Page 86 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
I gritted my teeth as I studied the faces on screen. I'd already spent nearly a year getting to know the Pinnacle's security staff. But they didn't have wand access to the lower levels in the bunker. I needed someone at Claude’s level or just a step below. Not a lot of choices.
I looked up from the computer and stretched my feet out on my bed. My back was sore, and I stretched, before looking across the room. Grayson sat at my desk working on a project for his Math and Literature class. I glanced over at Grayson as he wrote, a book of Emily Dickenson poems open on the desk next to him.
Something about that was hot. About the fact that a huge, burly masculine guy like him hunched over the wounded words that poured out of a dead woman's heart. I stared at him for a while, my face outlining his figure. He would glance at his book every so often and then hold up his phone to take notes.
A quiet, productive evening was actually the last thing I’d expected. The last couple nights, Malcolm and Zavier had kept me busy. In more playful ways. Malcolm had brought over a chess set and made me play strip chess with him. Every time I lost a piece—I was horrible at chess—I lost an article of clothing. We’d ended up making out and his fingers had done amazing things inside my panties while we’d rolled around on the floor.
Zavier hadn’t even come over with the pretense of doing any kind of work. When I’d opened my window for him, he’d crawled in, stood up, grabbed me by the hips and thrown me on the bed like a caveman. We’d gotten hot and heavy but hadn’t gone all the way. He’d kept saying he didn’t want to ruin me for all others yet.
I’d laughed and gone down on him, expecting him to change his mind. But he’d come in my mouth instead. And then reciprocated. Three times. My eyelids fluttered thinking about it.
After those encounters, I was a little disappointed to actually be making headway on the heist. But maybe Grayson was the most serious of all of us. I’d heard he’d made an excuse to get out of Study Hall yesterday and go practice in the woods with the clay dummies. He’d managed to keep three of them in the sky.
Grayson chuckled as he glanced between his phone and his book.
"What are you reading?" I asked. I didn’t think Emily Dickenson wrote anything funny.
Grayson looked over at me. And for some strange reason, his chuckles turned to laughter. Not just laughter. Howling. He slapped his knees and held his ribs.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked, setting aside my laptop and going over to check his forehead. But I passed the mirror on my dresser as I walked his way. I stopped dead, staring at my reflection in horror.
My face was neon green. Bright fucking green. Like poisonous frog green. My hands flew to my cheeks. Then I turned to Grayson and tackled that jerk. I pummeled him, but my fists did nothing to stop his laughter. And with how hard his damn abs were, I doubted he even felt my punches. I shoved at him, trying to get a better grip, and his shirt slipped up, revealing those delicious abs.
Grayson looked up at me, "You're turning green all over again!" He snorted. "It faded for a second when you were pissed. But ... I'm just that irresistible, I guess."
I sat up next to him, staring. "You sound exactly like Zavier right now. I think you two need to stop hanging out."
"Well, this prank was his idea."
"WHAT?"
“They’ve been watching you on video chat all night.” He held up his phone, where the other assholes in the crew were all gathered, faces crowded the screen. Every single one of them was contorted in laughter. Grayson pulled the phone back from me and hung up on them. "Any time you think dirty thoughts about any of us, your face turns a specific color. Pink for Z. Blue for Malcolm, white for Evan…"
Horror. Serial killer chasing me through a dark alley horror filled me. I leaned back down and punched Grayson's chest as hard as I could. "You're evil!"
"Evil genius," he snorted again, lifting his shirt.
My eyes couldn't help it. Those abs were unreal.
"Green again," Grayson taunted.
I couldn't retaliate magically. I didn't have time to write a spell. So, I reverted to the age-old torture. Tickles. I tickled Grayson Mars until he gasped, until he begged. I didn't stop until there were tears in his eyes.
"You're distracting me when I'm supposed to be picking a mark," I said.
"You should already know your mark," Grayson said from his spot on my floor. "There's only one person out there who has to go down into that bunker all the time. Only one other person who could randomly wander into the Pinnacle and see your dad and screw everything up for us."
"Who?"
"The Darklight. Ginny Stone."
Chapter 34
Ginny Stone provedto be a ghost—but not the kind I could see. The woman was a freaking mystery. Other than her signature to transfer the vampires, and that one vague memory my dad had of her, I couldn’t find documentation on her anywhere. No birth certificate. Nothing.
The Pinnacle had erased her. So had the American government. That could only mean one thing. They were working together.
Norm government files were so much easier to hack. While they purchased spell protection, too many of them didn’t know how they worked. They didn’t understand that a spell’s power faded with time. And the red tape to get new purchases approved meant that there were all kinds of pretty little gaps where I could hop around.
