“I never asked you to.”
“She destroyed my family,” Lara whispered, her lower lip trembling with the force of her grief. “She and her wolves slaughtered them all. I watched her kill them.” A tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a glistening streak across her alabaster skin. “She found me hiding after the massacre. I was the last one left, only six years old. The rest of my people had surrendered or been killed. She thought about killing me too. But in the end, she let me live. Do you have any idea how awful it feels to have your opponent turn their back on you? As if you’re too pathetic and worthless to even waste their time on?”
He beat back a twinge of sympathy with years of practiced callousness. “Did I ask for your life story? If your family was defeated by a pack of dimwitted dogs, they deserved to die.”
“Alex, please.” Lara rushed forward and grasped his arm. She held him tight, forcing him to meet her mesmerizing green gaze. Fear swam in her eyes. “If you have any self-preservation at all, you will not cross her.”
He blinked at her in confusion, uncharacteristically lost for words. He had expected her wrath, her ridicule, or at the very least, a cold shoulder. He had never expected her to plead with him as if she truly cared what became of him. He shrugged her off and headed back into the living room. Nathan had arrived. They were ready to begin.
“Amy’s not taking our threats seriously,” Nathan said as Alex sat on the sofa across from him.
“That’s why we’re kicking things up a notch.” He smirked.
Nathan smiled, twisting the ugly scar on his face. Alex had briefed him on the plan through a mind link, a useful darkness power that allowed him to implant his own thoughts and schemes into other people’s heads. The stupid human believed Alex’s plan was his own idea. He smiled. Let Nathan think what he liked. He was going to take the fall for anything he screwed up. “We take her tomorrow.” Nathan nodded.
Ash grinned with mindless eagerness. Peter shifted in his seat, his green eyes flicking from face to face. He was looking for support and finding none. Alex speared him with a narrow look. Peter had better not mess this up. He had always been the most reluctant of the group because he was there against his will. Peter’s father had founded Assassin’s Honor when he was in high school and had grown the gang into an infamous arms dealing business. As Peter was his only son, Mr. Jenkins expected him to follow in his footsteps. Forcing Peter to join the junior division of Assassin’s Honor had accomplished nothing except to plant an enormous thorn in Alex’s side. His shark’s grin widened. He had his own special plans for Peter.
Eighteen
AMY CLENCHED HER fists so hard her nails broke the skin. Charles was wrong. He had to be wrong, because if he was right—The doorbell chimed, and Amy leapt out of her skin. She shook herself and wrenched it open. Mrs. Matthews stood smiling on her doorstep.
“Sarah, your mom’s here!” Amy called over her shoulder. Relief swept through her at having Susan’s party over with. Hosting a gathering of fourth graders at a house targeted by a gang was a recipe for disaster.
Zack was the last to arrive. She opened the door and bit back a string of grumbling complaints about him having nothing better to do than inconvenience her. “Hey. Chris will be ready in a minute.”
“You got—the note—Banks said,” Zack spluttered. She took in his red face and rigid expression and slammed her door for the second time that evening. “Amy, open up!”
She took a deep breath and let him in. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” She turned toward the kitchen. Zack grasped her arm. “Hey!” She tensed at his touch.
“Where is it?”
She huffed out a breath. This was like a badly rehearsed robbery. “You people are obsessed.” She yanked the crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and slapped it into his palm.
His expression darkened as he read. “How dare they! Who do they think they are? Why aren’t you freaking out?”
“Been there, done that.”
He raked his gaze over her face. “When did you get this?”
“It was in my locker before homeroom.”
His expression softened. “Is that why you were late?”
He genuinely cared? Warmth spread from her heart and trickled through her veins. “It wasn’t the best start to my day,” she said.
“You and Sue could stay with us for a while.” Zack gave her a tentative smile. Sparks of heat zipped between them.
Amy blinked, unease and affection twisting together in her gut. This took helping her to a whole new level. Why was he offering? Why was she tempted to accept? “Your parents would hate that idea. Not to mention your girlfriend.”
