Chapter 14 #2
“I know.” Duke’s eyes flashed with regret. “I’m tired of Chris putting that little color guard above our practices. They can sing and dance around team time. Now, he’s missing morning practices for the Spirits before school meetings.”
I leaned back against the desk and raised my brows. What the hell made him so possessive of my ex-boyfriend?
“You want to drug the Spirit Hunters?” I asked. “Are you insane? Half of them haven’t even been drunk before.”
“Not drug them!” Duke ran his fingers through his messy curls. “Just . . . disorient a few of them a little. Play a prank with some cold medicine or something.”
“No way. Olivia’s in that club. I can’t just drug her because you want to play a prank.” I leaned back on my hands, kicking my Doc Martens up and over my knee.
Duke’s lips fluttered as he blew air through them. He gave me a sad pout, the brown eyes our daughter thankfully did not get turning into something he learned from puppies in windows downtown. He must have forgotten I’d come to terms with my distaste for the male gaze.
And I knew he dreamed of sucking cock.
“There are a lot of words I would like to call you right now, but I worry it’s disrespectful to the disabled community.” I forced a smile. “Because I would hate to be compared to your dumb ass.”
“I need some over-the-counter shit. A lot of it.” Duke stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of the desk, leaning down so our faces hovered close to each other. “Don’t you want to think about it? For me?”
I turned my face and gagged. “You smell like a gas station tuna fish sandwich. What the hell do you think you’re doing?
” I pushed his chest with my finger and slid off the desk.
“Don’t touch me. Ever. What is it with you men thinking you can do as you please just because something hangs between your legs? ”
“Well, it’s life or death!”
Spinning back around, I placed my hands together in a prayer motion and forced a very fake and painful smile. “No one is going to die because you struggle to be a decent human being, Daniel.”
“How about I make Kool-Aid and pass it out to only a few of them, yeah?” Duke offered, raising his brows hopefully. “Diana, maybe?”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.
Diana Goodbody could rot in hell. She had to be one of the worst people on the planet, and that was saying something, considering I buried a body last night and planned to murder an innocent girl.
Diana didn’t know when to quit and expected everyone to move out of her way. Although she once was a friend of mine, she turned against me out of envy because I slept with her ex-boyfriend. Part of me believed she was relieved I was pregnant with Duke’s kid and not Christian Rome’s baby.
She needed to worry about her presidential campaign and not my life. Diana had her chance with Christian, and she messed it up on her own.
I sighed and shook my head. Even if I would have loved to see Diana fall further down the totem pole, I had enough to worry about. I couldn’t play angel and devil here and risk the Spirit Hunters being banned. Christian would lose the last thing he had of Leo.
“I can’t get you anything,” I determined, fishing my phone from my jacket pocket. “I can give you a phone number for light stuff, but I’m not risking Estelle’s or Chris’ sanity for you.”
“I never asked you to,” Duke mumbled.
I shoved the phone number I scribbled loosely on the inside of an old gum wrapper into his hand.
He was lucky enough I had anything in my pockets at all.
After last night, I thought Erica would have burned the jacket trying to scrub Jamison’s blood off it while I showered.
She was a magical girl. Duke lost a good one.
“Get lost,” I told him, slipping a dollar from my pocket and venturing over to the vending machine. “You’re ruining my me time. You already stuck me with a mini you.”
“Thanks.” Duke grinned down at the paper. He started to walk away before his sneakers scuffed on the cement. “I won’t give anything to Olivia.”
I glanced over my shoulder and squinted. “Or Noah. Leave them alone.”
Duke’s face twisted in confusion. I didn’t need a light up banner to tell me he had no idea who Noah Pierce was.
Duke was one of those boys who didn’t understand there were other people at this school besides the popular students, the athletes, and the kids he thought were hot enough to pay attention to.
When I was in his position, I wish I didn’t turn away from the kids who didn’t have the guts to speak in the hallway.
Popularity ruined me, but being me destroyed everything I had left.
“The one with the dog.”
“Oh! Little saint dude!” Duke snapped his fingers and tapped his temple. “Got it. Got?—”
The sound of a door opening and closing caused both of us to snap our jaws shut. I backed up quickly into the little space where the vending machine was hidden while Duke turned and jogged off.
