Brutal Precious (Lovely Vicious #3) (26 page)

“Where ish you going?” Isis looks up with a mouthful of pie.

“I have some business I need to take care of.” Vanessa shoots a look at the waiter, and nods to the both of us. “Have a good night.”

“Bye!” Isis waves frantically, then looks at me. “I like her.”

I wipe pie filling off her cheek. “She’s an operative. She doesn’t like you. She’s just pretending.”

Isis frowns grumpily. “I could do it, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Plant that device. Will likes messing with me. I’m sure he’d let me in his room if I knocked.”

“Isis, no. You’re not going to confront him. He’s already put you through enough.”

“Which is why I need to confront him.” She sucks her finger free of whip cream thoughtfully.

“You’re not,” I say firmly. “Going to plant the device. You’ll leave it to me. This is my job, not yours.”

She stares at me, dark eyes so innocent and wide. Finally she shrugs.

“Alright.”

“I’m serious, Isis.”

“As a heart attack,” she agrees. “I promise I won’t. It’s all you, baby. Ugh. Did I just call you baby? You are a baby. A whiny baby. With a nice butt.”

I can’t be mad at her for long, my smile strained but still there. In the car, I clear my throat.

“If Will ever tries something, if he threatens you, you can always come to me. You know that, right? I’ll take care of it.”

“I know.” She says idly, staring out the window.

“I’ll protect you,” I say. “I swear it.”

“Hush up,” She leans in. “And kiss me.”

Her lips are fire and apple and cinnamon spice, driving all worries from my mind. We never quite make it home. I pull over at a nearby park, the sun just going down, and Isis straddles my lap and we kiss until the sun disappears behind the trees. My hand slides up her dress and her smell and pants cloud the car in a deliriously succulent haze. When she’s on the verge of losing control, she buries her head in my neck and bites it.

“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you, you stupid idiot.”

I stop my ministrations in her underwear, and she whines. I lock eyes with her, watching her pleasure-fogged expression contort with want. Sweat mists her forehead, her chin, and I kiss it.

“Sorry,” she tries. “I’m sorry I called you an idiot. Please –”

I laugh and resume my work, and she gasps.

“We’re both idiots,” I murmur into her ear.

 
Later, much later, days later, when we’ve drunk ourselves silly of each other’s bodies and brought each other to brink and back again so many times I’ve lost count, I return to that restaurant and ask after the waiter. The hostess informs me he hasn’t shown up for work since we ate there. She gives me his address when I pretend to be a concerned friend, and the derelict apartment is completely empty, save for a single mattress on the ground, and a note.

J,

He won’t be bothering you again. I took care of it.

V.

I pocket the note, and shiver.

This world of secrecy and blood was fine when it was just me in it. When I was immersed in it, I wasn’t afraid of it.

But now that I have Isis, now that I have something to lose, it is absolutely terrifying.

0 Years

1 Week

5 Days

“You are fired from being my best friend!” Kayla screams. Even her two in the morning Skype face is Beyonce-flawless. I want to be her except I don’t, because the idea of dating Wren is almost basically like incest because he is so little-brothery to me, and also titties that enormous would make me trip at an inopportune moment, like, say, over the lion’s cage railing at the zoo, and I’d die.

“Stop talking about my boobs! You’re fired!”

“Kayla,” I whine attractively. “Kayla listen, I am not fired, you are fired up.”

“Hell yes I am fired up!” She slams her water glass down and it splooshes all over her everything. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Because!” I blush. “Because. Because I was
busy
.”

Kayla smirks knowingly, and I yell.

“Shut up!”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Shut up anyway!”

“Finally!” She ignores my request. “God, it took you two
forever
.”

“Ten months is not forever.”

“You could have a baby in that time!”

“Ugh, no, please. No grubs. Promise me you won’t have a grub.”

“I will have nine hundred grubs just to spite you. Speaking of grubs, you’re using condoms, right?”

“YES.”

She just giggles. “Aren’t they weird? Like weird little plastic socks.”

“I will put one on your head and suffocate you.”

“I’m sorry!” She throws her hands up. “I’m just happy you finally got what you wanted in life!”

“Jack is not all I wanted in life,” I roll my eyes. “What I want in life is a stable yet satisfying career in the field of my choosing and a giant house made of a single donut.”

“And Jack.”

“And Jack can come sleep in my donut house sometimes. Yes.”
 

Kayla stares at me, smiling with increasing amounts of dorkishness.

“What?” I snap.

“You really are in love.”

“Ugh.”

“I’m serious! What other boy would you let sleep in your donut house?”

“Johnny Depp.”

“Yes but he’s married.”

“Ughhhh. People who are married can totally sleep in my donut house.”

“Wait,” Kayla looks like she’s been struck by lightning and/or has come up with the most brilliant hypothesis this side of teenage girl science. “Is donut house a euphorism?”

I groan and roll myself up in a blanket and then roll on the ground like a particularly floral sausage. Skype beeps with another call, and I bolt up.

“Oh, hang on. I’ve got another call coming in.”

I flip over to it, and Vanessa’s face greets me.

“Oh, hi! It’s you!”

“It’s me,” She agrees. She looks different without all her makeup on, and she’s in some kind of fancy hotel room. The bed sheets are too perfectly made. “I assume you found the note I wrote you in your phone?”

“Yeah! I’m kind of amazed you managed to type all that out while just pretending to look at my pictures.”

