Page 60 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
Curiosity filled me. I hadn’t spoken to Evan since he’d seen me break down. If I was honest with myself, I’d been avoiding him. I just didn’t know how to handle the new reality with him—this semi-truce. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I nodded, still so out of breath that I couldn’t speak. I shoved my hands on the back of my head, elbows jutting out, and followed the guy I considered my first love and my first enemy into the woods.
Once we were far enough from our classmates that our conversation wouldn’t be overheard, Evan paused and glanced back at me. His blue eyes went from uncertain to sad. “I’ve been asking around about people with vamp family members or friends or whatnot.”
I stilled. And though my heart was already beating fast, somehow it managed to go faster.
He cleared his throat and tried to make himself sound more detached, more clinical about what he’d found out about vampires. “You remember Alaina Aldridge?”
“Our old piano teacher?” I asked.
“Guess she tried to go Unnatural a couple years ago. It didn’t work out. I played football with her son, Jeff.”
I just nodded, stretching my sore calves as I waited for him to get to the point. I gritted my teeth. I’d forgotten how roundabout Evan could be. He was so obsessed with the little details. He couldn’t force himself to get straight to the point. The little details had made him kick my ass at Risk every time we’d played. But it was damn annoying when I just wanted a two-sentence summary.
“Anyway, Jeff just graduated and he’s working in Miami now, at some joint magical-norm tech start up. But he said that last time he went to try to visit his mom to donate they told him she’d been moved.”
I stopped stretching. “What?” My tone was sharp and panicked.
Evan raised his eyes and nodded. “Right? Where’s their authority to do that?”
“What happened?”
“Well, Jeff complained, got the runaround, they said they’d get the transfer paperwork over to him. That was six months ago. He tried to file a missing person’s report, but the Pinnacle doesn’t consider Vamps magicals and the norm government doesn’t either.”
I clenched my jaw, and despite how sore my body was, I started to pace between two trees in our tiny clearing. I threw up my hands. “So, a vamp can just disappear into a fucking logistical black hole?”
“Yup. Apparently.”
My fist slammed into a tree. I was so angry that I didn’t even register the pain for a second. “They don’t have to feed them. And if they just disappear—it’s no fucking big deal.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. I tried to focus on my breathing because my heartrate was out of control.
Two hands landed softly on my shoulders and I opened my eyes to stare up at Evan. “The rest of the world just see monsters,” he said.
“Only because the Pinnacle—” I cut myself off and ignored Evan’s curious gaze. “So, Jeff’s mom is just gone?”
Evan nodded. “I also called a couple of Institutes out here to see if it was just an east coast thing.”
“And?”
“I pretended I had a brother who’d just turned, and I needed to find a space for him ASAP.”
Anxiety kicked around my throat. “What was the wait time?”
“Two days. Every facility I called said that they had availability.”
The wind whipped up and chilled the sweat that slicked my back. But my shiver had nothing to do with the cold. My hands reached up and covered Evan’s where they rested on my shoulders. I squeezed, my fury and anger and heartbrokenness flowing out from my hands into him. “So, it’s everywhere. Vamps are going missing everywhere.”
I felt like I’d just looked down at my feet only to find I was balanced on a tightrope hanging over a canyon. About to fall. Someone was taking vamps. Helpless vampires who’d gone magically mindless. Vamps who couldn’t defend themselves. My eyes flew up to Evan’s and pleaded. “How can we keep him safe?”
He sighed and pulled his hands away from mine so he could pace. I watched him think for a few minutes, trying to come up with a solution myself. Vampires were notoriously fast and hard to catch. That’s why ceremonies to go Unnatural had to take place at designated facilities. The people who attempted the spell had to sign waivers and chain their ankles to the ground before they started. Guards with animal tranquilizers stood on platforms that overlooked the spell zone. Every middle school magical had to watch like twenty godawful, afterschool-special-style videos about it. Matthew was in a room, but could we really get in there and chain him up? Could we smuggle him out?
Evan paused his pacing to break a twig off a nearby tree. He stripped the leaves as he thought, frowning. “Getting him out of there is the obvious solution. I don’t have rights to request that. And you’re not quite legal.”
“Psh. A few more weeks.”
“Even so, pretty sure your mom has the authority. We could disguise him, I guess. Not sure how well that would work. And where the hell would we keep him?”
I licked my lips. There was one person I knew who could write a damn fine spell to change her appearance at will. One person who was somewhat sympathetic to my connection with vamps. One person who was going to be here later today. “If I can get him out of the facility, do you know of a place we can keep him safe?”
Evan’s mouth quirked to the side. “I don’t want you doing anything illegal—”
