Delinquents Turned Fugitives - Ann Denton Page 0,57

mean Muller hadn't put an illusion spell on it though.

Once we were on the sidewalk, I started walking in the opposite direction of the Chinese restaurant. A quick scan of the parking lot showed me Zavier was nowhere to be found, though our bike was still in its spot. I had no idea where he'd gone, but we'd come here with a purpose, and I needed to follow through on it.

Potts caught up with me as I passed a shoe repair shop, containing an elderly Asian man hunched over a pair of leather loafers. I made room for her on the sidewalk and we walked shoulder to shoulder.

"I'm guessing that amulet is like a wiretap. You might want to check around for more of those." I chewed my lip and peered into the window of a small dry cleaners to see if they had a vending machine. No dice. “Dammit. Why are there no vending machines,” I grumbled under my breath.

"Valid point. But why the hell do you care about that kind of thing?" Potts asked. "If you want soda, the only place is the Chinese restaurant."

"No way I'm going back in there after what Z announced to the room," I replied.

"Don't try to change the subject," she snapped, leading me off the sidewalk and across the nearly bare parking lot. "Why do you care if the cops hear what you say?"

"Why do you think?" I didn't bother answering such an obvious question.

"Hayley Dunemark!" Potts’ tone turned scolding. But she didn't stomp off. And she didn't say anything more than that. She pointed across the street at a gas station, wordlessly telling me our destination.

I rolled my eyes at her attempt to adult. As if I thought she was the hallmark of maturity anyway. "I'm not leaving my brother there for the slaughter. You know that's gonna be the end game here."

She didn't respond, because there was nothing to say. It was the truth. She just gently took my arm and led me toward the stoplight. We had to wait on the corner as cars buzzed past, people in them going about their days as normal. I couldn't remember the last time my life had been normal.

"They look like they don't know what it's like, don't they?" Potts reflected, as she stared out at the drivers too. "So innocent with their worries about bills and deadlines and dance recitals."

I nodded.

Potts turned and stared at the side of my face for a second. "How badly do you want to save Matthew?"

"More than anything," I confessed.

She stared at the six-lane road as cars darted by, her expression thoughtful. "Cross the road and I'll give you the spells I used."

"We're about to—"

"No. Cross now. While the light's still red."

My stomach dropped and my brow furrowed. She had to be joking right? "Through traffic?"

She nodded, face set and grim.

Fuck my life. But this woman was crazy. She wasn't the nice, normal therapist type.

Did she know what she was asking? I bet she did. I bet she'd asked because she knew it was harder for me. I wasn't a Tock. I couldn't speed through the road. I didn't have damn Force power; I couldn't stop the cars from crushing me by blowing air at them. I wasn't an Icefire, I couldn't erect a sheet of ice thirty feet back that would make drivers skid and slam on their brakes. I could blind them. But that wouldn’t do a hell of a lot of good.

Unless ... I held up my hand and made every damn light go red. Cars slammed on their brakes, tires screeched. Two cars nearly wrecked and one of them—an orange Sentra—spun out into the intersection, wheels smoking. As soon as that car stopped spinning, I stomped into the street, shaking my head.

Internally, I was ranting at the old kook and wondering if it would have been faster if I'd just spent the day with Evan trying to figure out the spells she’d written on our own.

"Wait!" Potts’ voice made me freeze. I turned back, only a lane and a half through the road. I hadn't even gotten to the median.

She stood on the corner of the sidewalk, midday sun beating down on her and turning her features into dark smudges on her face. "Come on back," she commanded.

I released my control over the lights, letting the direction parallel to me turn green just as the little orange car hit the gas and sped across the road, sticking a hand out of his