by Lish McBride
I hope you get chlamydia. Lol.
I called Ryan’s cell, and it went right to voice mail. I called his house. I’d never actually called there before.
The phone rang a few times before someone picked up. “Hello, James residence.” A lady’s voice, probably his mother. Or sister. An aunt? It could be a maid for all I knew. Did they have a maid?
My pulse started doing hurdles and my palms began to sweat. “Um, hi.” I swallowed, trying to get my body to calm the fuck down. Sparks started to dance around my fingertips, and I shoved them into someone’s half-drunk glass of water from last night. “Is, uh, Ryan around?”
“No,” she said. “I think he’s still in Boston with his friends.” Her tone had that you-know-how-boys-can-be kind of air about it. I noticed she didn’t say that he was with his girlfriend. I wasn’t sure if it was comforting or upsetting that she didn’t seem to know about me. Probably a little of both.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” I hung up before she could ask who was calling. I put my phone on the table, afraid the sparks dancing around my hands might damage it. Eyes closed, I took deep breaths, pulling as much air into my lungs as I could, and tried to settle my nerves. When I finally opened my eyes again, the sparks were gone.
I filled the stove with more wood and got a blaze going, trying to burn off my energy in a constructive manner before I called Cade back and melted my phone in the process.
I’d wrapped myself in a blanket by the fire and was doing my best to not dwell when I heard a twig snap. It was a small sound, but one that put me in mind of my time with my mom, and traps we set to warn us of intruders. In my mind I saw Benny’s face as he looked at the window, and I almost edged back to the broom closet. Except I was too big now. That startled me out of my memory. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, and my body was on full alert. I’d spent too much time living off my gut instinct to ignore it. I bolted upstairs to wake the boys.
The good thing about being a teenage assassin? Your friends know what you mean when you wake them with one hand pressed over their mouths and a meaningful look in your eye. I pulled my hand away from Lock’s face. “How many?” he mouthed. I shrugged. He poked Ezra awake and we relayed the info.
Short of Cade, no one knew me better than Lock and Ez did. Venus hadn’t intended for it to happen when she’d put us together, but we’d become a well-oiled machine.
I shoved the chair back under the door as Ezra opened a window. We pulled on boots and jackets and slipped out onto the lower roof. Lock closed the window after we were all out. We sat. We listened. Of the members of the Coterie recovery team—and clearly that’s what they were—only one had been left to walk the perimeter of the house. Ezra dropped to the ground and, with a muffled shout, quickly took care of that. The man’s chest was rising and falling while Ez pulled him into the bushes, so I knew he’d live. Lock coaxed a root to curl and twist around our would-be assailant. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would slow him down.
Once we were all off the roof, Lock and I worked in tandem to take care of the others. He encouraged some vines to wind their way over the windows while I set fire to all the exits. We didn’t even have to discuss it.
I felt bad for the recovery team, I guess, and I definitely felt bad for the owners of the summer home I was burning to the ground, but not enough to actually stop. We got into Ezra’s car and sped down the driveway. The fire would go out soon, and if the recovery team was smart, they would probably get out alive. I hoped they did, sort of, but I was hoping for our getaway more.
We drove aimlessly in silence, Lock turning the car this way and that, going more for confusion than distance.
“How did they find us?” I asked finally. “The car?”
“They found us yesterday, too,” Lock said. “I shrugged it off because we were still in the Inferno, but now she’s found us again. One of us is bugged.”
“Then why couldn’t she find us after I torched the Inferno?” I asked. “Teams were scouting and couldn’t find us.”
“It was a mad house. Whoever had the tracker probably had their hands full,” Lock said.
Ezra turned in the passenger seat so he could see both of us. “Well, all my clothes are from after our little pool party, so it’s not me. It’s probably not the car, but I guess we should get rid of it anyway.” He sighed and ran his hand along the dash. “My poor baby.”
“All my stuff is new, except for my jacket and my shoes” Lock said. “I don’t think that’s it, but I can discard them if you guys are worried.” Lock’s eyes met mine in the review mirror. “What about you, Aves? Any clothes the same?”
