Firebug (36 page)

It was weird suddenly not knowing when I was born. When was my real birthday? Logically, I didn't think it mattered, but logic and people don't always mix. For some reason not knowing my birthday made me feel a little unfinished. I pushed the birth certificate aside until I could deal with it later. Underneath that was a passport, a driver's license, a social security card … and they all had my name on them. And underneath it all were a few pamphlets for college.

“It's only been a
week
,” I said. “How did you do all this?”

“Strings, Ava. I've been doing some major marionette work.”

“Why?”

He smiled and took a bite of his roll. “One reason would be to keep you happy. I realize I can't buy your loyalty, Ava. Our short time together has told me that. However, I would like to keep you from actively trying to sabotage things.”

The waiter returned with our food, setting a thick steak in front of me, and I took a moment to put my napkin in my lap while I thought through what Alistair said.

“There are other ways for you to accomplish such things,” I said.

Alistair was straightening his own napkin. “I need you legal—it makes you less noticeable and situations largely less sticky if you have all the trappings of a regular human. As for college, education is something I prize. My employees are encouraged to better themselves. I know you won't believe I'm doing it for altruistic reasons, so I will tell you that doing so will only improve my assets. I don't want pawns, Ava, I want a well-organized, functioning machine.”

“You want samurais, not farmers playing soldiers.”

Cade snorted and Alistair nodded. “Exactly.” He looked down the aisle, and when I followed his gaze I saw Lock. My friend had a few battle wounds of his own, but he still looked pretty good. As he got closer, the air shivered and Bianca appeared. She was holding on to Lock's arm in a possessive manner that I didn't quite like. I attacked my steak with the knife. I was too forceful, and some of the vegetables slid over the lip of the plate and onto the tabletop. Smooth.

Bianca leaned up on her toes and kissed Lock on the cheek. He seemed surprised, but pleasantly. Alistair made no move to slide into the booth, so Bianca stole a chair from another table and pulled it over to us. Lock stood rather awkwardly near the table for a moment, clearly unsure as to whether he should leave or not. He wouldn't look at me. When Ezra shouted for him, he fled in obvious relief.

Alistair picked up a knife and fork and sliced into his steak in a genteel fashion. I was not surprised to see that it was rare. “I won't pretend that you're not an important part of my new world order here, Ava. Nor am I going to pretend that you'll love me every second of the day. I'm your boss. Such feelings are natural. But I will ask that you at least pretend compliance when you're around.”

“I'm pretty sure my paperwork does not say that I have to play nice.”

“No,” Alistair said, “it doesn't. But the more you play along, the less you actually have to work.”

I popped a piece of broccoli in my mouth while I mulled that over. Cade, apparently making intuitive leaps that I couldn't, pieced it together before I could.

“Bait and switch,” he said.

Alistair gave him a small smile. “Bravo.”

When it was apparent to them that I was still in the dark, Alistair pointed at the caulbearer with his steak knife. “Bianca.”

I stared at Bianca, and I think I can honestly say that she would have happily kicked me in the shins if we'd been alone. The feeling was more than mutual.

“Everyone will expect him to make you his Owen,” Cade explained. “So he's going to pretend that's the case, but really it will be Bianca.”

I tilted my head, trying to envision Bianca as Owen. It was a strange visual. Bianca seemed like an odd choice to me. She didn't seem on par with Owen—she wasn't scary. Which I guess was the point of hiding her. I would look scary, while she did the … what exactly would she do?

“I don't understand the subterfuge. If you need a heavy because Bianca isn't up to it, why not simply pick one?” Bianca stiffened, but I ignored her. “Why make everyone think it's me?”

“Man, you're thick,” Bianca mumbled.

“What I need right now is loyalty. No one besides the drove and a few others knows what Bianca can do—think of all the meetings she can sit in on, all the information she can gather. Unseen. Unnoticed. I have enough enforcers. What I need is someone to suss out the people who won't try to stab me the minute I turn around. You can't do it—you're too young, no one will trust you, and you have all the subtlety of an ox in an opera house.”

