Page 101 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
I yanked open the door to find the living room crowded. At least fifteen different dudes I didn’t recognize stood around chatting with my guys. "Whoa! I didn't know we were having a party today." I gave a fake smile. My interview and the ball were tomorrow. The heist was tomorrow. Were less than twenty-four hours from execution. What the fuck were the guys thinking? I glanced around at them, trying to decide who I needed to throttle.
Z wove his way through the full room. As he passed by the giant tower of stink bomb of soda cans the guys had assembled for Malcolm, Gray called out, "Watch it! Don’t knock those over!"
"I've got it, Preschool," Z chided, holding up a hand to stop Gray from harassing him further.
“Who are all these people?" I asked, handing the box of amulets over to Z, who tucked them under one arm and then grabbed my hand.
Z smiled and bobbed his head side to side. "Couple new guys are from Crush. Drivers. Two are Malcolm's friends—chemists. Don’t worry, they’ve been vetted. And Gray bribed each of them with a wad of cash as thick as my—"
“Clearly, they’re gonna want more cash,” I retorted.
Z chuckled. “You know that’s a lie.” He steered me through a crowd of men covered in tattoos and muscles, magical iridescent scars gleaming on their arms and faces, motorcycle vests declaring that most of them were part of Gray's gang. At least that made me feel a little better. None of them would have much incentive to go spill their guts to the Pinnacle. They’d probably get wrapped up with charges first.
Z stopped walking in front of a mountain-sized man who stood alone, leaning against a wall. "And here … drumroll please … is my cousin."
I stopped midstep, staring up. Z's cousin was tall, cut, and intimidatingly hot in an "I'll fuck you but then I'll have to kill you," kind of way. His pictures didn't do him any justice. My face probably only reached his ribcage. His pecs were massive, the size of my head. His hair was gelled and pushed back off his forehead. His face was one of those All-American masterpieces, the kind of face that was attractive from infancy until death. The guy had probably never known an awkward day in his life. Tattoos wrapped his huge muscular arms, like Zavier’s. But where Z was dark and his eyes were playful, this guy was dirty blond and his blue eyes were hard as stones.
I swallowed hard and then extended my hand to be polite.
"Hi, Andros. It's nice to meet you. Z didn't tell me you were his cousin." My hand hung awkwardly in midair as Andros didn’t move from his spot against the wall, just eyed me.
I retracted my hand and glared over at Zavier, who'd seen every last one of my files. He knew that Andros had been on my list. I’d crossed the guy off because he’d been in jail. All these months … dammit all.
Z just grinned and waggled his tongue at me. "Gray knew a guy who knew a guy who got some cash to bail him out. I figured it would be a good surprise since we need a second Tock.”
“You say we do.” I raised my brows at him.
“We do,” Z said with a sharp authority I’d never heard from him before.
Andros leaned forward and glared down at me. "You gonna fuck my cousin?"
Whoa. Awkwardly personal.But Andros looked like he could split my skull in two with just his fist. "Umm.... I think that's up to him?" I looked at Zavier in askance.
"He means, are you gonna fuck me over," Z clarified, his stiff posture melting, eyes dancing with mirth.
Humiliation took off its clothes and streaked across my face. "Oh. Nope. Not that kind of fucking. Definitely not into that," I shook my head.
One of Gray's bikers shouted, "Did I hear someone just say fucking?”
Gray interjected. "No. You didn't." Then he ushered his guys outside, leaving me stuck between Z, who was bouncing on his toes in excitement like a little kid, and Andros, who stood like a giant reaper. I expected him to pull out a scythe and gut me at any moment. Damn. That level of scary would make most the Pinnacle guards shit themselves. Just thinking about that made me giddy. How had I not realized how huge he was?
"Zavier told me this job is personal for you,” Andros said.
"Yes."
"Personal is bad. You make mistakes."
"Yeah. True. Sometimes you don't have a choice though."
"We get stuck in there, what's the plan?"
I had a plan for that, actually. A plan inspired by Potts. A plan that probably wasn't the best or the safest thing ever but was still better than nothing.
"We get stuck, you guys can slow the guards and speed me up. I’ll write a level eight illusion spell to make you all look like inanimate objects. Pens, screwdrivers, crowbars. It lasts seventy-two hours.” I pulled the strip of paper that Potts had mailed me (which had the spell she’d done on Matthew) out of my pocket. "You all will be picked up as evidence as part of my break in. When you guys come to, you’ll be in an evidence containment facility in the back of a police station. Lots of contraband spells, wands, weapons in there. A lot easier to break out of than the Pinnacle."
Andros' eyes scanned the page, double-checking my spell writing. “How do you know they won’t look for this kind of thing?”
Before Malcolm I might have lied. I might have pretended to be sure of myself when I wasn’t. But he was convinced whole truths were better than half-truths. And some of that conviction had rubbed off on me. “I don’t.”
