Page 17 of Delinquents Turned Fugitives
I shook my head. “You’re too drained.”
Z ignored me and dipped the wooden wand into an inkwell Malcolm had handed him and then unfurled a thin strip of parchment so he could write a spell.
I stuck my hand out to stop him and grabbed his shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
Z shrugged my hand off. “Relax. I’m not gonna try to boost it with my powers. But you need it. Trust me.” He grimaced as he glanced at my neck. The wounds must look worse than I’d thought. Then he wrote the same spell he’d used to heal my ankle in the locker room back at school. My neck heated slightly as Z guided the floating orange ball of light toward it, and heated even more as the magic sunk into my skin. Unlike last time, my injuries didn’t instantly heal. My neck still ached and turning it was still going to be a challenge. My bicep burned as he guided the light over it. He did wait patiently while that wound knit itself back together. And he might have pushed himself a little to speed it up; it took only ten minutes to heal. That’s why, when it was done, I deliberately didn’t mention my side or my hand, because in comparison, those were minor.
And we were also cutting it close.
The driver yelled from the front, “First stop: Drunken Lane. Idiots, leave please. I’ll meet you on the other side of the road, three blocks down in one hour. The van will be green then, so don’t forget.”
Z and Malcolm slid out of the van and into the night.
“Be careful!” I warned.
“Pssh, like you need to worry. We’re gonna be the life of the party!” Z winked.
I glanced over at Malcolm. “Don’t let him get too out of control.”
Malcolm looked at me. “Challenge declined.”
Fucker.
He just chimed in, “We just successfully escaped from the Pinnacle, Shakespeare. We’re probably gonna need to blow off a little steam.”
“Not too much—” The van door slammed closed, cutting off my ‘mom-style’ lecture.
I glared at their backs as they put on fake drunken smiles and went laughing down the street.
“They better not get in trouble.” I growled.
“They better not run into any of those rampaging vampires,” the driver muttered.
“What?” I asked. “What’s up, Maurice?”
Maurice pulled an earpod out of his ear and adjusted the speaker on the radio. The station was some AM sports channel, but the speaker didn’t say a damn thing about sports. Instead, a man’s tenor voice said solemnly, “We repeat, this is not a drill. Vampires are on the rampage in Hidden City. The Pinnacle’s SWAT team has eliminated twelve individuals but an unknown number remain at large. There’s currently a lockdown for a ten-block radius surrounding Pinnacle headquarters. All norms and magicals alike are being advised to shelter in place.”
Well, fuck. Claude’s ice burns had nothing on the iceberg that smashed into my stomach. Part of me wanted to turn the van back around and burn rubber, racing right back into the thick of it so I could … I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the van wall. I tried to shake off that sensation. Because I hadn’t trained to kill a vamp in my entire life. I’d be less than useless.
Maurice pulled up to a red light and turned to look at us. “You’re better off acting like you don’t know anything, going through with your plan anyway.”
I nodded even as I rubbed my forehead, wondering if guilt could cause migraines.
Evan’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Don’t, Hailstorm. This isn’t on you. It’s on him.”
I shook my head.
I’d just tried to do the right thing. That damn vampire had been trapped. My gut lit with a slow burn.
“Sometimes good intentions go awry,” Gray rubbed my shoulder.
I shrugged him off. That was the understatement of the damn year.I might not know how to kill vamps right now, but you can bet your ass that’s changing,I told myself.
Because if I ever got my hands on Callum again, I was gonna end that fucker.
