Delinquents Turned Fugitives - Ann Denton Page 0,17
trying to focus on the screen in front of me. I blinked as the lines of code in front of me slithered like snakes for a second—my mind not quite able to control my exhausted body. Then I cleared my head and tried to focus.
Come on, Hales. Next step. You’ve been doing this for almost three years. Don’t mess up now.
The guys spoke around me but their words became a blur as I slid into hacker mode and ignored the world around me. I used magic to push the electrical impulses in my computer a little faster, unsure if I had enough juice to even do that. It didn’t work the first time, or even the third, but we had a long drive using a roundabout route Gray and his team had devised in order to lose anyone who might follow. Eventually, I was able to send a little surge of light pulsing through the system and a tiny radio signal through the Wi-Fi to speed up a process that normally took hours. I tossed an executable virus into the Pinnacle’s security system, so that the next time someone tried to log in to their security camera feed, the virus would activate and use a handy little spell I’d written to corrupt any video footage by replacing it with random TikTok videos.
It would give someone a fun morning. I smiled as I imagined the horrified face of some Pinnacle security dude as he mashed on the screens. Part of me wanted to add a spell to flip on the computer’s camera and send me a video feed when it happened … but I had way more important things to do.
I rolled my shoulder after I closed the laptop and started when I realized Malcolm had moved over next to me. My blond anarchist slid the laptop off my knees and shoved it into the trash with the other comm devices because they would go swimming in the lake later. Malcolm’s light blue eyes flicked from me to the back of the van. “Go change. We’re late. Our window of opportunity is closing.”
I scooted around Andros, who still lay like a big blue statue in the middle of the floor, sliding gently back and forth each time we had to brake, his stone skin making a scraping nose against the metal floorboards.
By the back doors, Gray held up my dress from the ball and I groaned before I stripped to my underwear, took a hand towel from him and wiped down—attempting to be careful with my wounds. Then I let him slide the gown over my head, only, this time, I didn’t feel any giddy excitement. “I just want to sleep. We don’t have to do my hair, do we?”
Gray leaned down and examined my hair. He ran his fingers through it a few times. “Let me brush it to cover up those burns on your neck. We can leave it down so no one sees those.” He grabbed a brush out of a bag and turned me around. Then he gently started to smooth my hair.
Z came forward and took a look at my wounds, frowning. He turned back to Malcolm. “Gimme a wand and stuff.” Without a word, Malcolm complied.
I shook my head. “You’re too drained.”
Z ignored me and dipped the wooden wand into an inkwell Malcolm had handed him and then unfurled a thin strip of parchment so he could write a spell.
I stuck my hand out to stop him and grabbed his shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
Z shrugged my hand off. “Relax. I’m not gonna try to boost it with my powers. But you need it. Trust me.” He grimaced as he glanced at my neck. The wounds must look worse than I’d thought. Then he wrote the same spell he’d used to heal my ankle in the locker room back at school. My neck heated slightly as Z guided the floating orange ball of light toward it, and heated even more as the magic sunk into my skin. Unlike last time, my injuries didn’t instantly heal. My neck still ached and turning it was still going to be a challenge. My bicep burned as he guided the light over it. He did wait patiently while that wound knit itself back together. And he might have pushed himself a little to speed it up; it took only ten minutes to heal. That’s why, when it was done, I deliberately didn’t mention my side or my hand, because in