‘If you’re still interested, I’ll contact you via Skype from twelve to three am. My username is [email protected]’

“I didn’t want Jack to see it,” she says. “What I’m proposing would make him angry, and I want him to focus.”

“So,” I glance at my phone. “You want me to plant the keylog thingy, or whatever?”

“Precisely.”

“Okay, I’d love to do that for you and all, but I’m gonna need some incentive.”

Vanessa nods. “Of course. I’d be happy to pay you –”

“Uh, no. I don’t want money.”

“Then what do you want?”

I knit my lips and debate the validity of telling a secret government agent a very dirty secret. Her face is so set and determined, and it’s then I realize she doesn’t care about anyone else’s business. It’ll all get shoved aside as information, a means to an end. It’s Will she’s after.

“So, Jack did something. A long time ago.”

“The Hernandez disappearance?”

I squirm. “Uh, yeah. How did you –”

“Don’t be silly. I know all I need to know.”

“So then you know the feds gave the tape of that, um, incident, to Will’s friends. So they could clear up the tape for them.”

“Regrettably, yes.”

“But aren’t you guys hunting Will and his friends? So why –”

“There is little cooperative communication between us and the federal government,” she says quickly. “Call it rivalry, call it human pride, but mixups like this happen very often. We don’t tell the feds what we are doing and to whom, so we sometimes end up arresting people they’ve…
enlisted
for help.”

“Right. Well. I’ll do the whole keylog thing for you. But. But I want you to make that footage go away. I want you to make it stop going to the feds. Or anyone. Forever.”

Vanessa purses her lips. “That’s an awfully big request. You’re asking me to tamper with evidence in a federal cold case.”

“I know. But. If you do it, I’ll do the keylogging thing. Tonight. Right away. Just make it disappear.”

A tiny voice in my head begs to ask her to make the footage Will has of me defacing Summers’ office go away, too. But Jack’s dilemma is more important. Jack’s means jail. Mine just means getting kicked out of college. So I stand firm.

Vanessa ponders it, then sighs.

“Alright. You put the keylog on tonight, and I’ll make some calls.”

“Thank you,” I breathe. “Thank you so much.”

“I’ll have my associate drop the keylog off in a brown paper bag, in the right side garbage can outside Ciao Bella. That’s the café on your campus.”

“Duh. I’ve been there a thousand times.”

She fixes me with a stern look, and I fall quiet.

“You’ll attach the keylog to the inside of one of the USB ports on his computer. Any one will do, just make sure it’s all the way inside. All I need is for the keylog to stay in the computer for four hours. After that, I’ll be able to access his harddrive anytime I choose.”

“USB port, all the way inside. Got it.”

“I’ll know when it’s done. Expect a visit from my associate friend in the next few weeks. He’ll tell you when your reward goes through.”

“Right.”

“And Isis,” Vanessa says. “Be careful. Will is not a good person.”

I smirk.

“I know.”

Vanessa logs off, and I switch back to Kayla.

“Everything okay?” She asks. “You look kind of sick.”

“Sick nasty rad,” I correct.

“No, like, throw-up sick.”

I’m quiet, staring at the darkness of her bedroom as she stares at the darkness of mine, three thousand miles away.

“Hey, Kayla?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you still be my friend if...if I dropped out?”

Kayla furrows her brows. “Of course, dumbass. Do you not like, like it there?”

“I thought I would! I thought I really wanted to be here. I thought it would be great, and it’s been okay, but. It’s just boring,” I say. “School is boring. I wanna go places, and see new things. Things that aren’t textbooks. I want to travel! I wanna get out of this state, this country. I just wanna…
go
.”

“Then you should. You should do whatever you want to.”

“You don’t think it’s stupid? You don’t think I’ll be ruining my future forever or something?”

 
“Uh, no? You’re Isis Blake! You’re not me, or Wren, or even Jack. You’re not like other people. You’re hilarious and fast and good, and you’re you. You’ll do just fine, no matter what you do with your life. Nothing is ever ruined forever. And I’ll always be your friend.”
 

My eyes well up with tears, and so do hers. She laughs, wiping her cheeks.

“As long as you go for what makes you happy, everything will turn out okay. I promise.”

***

The next morning, I try my hardest to look like I’m not doing spy things. I wear a bright yellow skirt and a tank top with flowers on it (the world can see my scar, I don’t hide it anymore) and I smile and say hi to everyone, even Heather, even the seven(ty) boys I may or may not have made out with. Spies are not friendly. No one will ever know I am doing spy things.

“Are you doing spy things?”

“Jesus H Christo!” I yelp, and whirl around to see Charlie glaring at me. “How – how did you –” I lean in and whisper. “
Can you read minds
?”

“You were talking outloud,” He deadpans. “Ugh, and that yellow is hideous. Word of advice, if you wanna be a spy, wear black.”

“I’m not a spy!” People stare. I immediately lower my voice. “I am not a
spy
. I simply…threw an important paper away. On accident. Yeah.”

Charlie looks at my hand buried in the trashcan, and then stares pointedly at me.

“Many papers,” I correct. “An entire notebook. Full of papers.”

“Here,” He grunts, putting his hand in and pulling out the paper bag, wiping the banana peel off it. “Weirdo. If you want drugs, you can get it like normal people do and go pick them up from the dealer. That way, you don’t have to dig around in garbage. Everybody wins.”

“Right. Um. Thankyoubye.”

I fast-walk away as quick as I can. I run into the glass door of my dorm and denounce the devil loudly, rubbing my sore forehead.