Page 34 of Amethyst Flame
I peered into the electron microscope and started fiddling with the various controls around me. Since the thing was the size of a small rocket and had about as many knobs and buttons, there was a lot of fiddling I could do. “Oh yes, yes,” I murmured under my breath in classic mad scientist speak. “For my independent study thesis I had theorized that…” I switched to absentminded professor noises under my breath. “Of course I’ve never had such advanced tools to work with…” I had no idea what I was doing with these controls, dialing back and forth like a middle school boy’s imagination of boobs. “But I always wondered if…”
I sent a discrete pulse of my hive.
Since I had my face plastered to the microscope visor, I couldn’t see their faces, but violet flashed in the corner of my eye, and the gasps and one muttered “what the fuck?” in distinct Bostonian made me smirk.
I jerked back to stare at them, wide-eyed. “What? What happened?”
Oluwa recovered first. “Well, that was…interesting.” She peered at me. “You’ll have to tell me more about your independent project.”
“Oh, definitely,” I chirped. “Just as soon as I sign that employment contract.”
She smiled at me, although there was a tightness around her eyes.
The moths in the petri dish, disconnected from any hive, had been inactive, essentially dead. The little bit of energy I sent them wasn’t completely out of the realm of what might’ve been possible. But it might make her more interested in me, more likely to show me something I could take back to Dane.
As I stepped back to give everyone else a turn, her gaze lingered on me with blatant speculation. Now that I’d gotten over my panic and proved myself—fake, but whatever—as deserving a spot in the quintet, everything was going to be great. And this time I wasn’t even lying.
I hoped.
CHAPTEREIGHT
BantaMatrix’s glassdoors slid open to a hot gust of Arizona evening air, and the Kidnapper pulled up to the curb. I walked outside, jangling the keys to my car in my hand as I debated this new and unexpected intrusion into my life.
Apparently, the damn devious spies weren’t going to wait for (or risk not getting) the day’s debrief.
Jacob climbed out of the Kidnapper’s front passenger seat and rounded the hood. “He wants to talk to you so I’m driving your piece of shit home.”
Whoa!I held my keys out of his reach. “Nobody talks about my car that way.” Except me, but we’ve been through a lot together.
“Fine,” Jacob said. “Keep ‘em. I don’t want to die today in that rattling heap—”
The glass doors slid open behind me again, and—because I have crap luck—Will stalked out with his wildly long stride. “Hey, Imog—oh, who’s this?”
The two boys sized each other up for a sec.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Jacob finally said.
“Well, hi, boyfriend.” Will held out a hand. “Or is this spat the prelude to a breakup?”
Shit. Now I had to like Will. He managed to be insulting and polite at the same time. It’s far too rare a gift to decline the friendship he’d seemed to be offering me today.
Jacob glanced at Will’s proffered hand, did not take it, and then glared at me. “The keys, Mo.”
I slapped them into his palm. “You be nice to her, or I swear I’ll smother you in your sleep.”
“Kinky,” Will said.
Jacob flashed him a friendly smile. “Fuck off.” Proving that he too was gifted in that special way. I guess I attract a certain kind of guy.
The Kidnapper’s horn beeped.
Yeah, yeah.Dane, who must’ve been watching this exchange from behind his tinted window, was getting impatient.
Jacob scowled and set off to find my car.
“See ya tomorrow,” I said to Will as I headed toward the Kidnapper.
“You’re an enigma, Imogen,” he called after and then stood there watching me, hand up in a confused goodbye wave.
