Page 44 of Out of My Flocking Mind

“It might be nothing,” Harrison said, but even I could read the lie in his words. The timing was far too suspicious for it to be meaningless, for it to just be a coincidence.

I’d done this for the supplier to target me, but what if Trey paid the price? What if all I’d done was put a target on his back?

I silently cursed my crow, the source of all this mess, the magnet that drew trouble to me and made those around me suffer.

Why was it that I never got a chance to just live my life?

Because you have a cosmic debt that you’re never gonna be finished paying…

Chapter Ten

Two days later and Trey still hadn’t shown up at school. Harrison and I had gone to his house, trying to find some information, but just as Harrison had said, the family didn’t seem all the concerned. Or, perhaps it was better to say they saw him as a nuisance, as a penance they had to pay.

Spirits were often expected to take in young from the clan, since the types who were infected couldn’t remain in the human world, with their human parents. They often didn’t get any choice about it, and this was one such case.

Seeing the disinterest in the two Weres’ faces made me want to punch them, but Harrison had hauled me out before I got the chance. Rude.

“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked Harrison as we sat in his classroom during lunch, food spread out on his desk between us.

Harrison didn’t pretend to not understand, but neither did he lie to me. He probably knew that wouldn’t work, that I’d see straight through it. “I don’t know. He’s skipped out on school before, but never for this long.”

Which again suggested this was a serious problem. Each morning, I scoured through the local groups, searching for any sign of Trey. It was the worst thirty minutes of my day, hands down, fear beating at me as I checked out any article that could have to do with Trey. A body found, an accident, a missing person report, anything. Each time, no matter how much I looked, I found nothing.

“So what now?”

“We wait. The supplier has taken notice—he must have. I haven’t seen any evidence of Cloud made by him here. I suspect the dealers here have moved over to getting from you instead of him, which would prove a large loss in profit for him. Trey is probably hiding right now, waiting for this all to blow over. If he just stays out of sight, he should be able to return when we have finished.”

I nodded, the food not tasting so great despite the five-star café on campus that we’d gotten it from. It seemed I didn’t care for the seasoning of guilt when it came to food. I hated the idea of just waiting, but really, what other options were there? Trey had vanished off the face of the earth, and it didn’t seem like he had any friends that we could find, any leads to where he might have gone.

All I could do was hope that he was just hiding, that once we handled this shit ourselves, he’d show back up and go back to his weird little life. I never would have figured I’d sit here hoping a kid got back to dealing drugs, but given the alternative, that sounded like a happy ending to me.

My phone vibrated on the desk, so I grabbed it and looked at the screen. It showed a number I didn’t recognize, though that wasn’t all that uncommon. I’d added a number to the phone for my current side hustle, which meant I’d have both buyers and dealers calling me for product.

“Hello?” I answered.

“You have proven yourself quite the problem for me,” came a voice I didn’t recognize, one that tugged the corners of my lips down.

“You’re going to need to narrow that down a whole hell of a lot,” I said. “I cause problems for way too many people for me to even hope to know who you are or what you want.” I moved the phone from my ear and hit the speaker button, the caller’s voice filling the empty classroom.

“I had a rather nice thing going until you showed up. I have to admit, your product is impressive, but I don’t sit back while people ruin what I have created. So, how should we handle this?”

“Handle what? From where I’m sitting, I don’t have a problem. Business is booming for me.”

“If this is going to be a problem for me, trust me, I’ll make it a problem for you, too. I’m not mean, though. You’re new to this scene, so it shouldn’t be too big an issue for you to take off and start back up somewhere else. That’d fix this for both of us.”

“See, the thing is, I’m pretty happy here. I’m making plenty of easy money. Restarting somewhere else would take time and effort and at the end of the day, I’m pretty fucking lazy.”

“Yeah, well, lazy or not, it’s gonna to be better and less painful to start over.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ve got no problem getting mean. Your product will be bad by Friday. If I see your symbol after that, you’ll see what happens.” The call went dead, so I set the phone down on the desk, the threat lingering in the air. He sure as fuck sounded serious…

I could usually tell the difference between a bluff and a person ready to follow through, and this asshole seemed the type to do exactly as he said. Or, fuck, maybe I was just being paranoid?

My phone rang again, and I let out a sigh as I picked it back up. People didn’t call me much, then did it all at once. When it rained, it poured. It wasn’t the same number as before, so it wasn’t that asshole trying to get a last word. Instead, Galen’s name showed.

“Long time no hear,” I said as I answered.

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