I thought on it. “My underwear, but we would have seen something if that was bugged, right? My jacket.”
“And your boots, right?” The car was silent for a moment before he asked, “Did Ryan give you anything recently? Anything you keep on your person?”
“No,” I said. “Everything is … wait.” I reached up and felt my new earrings, the shooting stars he’d given me. That he’d insisted I wear. I quickly tore them out, not looking at them as my vision blurred and I handed them to Ezra. He didn’t even examine them before he threw them out the window. I began to protest, but Ez just looked at me and said, “I don’t care if you want to believe he’s innocent. I refuse to take the risk.”
And I got it, I did. My mouth snapped shut with a snap of teeth and we drove for an hour in silence. While my brain used logic to tell me that the boys were right, I mourned those earrings. They were the first present given to me by a boyfriend and they hadn’t even made it a week.
The town we stopped in wasn’t very big, but it had a small used-clothing place, which was what we needed. I had some cash sewn into the lining of my jacket, but not much, and I wasn’t sure when I could get more. The Coterie would be checking our accounts. We bought backpacks and two changes of clothes, since our other clothes had to be tossed. The underwear I bought new. I just couldn’t quite bring myself to put on someone’s used knickers. I didn’t want “Got Crabs?” to become my official motto.
That handled, we hit a convenience store. I purchased three use-and-toss cell phones, even though cell service could be anywhere from spotty to nonexistent in that area. I also bought some maps. I knew we wouldn’t find any in the Ezramobile. Ez thought the glove compartment was for condoms only.
We stopped at a diner and grabbed breakfast, and I can honestly say it was probably the most depressing breakfast I’d ever had.
Lock tore into a biscuit. He’d ordered biscuits and gravy, which shows just how grave the situation was. If Lock was reaching for comfort food, we were all doomed. “So, now what? Go into hiding? Change our names? Join the circus?”
“The circus?” I reached across the table and stole half his biscuit. Someone had to look out for his health. “That is so passé. We can do better than that. It’s high-class grifting in Rio, or it’s nothing.” I took a sip of orange juice. “I need to call Cade back. Maybe he can help us with an actual plan. I was about to call him back when they found us.”
Lock dug his phone out of his jacket pocket, or what was left of it, anyway. At some point, he must have landed on it. He sighed.
“No, that’s good,” I said. “In fact, we should have tossed them last night. GPS. I bought us new phones, but I need to contact Cade from a different one. I’d rather not use my burner phone yet.” We were also going to need to ditch Ezra’s car at some point, and soon.
After some arguing, we piled into the car and headed for the nearest train station. We abandoned Ezra’s car a few blocks away. I didn’t want any video cameras at the train station catching us ditching the car.
While I wiped it down for prints, Lock found a few pickup trucks to toss our cell phones into. I made him erase all the information first, of course. I wanted to give the Coterie something to chase on the GPS, but I didn’t want to give them the phone numbers of our friends.
Lock tried to find trucks with out-of-state plates in hopes that
they’d lead the trackers on a merry chase. I silently hoped that no harm would come to the drivers of those trucks. I’d have hated for someone to get hurt because they unwittingly helped us. If it had just been me, I wouldn’t have risked it. Unfortunately we weren’t just discussing my safety. So: sorry if our cell phones get you in trouble, mysterious truck driving folk, but I’m a selfish jerk who wants to keep her loved ones alive.
Once Ezra said good-bye to his car, we started walking toward the train station. We hit an ATM on the way, and we all pulled out our maximum allowable amounts. Since we were leaving this place soon and we wanted to give them a spot to focus on, it wouldn’t matter. At least, I was hoping that, with all the precautions we were taking, it wouldn’t matter.
I actually managed to find a functioning pay phone to call Cade. I didn’t have much time, but then, I didn’t need much either.
“Sorry,” I said as Cade answered. “We were interrupted before I could call you back.”
“You’re never, ever, going on a date again.”
