Hexbound (23 page)

Read Hexbound Online

Authors: Chloe Neill

BOOK: Hexbound
8.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
And then I asked the question that scared me down to my bones.
“They’re doing some kind of secret genetic research that they had to stick me in a boarding school and leave the country to work on. And we know the Reapers were using the sanctuary for some kind of medical stuff. What if—”
Scout held up a hand. “Don’t you even say that out loud. Don’t even think it. I don’t know your parents, but I know you. You’re a good person with a good heart, and I know they raised you to care about other people. Otherwise, you’d be hanging out with the brat pack right now instead of resting up for whatever is coming down the pipeline tomorrow—doing the right thing. The scary thing. I don’t know exactly what your parents are doing right now, Lily. But I know one thing—they are not helping Reapers. There’s no way.”
“But—”
She held up a finger. “I know you want to say it so that I can disagree with you. But don’t. Don’t even put it out there. There’s
no
way. It’s a coincidence, I’ll admit, that we’ve run across two mentions of medical or genetic hoo-ha this week, but even coincidences usually have rational explanations. And you’re not thinking rationally. Your parents are not like them. You know that, right?”
It took a moment—a moment while I thought about all the stuff I didn’t know about my parents right now—but I finally nodded. She was right: Whatever questions I had about the details of their work, I knew
them
. I knew my dad had floppy hair and loved to make breakfast on Sunday mornings and told horrible, horrible jokes. And I knew my mom was the serious one who made sure I ate green vegetables, but loved getting pedicures while she read gossip magazines.
I knew their
hearts
.
She must have seen the change in my face.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Little more enthusiasm there, Parker.”
“Okay.”
“You’re probably going to find out your parents are in Germany working on some kind of top-secret new mascara or something.
Ooh
, or spy stuff. Do you think they’d be doing spy stuff?”
I tried to imagine my dad playing Jason Bourne, or my mom playing a secret operative. “Not really. That’s not really their bag.”
“Mascara, then. We’ll just assume they’re working on mascara.”
My phone picked that moment to ring. I snatched it up, wondering if my parents’ timing was truly that excellent. But it was Jason. Still pretty excellent.
“Hey. How’s your Friday night going?”
“Pretty uneventful,” I told him. Which was mostly true. “What’s happening at Montclare?”
“Poker night. Except none of us has any money, so we’re playing for Fritos. Which Garcia keeps eating—
Garcia
. Lay off my stash, man. How am I going to go all in with four Fritos?”
In spite of myself, I smiled a little. Scout rolled her eyes and flopped down on her bed. “Ugh. Young love makes me totally nauseous.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“So, about tomorrow. How about I swing by at noon?”
“Noon works. What should I wear?”
“Normal Lily stuff. Minus the plaid skirt. I mean—you should definitely wear a skirt or some kind of pants, but you don’t have to wear your plaid skirt since it’ll be a Saturday—”
“You’ve been hanging around with Michael too much.”
He chuckled. “Anyway, you two girls have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay. Good night, Jason.”
“Good night, Lily.”
I hung up the phone and cradled it in my hands for a few seconds. Guilt settled like a rock in my stomach.
Scout rolled over and looked at me. “Oh, cripes. What now?”
I wet my lips. Might as well finish the confession since I’d started it.
“Remember the other day when I went out to draw over lunch?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Well, I didn’t actually end up drawing anything. I kind of got distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
“Sebastian Born.”
Scout sat up straight, blinking like she was trying to take in the statement. “I did not expect to hear that.”
“He found me on the sidewalk. He said he’d wanted to talk to me.”
“About what?”
“About firespell. He feels responsible, I think, that I have magic. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, that we weren’t friends. But then he asked me to go somewhere and talk.”
“Well, you’re not going to do it. You’re certainly not going to go somewhere and talk with him—” Her face fell as realization struck. “Oh, Lil. You already did it, didn’t you?”
“We walked across the street to the taco place.”
“Taco Terry’s?”
I nodded.
“You met with a Reaper at a Taco Terry’s?”
I shrugged.
She looked down at her lap, brow furrowed while she thought it over. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t either.”
“I’m not sure if I should ring your neck for going, or congratulate you for the opposition research.” She gave me a sideways glance. “I want more info before I decide whether I’m totally peeved.”
“He gave me a speech about being a Reaper. About how it’s not as bad as people think. About how magic can be a force of change in the world, even if it means sacrificing people.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
I gave her a flat look. “I think the sacrifice argument would be a little more believable if they could point to anything decent they’d actually done in the world.”
“Fair enough. But what was the point? Was he trying to sway you to their side or something?”
“I don’t know. I feel like he’s playing some kind of game, but I don’t know all the rules. But I think he definitely believes there’s—I don’t know—merit to what they’re doing.”
“That’s the Dark Elite ploy,” she said. “That’s how they build their Reaper army. ‘Think of all the wonderful things we could do with all this magic!’ But when was the last time you saw any of those things?”
I nodded. “He also showed me how to do something.”
“Something?”
“He showed me how to spark my magic—how to create this little molecule of energy.”
“And he showed you this at the Taco Terry’s?”
I nodded.
She shook her head. “That is just . . . bizarre.”
We sat there quietly for a minute.
“Are you totally peeved?”
It took her a really long time to answer.
“I’m glad you’re safe. And I could sit here and yell at you about not being careful, but you did exactly what I’d do.” She looked over at me. “You didn’t just go with him because he’s hot, did you?”
I gave her a flat look.
“Hey,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’m not blind. Just because he’s completely evil doesn’t mean he doesn’t have that tall, dark, and handsome vibe. At least tell me you took the opportunity to interrogate him.”
“Tried,” I said, “but didn’t get much. He denied knowing about Lauren and—what’s the other girl’s name?”
“The French hornist?”
I nodded.
She tilted her head up, eyes squeezed closed. “Joanne or Joley or something? Let’s just say French hornist.”
“Anyway, I asked him about them. He confirmed our
Grimoire
theory.”
Scout paled a little. “They’re looking for me?”
“They are. Or at least your spell book. But I think I put the fear into him.”
There was some pretty insulting doubt in her expression. I batted her with a pillow. “I can be fierce when necessary.”
“Only because you have a wolf at your beck and call.”
“He’s not at my beck and call. And we’re getting off track. Sebastian denied knowing anything about the monsters, but here’s the really weird thing—he told me to go see the vampires. He said something about the ‘missing,’ and said we needed to talk to Nicu to figure out what’s going on.”
“A Reaper sending us into the arms of warring vampires. Yeah, that rings a little more true.”
“What about the missing thing?”
“What about it?”
I rearranged my knees so that I was sitting cross-legged. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Not really. I mean, other than me being kidnapped and all.” Her voice was dry as toast.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. He did say Jeremiah was interested in you.”
Scout went a little pale. “I gotta tell you, that does not thrill me.”
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we? They’re after you ’cause you’re some kind of wonder sorceress, and I’m some kind of crazy, firespell-wielding Adept.”
“You know, we could totally turn that into a comic book.”
“Who’d want to read about pimply teenagers with boy issues and magic problems?” We looked at each other before bursting into laughter.
A knock sounded at the door. “It’s open,” Scout said.
The knob turned, and Lesley stood in the doorway, blinking wide eyes at us. “I need to show you something,” she said.
“What?” Scout asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think it falls into your jurisdiction.”
Without so much as a word, apparently trusting that Lesley had seen something important, Scout gathered up her messenger bag.
“Let’s go.”
15
“Let’s go,” of course, was easier said than done when we were being stalked by the brat pack. The three of us emerged into the suite to find Veronica walking into Amie’s room, stack of magazines in hand. She wore the kind of grubby clothes that beautiful girls could get away with—flip-flops, blond hair in a messy knot, rolled-up sweatpants, and a tank top.
Veronica stopped, free hand on the doorknob, and looked us over. “What are you doing?”
We bobbled forward as Scout pulled the door shut behind us and hitched up her messenger bag. “We’re going to find a quiet place to study. What are you doing?”
Veronica held up the magazines. “Self-explanatory?”
“Excellent,” Scout said. “Good luck with that.”
“I know something’s up,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but I know there’s something.”
“Something like how M.K. sneaks out at night to meet her boyfriend, you mean?” I smiled innocently at Veronica.
She all but growled, but kept her eyes on me. “Are you going to meet Jason?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said, but I could feel the blush heating my cheeks. I’d never been a very good liar, and while I’d been mostly honest—we weren’t planning to meet him—who knew what the night would hold?
“What about John Creed?”
There it was again. Veronica was clearly obsessed with Creed. Why not just call the boy and ask him out?
“We’ll be studying,” Scout repeated. She opened her messenger bag to show Veronica her art history book. “You want to join us?”
Veronica watched us for a minute. “No, thanks,” she said.
She didn’t say anything else as we headed out the door, but I could feel her eyes on us as we left.
 