“Harsh,” Bianca said. “Gee, Ava, can firebugs burn? Because that was definitely a burn.”

I flipped her the finger. Everyone ignored us.

“You will work as a distraction because Venus has been using you as punishment for years. Your team has a reputation, and people are already scared of you. It makes more sense to trade on that than wait for people to be afraid of Bianca, which would undoubtedly take more effort and violence than is strictly necessary.”

“Yeah, no one's going to be scared of her,” I said. “She looks like a damn pixie.”

Instead of flipping me off, Bianca blew me a kiss. If I didn't dislike her so much, I would have found it funny. Okay, it was still funny. Damn.

I took bite of my roll. “So you want me to be a veil for the veil?”

“Yes. There will still be blood loss—there's nothing I can do about that. The least I can do is make it necessary. This is the best-case scenario.” Alistair poked the file containing my paperwork with an index finger. “When the time comes, pick whichever college strikes your fancy. I chose options that are close so you can stay at home with minimal commute. Most of them also have online options. I will cover your books and tuition. I will also check your transcripts and get updates from your professors. You will maintain a 3.0 GPA at the very least—though I expect more of you—and you will supply me with your schedule so we can do our best to accommodate it. I don't like to be disappointed, Ava.” He slipped a red strip of beef into his mouth. “Now I recommend that you eat your steak before it gets cold.”

The conversation was clearly over.

 

 

I LEFT
Cade at the table with Alistair and Bianca. I might not entirely trust them yet, but I didn't think they'd do anything to Cade, since Alistair clearly wanted me on his side. Besides, I needed to talk to Lock alone. I cornered him an empty hallway. He was leaning against the wall close to the men's room door, looking good, if a bit tired and scuffed up in his Purgatory uniform.

He picked at his shirt. “I guess this is the last week I'll have to wear this,” he said. “With us getting back pay and actual wages, I won't need the extra job.”

“That's definitely looking at the bright side of being hired thugs.” I held up my hand to stop his lecture before it started. I didn't need it. Not today. “Why are you hanging out in a hallway?”

“Just in case Ez needs help, I'm supposed to stay nearby, but he doesn't want me to go into the actual bathroom with him. As if I haven't already seen everything.”

“We should still have some boundaries,” Ezra shouted through the door.

I pulled him away from the bathroom. “I never got a chance to thank you,” I said. Sparks flew from my fingers and drifted down toward the floor. I stomped them out. “You know, for that saving-my-life business and stuff.”

Lock rested his head on the wall, his gray eyes assessing. “You are really bad at this.”

“I really am. Can we skip past the part where we talk about squishy feelings?”

“No,” he said. “Not this time. I told you, you can't always skip to the end.”

“But I really want to.”

“I know you do.” He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, a strangely intimate gesture. “Sometimes we have to do the hard stuff.”

“You sound like Cade.”

“There are worse things.” He ran a hand nervously through his own hair. “So, Ezra and I were talking, and since we don't have to work in the restaurant anymore, we were thinking about moving out by you guys.”

“I haven't agreed to anything!” Ezra shouted. “I don't know if I can give up my city-boy lifestyle.”

Lock ignored him. “We'd help out with the bookshop rebuild. Hang out more. Maybe a lot more.” Lock looked at me expectantly and I froze. I've never felt more like a deer in headlights watching the eighteen-wheeler as it barrels down at me. I needed to say something. My brain remained an extremely helpful blank.

“For the love of all that is—you're both ridiculous, you know.” Ezra continued to shout through the door even though we weren't acknowledging him. “Absolutely ridiculous. Ava, Lock is asking you out on a date. Now tell him yes so I can stop listening to this awkward mating ritual of a conversation.”

We remained silent, stuck in the moment. It was still my turn to say something, and I couldn't seem to make words happen. This conversation wasn't going the way I had planned
at all
.

“Wow,” Lock said. “Speechless. That's not good.” He drew away. “Forget it. All of it. Everything I've said since you entered this hallway.”