I could hear the strain in his voice when he made that joke. “That’s cool. I was thinking of joining a nunnery. I hear they’re all the rage these days.” The line went quiet as we both thought the things that were too hard to say on the phone.
“Your grandpa has suggested I close up shop for a few days. I’m thinking he might be right. I’m just going to pack a few things from home and head there.”
“Grandpa”? Cade never talked to his parents. “Grandpa” could only mean Duncan, which meant he was headed there and wanted us to go as well but didn’t want to say that over the phone. You can never be too paranoid when dealing with Venus.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I’ll check in later.”
“Love you, Rat.”
“Love you, too, legal guardian. At least until I’m eighteen. Then it’s splitsville.”
He huffed into the phone. “You’re not as cute as you think you are.”
“Even if I’m half as cute as I think I am, I’m still pretty adorable.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“That might be for the best.”
WE DECIDED to take Cade’s advice. If we could take a train to the coast, then we could catch a bus from there. Once a day there’s an old school bus that runs down the coast. Surely we had enough money for that.
At the train station, we used my card to purchase tickets to two drastically different locations. Ezra turned around and hocked those tickets while Lock bought tickets to our real destination in cash. Maybe we were being too paranoid, but history had taught me to take any precaution possible when the Coterie was involved. I remember my mom doing similar things, and she managed to avoid the Coterie for twelve years.
The train left in twenty minutes. When he’d bought the tickets, Lock deliberately chose one that didn’t have a long wait time. No reason to sit like cliché duckies if we didn’t have to.
We huddled in a corner of the station and waited, our paranoia and overvigilance bloating the minutes until it seemed like hours. It was like we had giant bull’s-eyes painted on our backs and everyone who walked by looked like an enemy.
9
NEW FRIENDS
THE TRAIN RIDE was uneventful. We tried to get Ezra to wear a cap and pull his hood up, anything to tone down his pretty. People remember Ezra. It made being on the lam difficult. He finally caved and raised his hood. Since it would do less damage to his hair than a hat, it was the lesser of the two evils in his mind.
We left the train and managed to get a taxi to take us to the bus stop. The bus was old and smelled a bit like feet and desperation—and, yes, desperation has a smell. It’s not pleasant. I took a seat next to Lock, Ezra choosing to take up an entire bench seat in front of us. Lock breathed on the window and fogged it up, using his index finger to draw little hearts and arrows in the moisture.
“You’re such a girl.”
“I can’t help it—I was raised by a bevy of women.” He added tiny broken hearts around the arrowed ones. “There, is that better?”
“Yes.” I snuggled into his side. “Do you think we’re being stupid?”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer. “Most people run out of a burning building. It’s common sense. But firefighters run back in, because they’re brave. And most people would run from the Coterie—that’s common sense too.”
“We’re running back toward it. So are you saying we’re brave?”
He sighed. “No, I think we’re stupid, but I can’t think of anything better.” He gave me a squeeze. “You should rest while you can.” Before I could protest, he said, “You need it more than I do, and one of us needs to keep watch. Ezra is already napping, so sleep.”
I could tell Lock wasn’t going to let me win on this one. Some battles just weren’t worth fighting. I closed my eyes. The smell of desperation was even stronger with my eyes closed. I wondered idly if that was because it was coming from me.
WE COULDN’T just take the bus directly to Duncan’s. We got within thirty miles, which was the best we could do. I’d napped for a lot of the ride, but the rest of the time was spent in a state of frustration and fear. Even though every inch brought me closer to Cade, it also brought me closer to the worry that he wouldn’t be there. I had to keep my hands in my pockets in case I sparked. What I wanted to do was run home and pretend none of this had happened. I desperately needed the sight of the bookshop, or the sound of Sylvie psychoanalyzing the newest arrival of bodice rippers (and then reading them anyway), or even to be on the receiving end of Horatio’s disdain.
I wanted to slip back into my life and forget Ryan and the Coterie. I pressed my forehead against the rough weave of the seatback in front of me. Lock nudged my arm, indicating that me, it was time to get off. The second he stepped off the bus, he started walking—quite resolutely—in the wrong direction. Well, it was the right direction, just not the one I wanted to go in. I jogged to catch up to him.