Lesley led us through the Great Hall and then into the main building. When we got there, she led us down into the basement along the route we used to get to the vault door.
“It’s down there,” she said, pointing down the stairs.
“What is?” I asked, nervousness building in my chest.
“You’ll see.”
“Do me a favor?” Scout asked. “Could you stay up here?”
Lesley didn’t answer, but Scout apparently took her silence as agreement, as she pulled my elbow and tugged me down the stairs.
We found what Lesley had seen when we reached the corridor just ahead of the vault door—a trail of thick, ropey slime that led all the way back to the vault door, which stood wide open. There was no glow from the wards.
“Oh, crap,” Scout said.
“You think it’s from—”
“Where else would it come from?” She frowned and surveyed the goop. “It has to be the creatures. Maybe the wards didn’t hold.”
“Temperance faded after a while,” I pointed out. “Even with the power boost, the wards might not have held forever. Maybe those Reaper girls broke through them again, and the rat thingies followed them in.”
“And then the rats ate the girls?” she asked hopefully.
“Or they’re working together.”
Scout froze. “That would be very, very bad. Reapers are awful. Reapers with minions are far beyond awful.”
“What’s the other option?”
“Maybe they just skipped in after the girls.”

Other books

Saving the Rifleman by Julie Rowe
Fracture by Amanda K. Byrne
The Bathing Women by Tie Ning
Jabberwock Jack by Dennis Liggio
Mile High Love by Cottingham, Tracy