“My parents aren’t even in the country right now. No one will care. Chris and Sue will love it.”
Prickles of annoyance crept up her spine. Why was he acting as if she had already agreed to stay with him? She erected a swift emotional boundary to safeguard her heart. “Thanks, but no thanks.” She had learned the hard way to rely on no one but herself.
His expression hardened. “What’s your plan, then?”
Amy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Zack, I appreciate your concern, I really do. But this is on me, okay? Trust me, I know what I’m doing. I was hanging out with gangsters while you were busy playing Farmville.”
“You were in a gang?” Skepticism laced his tone.
She laughed. “Of course not. I dated a few guys who were.”
His mouth twitched. “You dated gangsters in middle school? What were their crimes? Did they rip off candy stores for you?”
“One was a small-time drug dealer, but that’s just my point! It’s the same difference, whether we’re talking middle school drug dealers or high school gangster wannabes. They walk around in groups, acting all macho and tough with nothing but their egos to back them up. These guys live for intimidation. Hiding from them just lets them know they’re getting to you.”
Zack gave up and took Chris home. Amy made a late dinner of mac and cheese and spent the evening watching ancient reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Susan. She drowned her worries with innumerable mugs of hot chocolate and firmly steered her thoughts clear of Assassin’s Honor. Focusing on the kickass teen vampire slayer and the bowl of buttery popcorn at her elbow was better than spending the evening in a state of debilitating panic. But try as she might to keep calm, the walls closed tighter around her with every bit of daylight that leeched from the darkening sky. Night had always brought a certain dread to Amy’s heart. Something about being unconscious for the darkest hours of the day made her nervous. Now, more than ever, she wished she were able to sleep with one eye open.
Distant ringing clashed with a fight scene. She dug her mother’s cell phone from between the couch cushions and checked the caller ID. It was their landlord, a compassionate soul with a heart of gold. She jabbed the accept icon. “Hello, Mr. Davis.”
“Hello,” he replied, exhaustion thick in his voice. “That you, Amy?”
“It is.” She smiled affectionately. Mr. Davis was a kind man, too kind for real estate. They were three months behind on their payments, yet he was still patient with her mother. Mrs. Evans had gotten him to lower their already reasonable rent in exchange for passing on routine upkeep and maintenance.
Mr. Davis cleared his throat. “Is your mother there?”
“Sorry, she must have left early for work. I haven’t seen her all afternoon.” Unease knotted in her stomach. How had her mom forgotten her phone? And why had she left so early?
“Okay, she’s at work.” Skepticism saturated his words. “Will you pass along a message?”
“Of course.” Amy opened a note on her iPhone.
“Please tell her this is your thirty-day eviction notice.”
Her heart took a sickening nosedive into her shoes. She stared at the phone in her lap, then at the one in her hand. “W-why?”
“She missed the rent deadline again. I am truly sorry, Amy. I can’t afford tenants who are unable to make t
heir payments.”
Her mouth felt impossibly dry. She cleared her throat and choked out words. “Of course. I, I understand.” Her thoughts tumbled over one another. What would she do now? Where would they go? The streets? A homeless shelter? Fists of fear clenched her insides. They were going to transfer Susan into foster care.
“Do you have any relatives who might help you?” Mr. Davis was grasping at straws, giving her every chance to save their home.
She considered Justin, across the country in Vancouver. He might be able to support Susan if he worked two jobs while going to school. Susan would have to leave her new friends behind, but at least she would escape the foster care system.
Amy spoke, her words coming out dull after a painfully long silence. “No one can help with the rent.” The image of a bulging, cream-colored envelope skittered across her mind. Hope raised her heart back to its proper place in her chest. “I swear Mom withdrew the money. Maybe she forgot to bring it to you. Will you stay on the line while I check?”
“Absolutely,” he answered on a relieved sigh.
She muted the call and raced up the stairs two at a time. Her mom had withdrawn the money, she was certain of it. There had been an envelope of cash in her top dresser drawer when Amy had put laundry away a few days ago. Rex dumping her had thrown her into a tailspin, causing the rent to slip her mind. It was lying there, ready for the taking, buried beneath a pile of her mother’s ankle socks.