I cursed under my breath when footsteps approached me, pressing myself into the corner as much as humanly possible to hide from my next detention slip.
Panic rose in my chest. A distinct thud of my heart as I imagined those feet connected to a man or woman in uniform. Could it have been possible the cops were marking their way into the school now, ready to drag me through the hallways by a set of handcuffs?
“Fuck.” I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fist. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Pressing my back into the wall, I slid my foot up the bricks and fished through my boot for my pocketknife. My fingers barely grazed the handle before I heard a light, girly whine.
I knew exactly who whined like that. Yankee Doodle Dawson and her disdain for anything that moved.
I exhaled in relief and dropped the knife back into my boot. Instead, I replaced it with a half-used cigarette and flicked a match to settle my nerves. If I had to look a dying girl in the eyes, I should at least pretend like I hadn’t apologized to a dead boy last night.
Soon enough, Quinntessa’s scrunched nose came into view. Her eyes flickered around under the bleachers, her chest stalling at the smell I left behind. She had a better nose than her father’s dumb police dog.
“Don’t look so disgusted.” I chuckled.
There was a soft fumble of my hands as I tried to figure out how I wanted to lean against the wall. It was both unnecessary and stupid. Why was I tripping up when she was the one struggling to speak? I hid it all with a playful smirk, as I usually found myself doing, raising my brow.
“Lost, Mustang?” I teased, then took a long drag of the cigarette between my fingers. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d skip class. Naughty girl.”
Naughty girl indeed.
I wonder if she was nervous because her father would yell at her for skipping classes, or because I frightened her.
“I’m not skipping.” Quinntessa’s words were close to a mumble. She answered so quickly, her diction was thrown out the window. “I’m looking for Student Health and Resources. I have a meeting with?—”
“Miss Peach.” I tossed my cigarette down after putting it out with the bottom of my shoe, making sure to step over this one. “I have a key to the side door. Let me help you so you don’t piss off Mrs. Fields.”
“You have a key?” She stared at me in question.
I turned and stuffed my hands in my jacket, staring down at the shine of my boots.
I knew better than to give too much information.
Quinntessa was nosey as hell. She was her father’s daughter, honing in on the little things I said to gather exactly what she wanted.
It was a good thing she wasn’t confident, or she’d become more of an issue.
For now, she followed behind me like a pouty puppy late for her meeting with the guidance counselor.
I wondered what it might be about. She was a new student. I was sure Miss Peach wanted to check in with her. Out of all the teachers here, Miss Peach was always the one to check in with me during my pregnancy. She was an odd lady, but she was true to the heart.
Quinntessa met my eyes with her curiously soft gaze. I licked my lips and shoved the keys in the lock, turning it with ease and yanking the door open.
I heard her gasp. She followed my hand until the keys disappeared inside my jacket, one of the many things tossed in there for later.
Rillie Dunken had more power than I did at this school.
Her parents owned the locksmith company for Coven and multiple rentals throughout town.
She had the ability to copy any keys I needed, which made it so much easier when I had to get into places after dark.
It also meant I’d never get detention from Mrs. Fields again.
“You do have a key.” Her amazement amused me. “Why do you have a key to the school?”
I chuckled. By this time next week, I was going to have a key to her house.
Rillie had already slipped a print from the keys for me.
I was not sure how exactly she got it done, knowing how alert Quinntessa was in the hallways, but Rillie managed to slip her keys from her back pocket and grab a print nice enough to copy for me.
She even took my request to make the key a sparkly red just like Quinntessa’s entire aura, the only colored ring I’d have on my hook that wasn’t silver. It’d make it easier when I needed to get into her father’s things rather than breaking in and risking that dog again.
“I borrow them from Rillie from time to time.” I shrugged. She didn’t need all the details. “Pays to have friends in weird places.”
I sounded too much like my father. He had friends in just about every place he wanted them, even jabbed directly in the middle of Quantico.
Papa’s ability to make friends at every corner was the only reason I walked out of jail so early.
He ruined me mentally and left me physically marked up, but at least I could finally get home to Estelle with a small price to pay.
Fathers. Aren’t they amazing?
“I haven’t met a Rillie.” Quinntessa hugged her books.