Page 21 of Stealing Embers

“Hey! Low blow, bro.” Sterling scowls at his brother and tosses a wadded napkin at Greyson’s face. Greyson deflects the projectile easily and continues.

“Tenth-year is the equivalent to human twelfth grade . . . at least here in the States. But unfortunately, we all still have three years left at Seraph Academy. We don’t graduate until we’re twenty.”

“Well, that sucks.” The words fly out of my mouth without thought. I hear Ash chuckle next to me. Hadley’s and Kenna’s eyebrows shoot up and Sterling covers his reaction with a cough.

Greyson simply shrugs as if he doesn’t have an opinion either way. “You get more freedoms and participate in ops your last few years, so it’s not so bad.”

Two extra years of high school is not my idea of a good time. No way am I sticking around for that. I want to figure out how my supposed powers work, get a grasp on how to survive in both the real and spectrum worlds, then get the heck out of Dodge.

“Stop boring her with academy factoids, Grey. Besides, there’s something else we all want to know.” Sterling hunches his large body forward, a court-jester grin on his face. “Did you really think you were being kidnapped?”

“Sterling,” Ash warns.

“What?” His eyes widen with feigned innocence.

“Oh, wipe that look off your face. It’s not becoming on you.” Ash launches a French fry at his head.

Catching it easily, he pops it in his mouth. “Yum. Thanks, Ash. You’re a doll.”

Ash’s eyes turn toward the ceiling before she angles her body in my direction. “Ignore him. You don’t have to answer that.”

Easy for her to say. She doesn’t have five sets of eyes boring holes into her.

My cheeks heat under their regard. The curse of being fair-skinned is I can never hide my embarrassment.

“Um.” I swallow to wet my throat . . . and to stall.

“Kind of? Everyone came at me at once. I mean . . .” Shoot, why is talking to people so hard? “I was carried off by a big fat turkey-bird at one point. The thing even dropped me from the sky. So, yeah. I thought I was being abducted.”

I finish on a shrug, not sure what else to say. I don’t bother pointing out that technically, Iwaskidnapped. No one asked my permission to whisk me away to their fancy academy.

After a beat, Sterling turns to his brother. Their rapid-fire exchange goes completely over my head.

“It must have been, right?”

“Who else would have pulled something like that?” Greyson responds with a smirk.

“Oh man, I’ll bet Deacon is still chewing him out.”

“Not like that’s ever bothered him before.”

“Very true. I still would have liked to be a fly on that wall.”

“If only we could shift into something that small.”

“So true, man.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, surprising myself. “Are you saying you know who the bird boy is?”

Twin smirks grow on their faces.

“Yeah. The fat turkey was our brother, Steel.”

I definitely remember that name. That’s the a-hole who called me a freak.

I don’t bother concealing my reaction and it’s only a tick before both brothers break out in a fit of laughter. I can’t really blame them. If I had to guess, I’d say I look like I’ve eaten something particularly gross.

“Is that who you saw?” Greyson points to the left.

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