She yanked open her mother’s dresser drawer and riffled through her piles of folded clothes. She searched the drawer three times before admitting the money wasn’t there. Dread tugged at her heart, even as hope urged her onward. She repeated the process with each drawer of her mother’s dresser, flinging garments over her shoulder as she methodically trashed the room. When the drawers were bare and she had failed to find a single bill, she tore them from the dresser itself on the off chance the money had fallen behind them. She only stopped her frantic flinging when faced with a hollow, empty wooden shell.
Amy stood frozen in the center of her mother’s ransacked bedroom and bit back a sob of annihilated defeat. The money had been there two days ago. Where had it gone? Her gaze fell upon a sweat-stained, canary yellow shirt. “Rex Kastel!” she roared. He must have swiped the cash the night he dumped her mother. Her anger melted into nothing, and despair slithered into the hollow cavern in her chest. They were never going to see that money again.
She grabbed her mother’s phone and unmuted the call. “Hey, Mr. Davis, you still there?” Her voice came out pinched and raw.
“You didn’t find the money.” His words were heavy with regret.
“Yeah, sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll tell Mom about the eviction notice.” She ended the call before he could apologize again. It wasn’t his fault the world sucked.
Notifications on the lock screen caught her eye, a missed call and voicemail from her mother’s work. She listened to the message with a tightness in her chest that made it hard to breathe. It was there, perched atop a pile of her mother’s crumpled clothes, that her last shred of hope slipped away. Her mom had been fired. She was late for the fourth time that week, and she had missed three full shifts that month alone. It was a wonder they hadn’t let her go sooner.
A floorboard creaked. Susan was hovering in the hall, her face pinched with worry. “I heard you yelling. What’d Rex do now?”
“Nothing,” Amy lied. “I’ll sort it out, don’t worry.” She wanted to curl into the fetal position and die. Instead, she tucked Susan into bed and sat with her sister until she fell asleep.
Amy wandered through their tiny house, imagining the walls bare, the rooms empty. She had never liked the place much, but it had sheltered her and Susan for two mediocre years.
She sat in the kitchen to think through her options with a mug of cream earl grey tea. If she dropped out of school and worked full-time? No. Susan needed an adult guardian. If she and Susan moved to Vancouver to be with Justin, Amy dropped out of school, and worked full-time? That could work. But what about their mom? She and Justin couldn’t support her in addition to Susan, and her drinking created instability that social workers frowned upon. She set her jaw and squared her shoulders. If the choice was between her mom or Susan, she’d choose Susan every time.
With that decided, Amy moved on to more immediate problems—the gang of lunatics intent on killing her dead. She marched up the stairs to her bedroom, locked the door, and stood on tiptoe to reach her closet’s top shelf. She pushed aside some ratty linen sheets and removed her dad’s pistol, the only thing he had left behind when he ditched. Amy loaded it with a grim nod and tucked it deep into her backpack. Assassin’s Honor had another think coming if they thought she was going down without a fight.
Amy had a restless sleep. Her dreams were haunted by piles of bills and tiny paychecks, when they ought to have centered around hulking gangsters in black leather jackets. Her mother returned home around three in the morning, and Amy slept easier after that. At least she was okay. Useless and self-absorbed, but okay.
Amy woke Susan twenty minutes ahead of schedule. They caught the early bus to avoid a surprise meeting with Assassin’s Honor. She flopped into a window seat and rested her forehead against the cool glass pane. Charles’s dire warnings ran through her head for the billionth time, and the pistol tucked safely in her pack was all that kept her calm. It had to put an end to the gang’s antagonism. No sane person picked a fight with the crazy chick who brought a gun to school.
The bus squealed to a stop to let some more kids on, a tall, shady-looking guy among them. A jolt of electric fear nearly stopped her heart. The shady guy was the member of Assassin’s Honor who had held her arms behind her back on Wednesday. She thought his name was Alex. He headed for the back of the bus, passing within inches of her and Susan. She risked a glance over her shoulder and met his piercing blue eyes.
