“You one damn cray cray bitch, that’s for sure. I’m glad you’re gone, Hayley.”
I should have let it go. I really should have, but my grip tightened on the suitcase and I stopped. I pulled open my backpack.
Zaira stiffened on the bed, then rolled and grabbed for her own wand, which was sitting on her dresser. “You’d better not—” she warned, pointing her wand at me. But Zaira was an Icefire, the most common of the magicals. And she skated by. We’d only made it this long as roommates because I didn’t ever come home and see her stupid face.
I arched a brow at her when she aimed her wand at my throat. “What a threat! Are you sure you’re pointing the right end of that thing at me?”
She wasn’t. I rolled my eyes before I pulled a slightly tarnished silver wand out of my bag and tossed it on the bed. Then I winked at her. “Have fun explaining to Headmaster Grogney how you got his wand.”
Zaira gawked.
God, I loved seeing people stare in wonder. It was the best feeling in the world—watching disbelief, panic, and admiration declare war on their features. It was an all-out micro expression explosion, which often made for hilarious combinations—flared nostrils, a raised brow, and a smile. If I hadn’t had plans, or been so excited about my goal, I might have taken out my phone and taken a few snapshots of Zaira. But I had places to go and criminals to meet.
I shut the door on her stunned face and went whistling down the hall. I ignored the glances that came my way while I walked through the quad toward the entrance. I was so over Medeis. But just as I got close enough to see the driveway that would lead me to freedom, a hand gripped my arm and swung me around.
A furious Evan glared down at me, chest heaving. He’d clearly run all the way across campus to the guy’s dorms to grab clothes before booking it back to me. He hadn’t thrown on a jacket. His light blue t-shirt molded to his abs even better than the uniform shirt, and his nipples were visible in the February chill. His hair was mussed. In short, he looked like every sexy fantasy I’d ever had about him when we were growing up. My mouth dried out. Fucking shit. I tightened my grip on my suitcase, reminding my body that we hated him, that we had goals. My nipples didn’t seem to care.
Evan’s face crumpled, like he was sad or disappointed by what he saw when he looked at me. Inside, that made part of me wither. But it made another part of me want to smack him across the face. How dare he judge me after what he’d done? I yanked my arm out of his grip. Fuck him. Fuck Evan Weston. At least he couldn’t follow me where I was going. He was too prissy for that. Because I was done with his constant attempts to distract me.
“Hailstorm. Please. Please stop doing this to yourself,” Evan’s words were a whisper so low that I could hardly hear them. It took me a minute to piece together what he’d said.
I swallowed hard; my stupid mouth was touched by this murderer’s concern. Fuck him. He can jump off a cliff—my heart wouldn’t let me think that. Fine, he can wallow in mediocrity behind a desk his whole life, discontent, and bored and getting daily paper cuts, I amended my thought. My heart seemed okay with a lifetime of menial torture, because it let me get away with that.
“I’m not doing anything to myself,” I seethed through my teeth, turning to walk away from him as quickly as possible.
Of course, the stalker wouldn’t just let me walk away. He didn’t have it in him. Evan’s long strides easily overtook mine.
“Hayley, you’re punishing yourself. For what happened to Matthew and then your dad. You’re spiraling.”
I gave a bitter laugh that materialized as a white cloud in the afternoon chill. “I’m not punishing myself.”
“What the fuck do you call this?”
I shook my head as I spotted my driver and the sleek, black town car. And maybe it was my excitement over the car, and the promise of warmth that it held; or maybe it was my excitement about being on the brink of the next stage of my plan, but I accidentally said more than I intended. “I call this Operation Matthew.”
Evan stopped short; his six-foot, four-inch frame stunned into statue-like stillness. That name alone was like slamming a baseball bat into his gut. I knew, because whenever anyone used that name and I wasn’t expecting it, I felt the exact same way. That name was sacred. To me, at least. It should be to him, too, considering Matthew used to be his best friend.
“Hayley, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but whatever it is, you’re wrong. He’s gone.” He cringed as he said it. But still, he fucking said it.
I glared at him, fury rising like a tide. How dare he fucking give up on my brother. “That’s what the Pinnacle wants you to think.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Shit. I’d said more than I’d planned. But there was no taking the words back now. There was no way to scoop them up out of the air and put them back into my mouth. I’d have to count on Evan’s guilt to keep his mouth shut. And maybe write a spell for it once I was out of sight. So that he couldn’t go running to his mommy or mine and give it all away.
Dammit. I was a bit furious with myself. I needed to control my rage around him, or I was going to make a mistake worse than a slip of the tongue. I gave Evan a haughty look before turning and walking away. I didn’t feel bad about leaving that fucker emotionally bruised and battered on the sidewalk as I walked to my car. He could drown in a blood-red puddle of his own guilt for all I was concerned. Because even though he’d apologized and cried and said he didn’t mean for it to happen, he couldn’t erase the past. And the events of the past stood like a chasm between us. He was who he was. He’d made his mistakes. I was making mine. And we were on separate paths. He was the youngest Unnatural in fifty years—he’d been the first seventeen-year-old in decades to perfectly write the spell to give himself shifter powers. A spell my dumbass brother had tried to do with him. Now, Evan was Pinnacle’s golden poster boy. I planned to be their worst nightmare.
I gave him an arrogant little wave of my fingers before I handed my backpack and suitcase to the driver and slid into the car.
I pulled out my wand and parchment and wrote a quick spell to make Evan unable to remember our conversation. The spell turned into magic, sparkling gold dust as I wrote, the parchment burning as each symbol I wrote magically came to life. I opened the window and let the magic trail out of the car as the driver pulled away from Medeis. Then I pushed Evan out of my mind. I had two hours to review my plans to break into the Pinnacle. And I wasn’t going to waste a minute of them.
Chapter 4
“Hey kiddo.”
I jumped in my seat. I glanced over and realized my dad was sitting at the far end of the town car bench. My eyes flew to the driver, a norm guy who stared straight ahead, oblivious. I immediately put up the privacy partition so my driver couldn’t hear me sounding like a mad woman—talking to myself … because my father was a ghost.
Once the partition was up, I took a second to calm my racing heart. I hadn’t expected Dad to show up during daylight hours. We usually met once a week. We had scheduled to meet up tomorrow. But sometimes he lost track of time. Over the past few years, he’d lost track of more and more things … he’d forgotten the color of my mom’s eyes. What we were doing. Sometimes he even forgot my name.