourself—”
“Aria Juliet Wardell—we are going to have fun, do you hear me?” There was a pause before he continued in a milder voice. “Now go back to start, you landed on the licorice man.”
I should tape-record these moments.
With a forced smile, she leaned forward and picked up her piece—swapping it defiantly for the blue. The two continued playing in silence. A silence that grew less strained and more amusing the more ostentatiously her father began to cheat.
“Hey, what are you doing?!” she demanded, swatting his hand. “You can’t just choose the most convenient card! I’m literally watching you look for a double-yellow!”
Usually, it was her mother who played ‘creatively’. She’d once ended a game of poker in a pair of cable ties with Molly shooting punishing sparks at her head. But Devon wasn’t accustomed to losing, and he happened to know precisely how to make his daughter laugh.
“This game is about speed, cunning, and brazen resourcefulness,” he answered evenly. “It’s no real wonder you’re losing—you’re far too slow.”
Her eyebrows shot up at the challenge. “Oh, I’m too slow?”
In a flash, she switched not into his tatù but into Benji’s cheetah—snatching the offending card right from his hand. He took it back in a flash, skipping his piece cheerfully along the board before taking another. When she tried to grab that one as well, he folded it calmly into his mouth.
“Who came up with this game?” She flicked the edge of the board, covertly nudging her piece three spaces up in the process. “These characters are demented.”
Devon chuckled quietly, pointing at the white-haired queen. “That one looks like your Aunt Angel.”
She snorted at the petticoats and gauzy veil. Costuming aside, it did bear a striking resemblance to the famous assassin. All that was missing were the firepower and leather. “I’m telling her you said that.”
He shook his head seriously. “Don’t. Ever.”
They kept playing until Aria was on the verge of winning, at which point Devon grabbed her piece and threw it out the open window into the hedge. By the time she tried to retaliate he’d already cleared the board and was setting up Monopoly, slipping extra bills up his sleeves.
“Can we take a coffee break?” she asked with a rueful grin. “Let me try to regain some of my dignity before the next round.”
“Good luck,” he answered solemnly, helping her to her feet.
Without Rae there to conjure they wandered into the kitchen, where Devon measured out the roast and got two mugs down from the cabinet. Within seconds, the room was filled with the sound of bubbling coffee and the smell of caffeine-scented steam.
They inhaled deeply, perching on the counter at the same time.
Aria watched her father with a secret smile, shaking her head at the fake hundreds still tucked into his sleeves. Given her raven hair, pale skin, and the power to demolish the eastern hemisphere, comparisons were usually made between her and her mother. But while she and Rae were strikingly similar, she was still her father’s daughter—through and through.
They moved the same, laughed the same, and she had modeled her style of fighting completely on his. When trapped at formal functions they wore the same insufferable bored expression, and every now and then they’d catch themselves speaking at the same time.
“You know,” he murmured, “I’m actually glad your brother decided to stay upstairs—”
“Me too,” she interrupted fervently.
He shot her a wry smile before pouring the coffee into the mugs. One slid into her hands across the counter. The other fidgeted restlessly in his own.
“I was talking with Gabriel—”
“Everyone on campus heard you talking with Gabriel,” she inserted with a teasing grin. “To be honest, it was probably everyone in the country as well.”
“Not today,” he said quickly. “Last week, at Lily’s birthday.”
She cocked her head curiously, trying to remember when they’d been alone. “And?”
“And he told me the two of you had a conversation after sparring.” His eyes dilated intently as he studied her face. “He seemed to think you were restless, feeling a little caged in.”
Aria set her mug on the counter, trying to hide her surprise. She remembered the conversation to the letter, but hadn’t thought about it since that day. There was nothing particularly illuminating about it. No new revelations had come to light. She’d felt the same way since she was just a kid.
“So what?” she asked quietly. “I tell you and Mom that stuff all the time. You never listen to me. You just write it off as ‘childish impatience’ and swear that my time will come.”
Devon stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Arie, it isn’t that you want to be an agent. I do know that and it will happen in good time. It was something else you said...that you wanted to know how it feels to fall.”
A deep blush spread across her cheeks, and she looked away.
“What does it matter? You guys keep us in this protected bubble. Why should you care if I said I wanted to get out? We both know it’s never going to happen.”
Her father’s eyes tightened with a strange expression, but before he could say another word there was a noise on the stairs. A second later, James swept into the kitchen. He swiped his sister’s coffee before gesturing with a grin to the fake money stuffed in his father’s sleeves.
“What did you do? Rob a children’s bank?”
Devon flashed a tight smile as Aria climbed off the counter, heading upstairs without a backward glance. Why had she thought she could pry information out of him? That she could start the investigation by having an honest conversation at home?
Her parents would never share those sorts of things—not with her. She was always going to be a kid to them. Always going to be their little girl, in need of protection.
She had no idea how all that was about to change...
Chapter 6
Aria’s first thought when she opened her eyes the next morning was that she was being robbed. The man standing in front of her was dressed
in black from head to toe. From his boots, to his vest, to the tinted glasses covering his eyes. She was about to scream, when he lifted a finger to his lips, shaking his head with the hint of a smile.
Then the aviator sunglasses came off.
Her mouth fell open in shock.
“...Dad?”
He tapped his mouth, then tapped his ear. A cryptic signal, but one they’d used plenty of times before. In a house where almost the entire family was gifted with supernatural hearing, you learned to cut corners and snatch little moments of privacy wherever you could.
What are you doing here? she asked telepathically, checking his hands for a weapon. This isn’t revenge for Candyland, is it?
He smiled again, then mouthed the words, “Get dressed.” At the same time, he threw her a bundle of clothes. They looked just like his, made of the same dark, breathable fabric. She caught it tentatively, then threw an incredulous glance outside.
What time is it?
She’d recently smashed her clock to destroy the alarm, so she couldn’t be certain, but the sky outside was pitch black. The usual sounds of the city were similarly muted. No shops, no horns, no people. Just the sound of the occasional car gliding quietly down the moonlit streets.
Devon followed her gaze, then pushed open the window. “It’s time to leave.”
Without another word, he dropped into the open air—leaving his daughter staring after him in disbelief. She might have thought the whole thing was a dream if it hadn’t been for the bundle of clothes she was holding. Two bundles she realized now. The first was oddly formal. White blouse with a pencil skirt and leggings. The second was inky black and fit like a glove.
Dark on top, she decided. Like Dad.
It only took her a few minutes to get dressed—still longer than she would have liked, but her fingers were numb with cold and shivering with anticipation. Usually, when her parents got her and her brother up in the middle of the night it was either to be evacuated for their own protection, to look at some rare astronomical event they couldn’t care less about, or to catch a flight.