“I’ve been thinking maybe I heard wrong. Cade might have been telling us to stay away from Duncan’s. We should stop by the shop or something—you know, just to check.” Lock didn’t slow down. When he grimaced and looked away, I knew he wasn’t going to play along with me.
“We’re not going home, Ava. We’re going to Duncan’s.”
Loose gravel rolled along the asphalt as I jerked to a stop. “I need—”
“No, Ava,” he said, cutting me off. “You want to go home.” He stopped and stared at me, his hands fidgeting in agitation along the straps of the backpack. “But what you need is to go to Duncan’s.”
“Bullshit.”
He cut me off again. “Shut up and listen. You didn’t just thumb your nose at Venus last night—you told her off in front of witnesses, then Ezra crushed her new firebug right before you burned down part of her business. You turned my car into a fountain of flame, lighting up the entire city, no doubt, which means she had to deal with the human police force. She hates that. Then you escaped. As an encore, we slipped away from a recovery team. We got away, Ava. She’s probably spitting nails and pissing fury right now.” He took a deep breath and softened his voice, which had been growing more tense as he’d talked.
“She can’t just let last night slide. If she finds you and gets to do whatever she has planned, you’re going to look back with nostalgia at the time she hit you and made you strip.” Lock looked out into the trees, over the road, anywhere but my face. “She likes it, Aves. She enjoys making people twist. But more than that, if she doesn’t publicly bring us in hand, she’ll have a mutiny.”
I bit down on any argument I might have had. Sparks popped in the air around me, and I let them. Something had to give, and sparks didn’t seem so bad. Lock was right. And I hated it. He grabbed my chin gently and turned my head until I had to look at him. His expression was pity filled, which just made it worse. “If you go home right now, you’re endangering us and your house, and you’re delivering yourself right into her hands. Mi
ght as well tie a big-ass bow around your waist while you’re at it.”
Frustration and anger are good when you need to throw a fireball at someone’s head—emotion is a very powerful fuel. When your best friend is trying to keep you from doing something idiotic, these emotions aren’t ideal. If Lock had let go of my face, allowing me to look down, I’d probably have seen flames licking my fingers. I either needed somewhere safe to send the fire or a really quick emotional shift.
Lock did the next best thing—he shoved me into a puddle. A very muddy puddle, and an extremely cold one. There was a crunch as I fell through the thin layer of ice on top of it.
“You asshole!” I shouted. Steam billowed around me as my flames dissipated. I hated to admit it, but despite now being soggy, cold, and muddy, I felt better.
“You were on fire, cupcake. It was the first thing I could think of.”
“Mom and dad are fighting!” Ezra sang as he pushed his hood back. “Part of me wants you to kiss and make up, but most of me is hoping for two Christmases.”
Lock reached down to pull me up, and I took the opportunity to smear mud down the side of his jacket. He glared at me. I grinned back. Then Lock pulled me to him and kissed me on the cheek.
“You’re my favorite,” he said before letting me go.
I stomped over to a tree so I could scrape more mud off onto its bark, and so Lock wouldn’t see that I was blushing. “Can the sarcasm. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“Better than starting a forest fire.” He passed me, his strides clipped like he was angry. “And it wasn’t sarcasm. We’d better get a move on.”
We walked in silence, and I mused on all the stuff Lock had said before our one-sided mud-wrestling match. He was right, of course. I couldn’t go home. Everything I loved would be in danger if I did. Venus would have people watching my house, the bookshop, wherever she thought I might go.
The silence was starting to get to me. Fighting with Lock was like fighting with Cade: I hated having either of them mad at me. It’s not like I had so many friends that I could just ignore him and go hang out with someone else until one of us cooled off. I quickened my step until I caught up with him. Ezra trailed behind, staring up into the tops of trees, looking for birds’ nests. He had been looking for porcupines until he remembered that they were nocturnal and would still be in their dens.