But the entire time, my mind kept chanting, “This is wrong.”
If I was going to tempt a bastard into killing me, I was going to try to take him down with me.
Because that’s just who I was.
And even magic couldn’t save me from myself.
As I practiced, an idea started to form, one where I might combine what Andros thought was necessary and the complete and utter beat down that Muller deserved.
When we finished, I called all the guys to meet me, because if I’d realized one thing after this morning, it was that we worked better together than I did on my own. I’d let myself be blinded earlier by my fury toward Claude, but I’d be damned if I made the same mistake twice.
I texted Tia and told her I might be late to the funeral.
-Are you serious right now?-
I didn’t respond, because there was nothing I could say that would make it alright. She was the best friend in the world. And I … wasn’t.
We set up shop in the backroom of a norm gas station. Andros bribed the attendant to take a walk, handing the greasy twenty-something guy a wad of cash and telling him, “Come back in an hour.”
I’d disconnected all the video feeds and grabbed myself a Twinkie. And then he and I had settled into the plastic chairs and stared at the ripped, discolored “Employee of the Month” pictures on the wall while we waited in silence. The analog clock on the wall clicked loudly and reminded me of my last few minutes at Medeis.
They’d been glorious.
I wanted to see a face that shade of furious purple again. Only this time, I didn’t give a shit about headmasters. This time, I needed to take down a detective.
The clock ticked again, reminding me that I only had an hour to plan.
I ripped open my Twinkie and started to think.
When my crew arrived, they all had suspicious and questioning looks on their faces as they took seats or leaned against the wall.
Since I had called this impromptu gathering without giving them much information, I spoke first. “I don’t want to fuck up again like I did with the asshole who can’t be named, so we’re going to do this next crazy-ass thing as a group or not at all.”
Z gave a whistle as he hopped up onto the break room table. He almost instantly hopped down. “Gross. That thing is sticky.” He walked over to the wall and leaned up against it instead.
I glanced over at Malcolm. “Do you think you could hit up your new friend, Teddy Hall—Mr. Social Media—and tell him we might have something he’ll want to see?”
Malcolm’s eyes immediately lit up and he slid his newest burner phone out of his pocket. “Sure.”
I glanced over at Gray. “Think you have someone who could give Teddy a ride to the cemetery? And maybe see if they can bring along one of those drones you love so much?”
Gray nodded and started texting.
Evan canted his head to the side. “Want to tell us exactly what Teddy might be seeing? Or what we’ll be doing?”
I licked the last bit of Twinkie off my fingers before I answered. “How’s your wrist? How’re your writing fingers?”
“Why?”
I gave him a wink then I shared a grin over at the guys. “Ready to have some fun?” I tossed my feet up on the table and crossed them at the ankles.
“She’s got her cocky face on,” Malcolm observed.
“Um, I wouldn’t call that a cocky face, since her mouth’s not—”
I held up a finger and cut Z off. “Don’t even go there.”
“But … but he just put it out on a platter. He basically handed me that joke.” Z whined.
“You want me to do to you what I’m planning to do to Muller?” I asked with a raised brow.
Z crossed his arms and pouted. “No fair. I’m gonna become an expert hacker and then I won’t have to worry about your petty threats.”
I laughed. “Yeah, you do that.” If it wasn’t a sport, Z couldn’t stand it. The boy had to move all the time. He had a case of the wiggles worse than most puppies.
“Tell us what we’re really doing,” Evan requested.
“We’re going to give Detective Muller a taste of his own medicine.”
Z looked skeptical, his eyes flickering once to Andros in concern, before they came back to land on me. Once he’d heard my intended target, his playfulness had immediately morphed into hesitation. “How?”
“It’s easy to trick a Tock when you know what makes him tick.” I winked at Z and he wagged a finger at me.
“Punny. But really?” he pushed.
“Z, have a little faith. We’re gonna fuck Muller so hard he’ll scream my name for years to come.” I couldn’t help the evil grin that spread across my face as I said, “And here’s how we’re going to do it.”
Limousines lined the middle-class business district, parallel parked along the sidewalk; they formed a dashed black line on the side of the road and blocked paying customers from the shops. Up the hill were the wealthy people who’d come to be seen mourning my mom. Not to actually mourn her, but to be publicly photographed being a “good person.”
The line of cars made me sick.
My stomach twisted as I walked up the block alone. I still wore the black leather jacket, black tank top, blue jeans and heeled boots that I’d worn to meet Lysa for coffee this morning. That felt like the Cretaceous Period compared to now. It felt like my entire life had evolved and changed eighty million times since then.
I tossed a shadow over my jeans to cover the rip at the knee and to make them funeral appropriate. Or as appropriate as I was going to get, considering I was about to turn Mom’s goodbye into just as much of a pageant as the trophy-wife former beauty queens already sitting up there had.
For a second, a wisp of a thought of Muller in a bikini, wearing a sash and smiling at a crowd flashed through my head and amused me.
But that kind of fun wasn’t going to happen. I could either humiliate Muller or I could break him. And after seeing Andros’s face, I knew which one I wanted. Of course, breaking someone could always involve a little humiliation along the way …
That thought and the sound of a faint buzz overhead added a little skip to my step as I made my way up the hill, eyes scanning from side to side, wondering where Grayson had holed up to fly his drone.
The skip fled as soon as I saw the gleaming white casket and the hole dug beside it. Both the casket and grave were surrounded by massive bouquets of flowers that were just as beautiful and just as dead inside as the chess pieces and trophy wives who stood making small talk around them. The sculpted women on the hill knew my mother’s favorite brand of champagne, but didn’t know that she’d actually aced all of her spell writing tests during her final year at Medeis. These assholes didn’t know that Mom had given up her dream of working as a norm physician when she’d gotten pregnant with Matthew so young. They didn’t know that she liked exactly six marshmallows in her hot chocolate or that she thought the idea of a Tooth Fairy was horrific because people’s mouths were dirty places and no one should ever want to live in a palace of teeth. They knew nothing. And they didn’t deserve to be up there.
I had to reel back the memories and emotions that surged up inside me like a storm wave. I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus. This had become another job instead of a chance to say goodbye. I had to treat it that way. I spotted Claude hovering near two Pinnacle council members.