There was a clatter from the bathroom. “Damn it!”

“I've got to go,” Lock said, pushing away from the wall. “You're going to have to help Ezra.”

I grabbed Lock's arm. “No, wait. Lock, I'm sorry. It's just … I can't—”

He cut me off before I could find coherency. “Please don't. You're making it worse.” He gently pried my hand off his arm. “It's my turn to skip to the end on this one, Ava.”

No Aves. Ava. Shit.

He let go of my hand and walked away. My heart didn't just break, it imploded into dust. Ezra tumbled through the door, his crutches tangled. I helped him sort things out. When everything was straightened, Ezra tucked his crutches under his arms and put his hands on my shoulders. “I want you to listen very carefully. I love you, my little dumpling, but you are as dumb as a sack of hammers sometimes.”

“I learned it from watching you,” I said.

“Shut up—I'm serious.” He let go of my shoulder to point at his face. “This is my serious face.”

“Ezra, I'm not in the mood.…”

“I don't care what mood you're in. You just crushed our best friend. Pulverized. Mashed Eviscerated.”

“Hey!”

“Ava, you let Ryan take you on a date. Ryan, who is surely in the running for the Biggest Scumbag on the Planet award, but you shut down the one person who for whatever reason loves us and puts up with our preposterous shit. That man dug glass out of my back. He makes us hot cocoa when we're all tired as hell, and he almost never complains about it. He risked his life for us, and you sat there like a lump.”

“I really handled that badly, didn't I?”

“‘Badly' doesn't even cover it, darling.” He let go of me and got a better grip on his crutches. “You are officially the Hindenburg of the dating world.” He reached out and brushed a tear off my cheek. I hadn't even realized I was crying.

“I can't lose him, Ez. I can't.”

“And you think that will happen if you go out on a date?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“You realize that this course of action might have worse results? One bad date you could have moved past, but this?” Ezra shook his head. “And you know what the worst part is? You're absolutely nuts for him.” He gripped his crutches and started to move down the hallway. “Don't bother arguing. I know it's true even if you don't. C'mon, then. Let's see if the kitchen has pie.”

I followed him down the hallway and wondered if there was any way I was ever going to be able to fix this. For a fleeting second, I almost wished things could go back to the way they were a week ago. Ryan wouldn't be a traitor, and Lock would still be my best friend.

I'd thought Venus's death would be the end to my problems. How come my life was still such a mess, then?

20

S
PIRIT
F
INGERS

CADE WAS POPPING
popcorn while I stood on the porch talking to Duncan. He'd ostensibly stopped by to drop off some things, but Cade decided we needed to chat and left us on the porch together. I didn't want to talk to Duncan. My feelings about him were mixed. On one hand, he'd helped me save Cade's life. On the other, he'd endangered it in the first place, even if he didn't do it on purpose.

So far we hadn't managed to say much to each other. I caught a whiff of skunk on the breeze.

“Must be spring,” Duncan joked. “The skunks are out.”

“I just need to know,” I said, thinking back to our planning session in Duncan's kitchen. How sure and commanding he'd been. “Who's head of the Coterie now? Alistair or you?”

Duncan took out his pipe and tapped it on the porch railing. “I never lied to you, Ava. I might have kept some of my personal life to myself, but that is my prerogative. I meant it when I said I was tired.” He stuffed his pipe with tobacco, the scent rich and earthy. “I don't want to lead.” He dug a matchbook out of his pocket. “I just didn't want Venus to lead either.” Duncan lit his pipe and stared intently in the window at Cade, who was pouring the popped corn from the pot into a bowl. “I don't have any children of my own, Ava. Cade is it. And I couldn't be prouder of him if he was my own flesh and blood. Sooner or later, either to spur you or punish you, she would have killed him.” He blew a smoke ring out into the night. “I think you can understand why I made my choices.”

I did, because it sounded eerily like what I'd said to Lock's mom. Duncan had to protect his family. When I didn't say anything, he nodded. Then he tipped his weather-beaten hat at me and left.