Page 51 of Amethyst Flame
I texted him too.Find the monster
And he got back to me.Already on it
My mom looked less amused. In fact, she looked like she was waiting to rip into me.
“Well?” her father demanded. “Is she answering?”
“No. Her phone’s probably off so no one can track her.” Which meant Jacob couldn’t either right now, but maybe he could get something. “She’ll see it eventually. She’s going to think about my offer. She’s going to weigh her options. It’s gonna look shady that I’m texting so soon after we met anyway.”
The man in question was grinding his teeth. He raised his hands toward me in a mock strangle. “Why don’t you justcallher.”
“That will totally tip her off.” This dumbass gave me half my genetic material? “Go home. When there is something to know, my mom will contact you. You’ll have to excuse us; she wants to yell at me now.”
He looked at my phone and then slowly lifted his gaze. “I’ll pay you for your phone.”
“So you can impersonate me?” Just so we were clear.
“How much do you want for it?” he pressed. “A thousand dollars? Two?”
“If you’re wondering why she ran away,” I told him, “this is it. This shit right here. I would never do that to her, and I don’t even know her. You don’t respect her, or clearly me. Now get…the fuck…out of my house.”
He reached out toward my phone. “Imogen—”
Power popped in my veins. “Just leave!”
“Ryan,” my mom put in, “I’ll call you. You’d better go now.”
He stalked out of the room to the entry and slammed the front door as he left. He slammed himself into his doctor car too, but the engine was too refined to hear the vehicle start. I released my moths to make sure that he was on his way…and yeah, he’d just finished backing out.
My mother’s eyes glittered.
“I’m not sorry,” I told her.
Her voice came out in an oil slick of smooth rage. “What are you wearing?”
I looked down. Oh. Shit. The BantaMatrix tee. I’d been interning there for three days, and my mom and I hadn’t exactly had time to catch up. She must’ve dismissed all the swag in my room as more mess.
I couldn’t lie to her, but I could make a case for myself. “This is me doing the right thing.Again.Even though I want to piss myself every time I enter the building.”
She was already shaking her head. “How could you go back there? You almost di—” Then she seemed to remember Jacob was within earshot in the kitchen, and she choked on her words…because a new idea seemed to be dawning inside her brain. I could almost see the light of it in her eyes.
She pointed in his direction. “Is he—? Jacob, can you please come out here?”
Her mom tone brooked no evasions.
He skulked out, rubbing his hands on the thighs of his jeans. Nervous? He should be. “Yeah, Ms. Taylor?”
“Are you here because of BantaMatrix?”
“No,” he answered at the same time I said, “Yes.”
There was no way my mom would believe his being here and my working at BantaMatrix was a mere coincidence.
I tried a distraction, asking him, “Did you find this Alex douchebag?”
Jacob’s eyeballs swiveled to me. “Uh. Yeah. I think so, except his middle name is Alexander, not his first name.”
My mom looked to me for an explanation.