Her stomach lurched and churned like it had been stuffed with wriggling snakes. She darted her gaze away and struggled to calm her racing pulse. Alex couldn’t do anything on a crowded bus. Showing up out of the blue was a scare tactic, nothing more. Still, she had woken up early to avoid this very thing. How had he known where to find her?
Susan and Amy got off at Parsons Elementary. She rushed her sister to class and warily crossed the street to the high school. Alex was waiting near the entrance, his muscled arms crossed over his chest and his blue eyes glinting like chips of ice. She approached him with her heart pounding in her ears and every muscle tensed to run. Why had she stuck her pistol in her backpack? What lunatic part of her brain had imagined that was a good idea? She needed to clutch the pistol in her pocketed fist and be ready to defend herself if he made an aggressive move. But with her weapon buried beneath her school supplies and zipped securely within the bookbag on her back, it might as well be collecting dust on the top shelf of her closet for all the good it would do.
She drew level with Alex and held his penetrating gaze. They stood like that for a long, potent moment, each of them sizing the other up with mingled wariness and disdain. It took everything she had to stride past him into the school. His eyes bored into her back, but she resisted the temptation to glance over her shoulder. She would not give him the satisfaction. She marched forward on jelly legs, bracing herself for a blow with every shaky step she took. An attack never came. Alex’s goal had been psychological warfare, and he had achieved that simply by standing still. Amy sped to her locker and hid behind its metal door. She dug her hand into her backpack’s inside pocket and slipped the pistol into her purse. A forceful breath escaped her lips, a visceral reaction to surviving the encounter.
“Hey.”
“Ouch!” she squeaked as she knocked a thesaurus onto her shoes. She looked up and nodded to Zack’s blond football friend.
His eyes widened at the sight of her. “Wow! You look terrible. Sleep through your alarm again?”
Why was he keeping track of her life? “Nope, didn’t sleep much at all.” She brushed a
tangled lock of hair out of her face.
In sharp contrast to her disheveled appearance, Zack’s friend had perfectly styled blond hair and dazzling, china blue eyes. He magnetically attracted girls, laying the charm on thick and breaking hearts with a single pretty-boy smile.
Locker Buddy’s girlfriend was prancing straight toward them. Amy gazed heavenward. When had her locker become the new cool kid hangout?
“Hi, Amy!” Jessie flashed her that kind, genuine smile she had. “Rough morning?”
Amy frowned. Was that a dig? “Yeah,” she mumbled. “Have to get to homeroom.” She had the sinking suspicion Jessie’s dad was her landlord. They had the same last name, and they both came from money. They would have a juicy something to discuss at the dinner table when she fled Toronto in disgrace.
“Amy, wait.” Jessie grabbed her arm before she could escape. “Are you going out with Zack? Because it’s cool with me if you are. Chelsea is a total bitch. I’m super sorry for the way she treated you yesterday. She’s awful, mean and selfish to the point of narcissism. That’s why Zack dumped her.” Amy stared at Jessie. Information overload. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to babble. Sometimes I do that. I’m going to stop now.” Jessie clamped her mouth shut.
A loaded silence followed her words. Amy shifted from foot to foot. “They broke up? When?”
Jessie toyed with a lock of her auburn hair. “Yesterday afternoon. Right after you left.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Amy wailed.
“Don’t worry. No one thinks it was your fault. Chelsea made a huge, dramatic scene. Pretty much threw a temper tantrum in the middle of school. It must have been awful for Zack.”
“Why are you cool with this? Aren’t you guys best friends?”
Jessie’s pretty smile dimmed. “Not anymore.” She rushed on after an uncomfortable beat. “I hear Zack was over at your house last night.”
Amy felt her mouth part. Rumors spread like wildfire. Did cheer squad girls know everything? Was the whole school spying on her? She pictured gossip-obsessed cheerleaders peering through her living room windows in the dead of night and fought an insane fit of giggles.
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