Delinquents Turned Fugitives - Ann Denton Page 0,58

window and screaming, "Fuck you, witch!" He flipped me the bird.

Several other cars honked in what appeared to be agreement. I ignored them and the magical slurs they hurled my way, focused on Potts as I stomped back toward her.

She stared at me and her brows fell. Her mouth sank down and she almost appeared ... disappointed.

What. The. Hell?

I'd done exactly what she wanted!

I bristled, my posture stiffening.

The midday sun beat down on us both as she stared at me. "When you want something so badly that you'll do anything to get it, break the rules, endanger others... you've crossed a line. You’re willing to make other people a means to your ends. That’s no better than Detective Muller.”

She might as well have blackened my eye. “That’s not true and you know it. He just wants—”

“He wants to catch a killer. Which is a good thing. But he’ll do anything to get there. Which is a bad thing. What are you willing to do to get to Matthew?” Potts asked.

I didn’t answer. Because we both knew the answer was anything.

“Goodbye, Hayley Dunemark."

And with that, Potts turned her back on me, striding away and leaving me on the side of the road like a piece of trash.

19

I stood on the corner of the street, dazed by Potts’ rejection, while the sun beat down on me just like she had. When the top of my head started to feel sunburned, I turned back toward the parking lot and I pulled out my new burner phone for the day. I dialed the “Old Lady” number that Gray had programmed in this morning. Good thing he was a rich bastard, with all the phones he wanted us to have. But the leader of Crush insisted it was part of why he and his gang never got caught.

Z answered on the second ring. “Sorry. Had to leave.”

“Are you okay? What happened?” My irritation at Potts bled through in my tone, which was gruffer than I intended.

“I said sowwy, Hawey,” Z slipped into baby voice. “But I don’t wike the big bad man. He awwested me before.”

Guilt smacked me like a brick across the face. “Shit. No. I’m sorry. That didn’t even occur to me.”

“It’s fine,” his voice went back to normal. “I’m sorry. I saw him through the window. And normally no big deal. But he’s a Tock. It’s not like with an Icefire where I could get in and out and past them without them ever knowing.”

I put a palm to my forehead. Duh. I’d realized that but hadn’t put two and two together. I was off my game. “Yeah. I get it. Where are you? Do you need me to come pick you up?”

Z blew a raspberry into the phone. “Nah. I’m good. I’m with my cuz. I left your helmet by the bike.”

“Thanks.” I hung up the phone and strode quickly toward the bike, blowing out a breath and trying to keep my to-do list straight in my head so that I could focus on it and not the fact that Potts had just abandoned me.

“Figure out her Illusion Spell and then a spell to unravel it. Figure out how to help an Unnatural shift from an animal into human.” I didn’t think we could administer the serum to my brother if he was in bat form. “Look up how to safely catch bats. And vamps.”

Fuck. That was a list full of awful. And I had to add avoiding Detective Muller to it. And a funeral.

Pile on the fact that no vamp who’d ever been locked up had ever gotten out—until now. It seemed almost impossible.

But I’d done the impossible now. I’d broken into the Pinnacle and walked back out. I’d make this Institute my bitch. I’ll break in and walk out with Matthew in twenty minutes. It’ll be a piece of cake, I reassured myself. Potts didn’t know what she was talking about. She was wrong. She was being her lecture-y, life-lessony counselor self when all I had needed was a friend and a damned spell.

Fuck her.

I found my helmet on the asphalt next to my tires and it was so hot from the sun that it nearly burned my palm when I picked it up. I ended up setting it on the seat of my ride while I pulled a self-inking, disposable mini wand out of my jacket. Gray had tossed these around like candy this morning, telling us to keep a couple on us at all times. They even