Page 115 of Delinquents Turned Fugitives
“Do you use an illegal honesty amulet to question all your suspects?”
“Yes.”
Muller’s face turned nearly purple in rage. It was a beautiful shade of anger and I wished he’d wear it more often.
We rewound, but this time, he was sloppy about it. This time I could feel it somehow; it made me dizzy and I didn’t quite forget everything.
Muller leaned down, his rotten breath fogging my face. “Did you kill Claude King?”
Fuck.
He said the name.
Immediately, Claude appeared right in front of me, smiling maliciously. “Well, well.”
My free hand flew up to signal the guys that the ghost was here.
Time froze.
Literally.
Everyone around me froze, though I remained able to move and completely aware. I glanced down at the trees to see Z and Andros working in tandem, talking to one another as each of them controlled different aspects of time. Andros held the entire area around me frozen, including a poor little blue butterfly who’d gotten caught up in our web. Z rewound Muller and Claude.
“We’ll have to patch our video footage,” I called down to them. Because if they hadn’t frozen Gray’s drone, it would show exactly what was happening.
The guys gave me a thumbs up to show they’d heard.
My eyes moved back to Muller and watched with fascination as his facial expressions reversed in slow motion. Even Claude’s appearance was broken down into tiny parts and I could see the light particles that he consisted of literally dissolving. As soon as Claude disappeared, I dropped my hand, signaling we were good.
Both of my crew lowered their hands and the clock was reset.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You will be.”
“Well, if I’m not now, I’ve got a dead mother to mourn, you fuck,” I turned and stomped up the hill.
Muller, of course, couldn’t stand being disrespected like that, and hurried after me. He grabbed me, but as he did, his eyes widened in horror.
I had to bite down on a smile because suddenly, Muller had a raging hard on. It wasn’t natural, of course. It was courtesy of a little Dick Tick present from Evan. But still. I faked horror. “Oh my God! You sick pervert! Do you get off on accusing people of shit? Get off me!”
Muller hadn’t realized yet exactly what was going on in his pants, and his fury at me outweighed a random boner. He shook me as he said, “I’m gonna prove that you killed Claude King.”
Cue the ghost.
Claude appeared the second his name was uttered. And my furious stepfather took one look at me, sizing up the situation, before he dove straight into Muller’s body.
Muller’s ghost-possessed hands came up and latched around my throat as I screamed.
