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“Wouldn’t you have to take classes at the university? Get a degree first?”
“No.”
My eyebrow lifted. “How can they just throw you in a lab?”
“You’ll get any training you need, but you may get the short course. Your curiosity determines how much you study,” he said. He pointed to the gray wall, indicating to the rifle range behind it. “You were interested in guns, right? I gave you a handful of instructions and you figured it out on your own without much push. Then suddenly you wanted to know how the next gun worked, and then next time you may ask me how to piece the thing together. You may go home and read up on it. Maybe you take your own class. I don’t have to give you homework. I don’t have to tell you there’s a test. You’ll learn if you’re really interested. The Academy just has the resources to help put you where you want to be.”
The underlying premise of the Academy seemed daunting. They’d teach you anything you wanted to know? “What if you don’t know what you want to learn?”
He shrugged. “They’ll pair you up with people who are driven by what they do, until you figure out what you want. Maybe you want to be a biologist. Maybe you want to fix cars and learn carpentry. Maybe you just like studying in general and want to learn everything. Whatever you want to know, they’ll help you find the answers.”
“How does this help them with the whole spy thing?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it away from his face and those glasses. A couple of locks fell back against his chin, defiant. “Your interests make you unique, and more of an expert than anyone else. When you’re doing what you really want, you’ll work harder to obtain it. With just the right push, the right support, you’ll be unstoppable. It takes a very special type of person to fit in with the Academy. You’re either naturally drawn to it, or you push back and resist and never know what you’ve missed.”
“It sounds crazy.”
“Crazy works sometimes.”
I stared at him, wondering if he was just joking with me and didn’t mean anything. “Why did you want to know if I wanted to go to college? It sounds like you’ve never been. Why did you ask me about biology?”
His eyes fixed on me as if quietly asking if I really wanted to know or if I was challenging him. He leaned an arm above me against the back of the Cherokee, and bent his head close to mine. “You’re rather unique yourself. To be honest, I didn’t see you as a college girl.”
My heart started rattling in my chest. His demeanor made me feel like he shouldn’t be this close to me. He was calmness. I was too wild. “You don’t exactly look like the biologist type,” I said.
“I don’t?” he asked, though his tone made me feel like this wasn’t a surprise to him. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?”
“More like the walking around the apartment naked thing.”
He looked down at the ground without moving away. “Yeah, sorry about that. It was a late night the night before. I didn’t know you were in the apartment yet. When I heard your voice, I thought you were that damn ex-girlfriend of Marc’s. Thought I could scare her off.”
“Did you sleep naked? Late night with a girlfriend?”
He shook his head, looking back up at me. “A late night watching over a shitty little hotel, for a girl that managed to slip by my team.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“We knew where you were, and didn’t want you to run off. So I watched for most of the night.”
I kind of knew it before but it was a surprise to hear it from Axel. “You guys were stalking me?”
“You were stealing wallets.”
I grunted.
He snatched my chin between his fingers and redirected my rolling eyes to focus on his face. “But you aren’t going to do that anymore, because you promised, and I take promises very seriously.”
Those dark eyes bore into me. My lips moved with whatever retort I wanted to tell him, but my words stalled and disappeared. His eyes told me to obey and I was afraid to think of the consequences if I ever betrayed him. I knew he’d come after me.
He released my chin, and ran the back of his knuckles over the crest of my cheek. My heart thundered at the touch. Was this his way of flirting or was he just trying to keep my attention? “And I want you to stop, because to me, you don’t seem like the normal college or regular old job type. Outside of the stealing, you sound like an Academy girl.”
My eyebrow rose. “Is that why you’re telling me all this? Are you trying to recruit me?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Do you want to be recruited?”
Before I could answer him, there was the sound of footsteps on the gravel. He pulled away from me.
The squad of boys went to a couple of different cars, and started getting in. Some of the older looking ones got behind the wheels and started up engines. As they passed us, they waved at Axel, and followed up by waving at me. They didn’t ask who I was. I guess maybe they assumed I was another Academy person if I was here talking to Axel. I wondered how much they knew that I didn’t.
Axel motioned to where Raven was placing guns inside cases.
“How’d it go?” Raven asked without looking up. Before I could answer, his eyes settled on my brow. “You let her get scoped?” he asked, smirking. He knew exactly what happened and didn’t have to be told.
I grumbled, irritated, and opted to join Axel for a silent ride back to downtown Charleston.
A SUSPECT’S FRIEND IS A LEAD
Back at the Sergeant Jasper, I followed Axel inside. Raven caught up with us at the elevator.
In the hallway on the seventh floor, Axel stopped mid-step, picked out his phone and held it to his ear. I didn’t hear it go off. Vibrate?
“Yeah?” he said, his tone suddenly serious. He frowned. “On our way.” He punched the phone off and then pointed it at Raven. “We’ve got to go.”
Raven mimicked Axel’s dour expression and turned down the hall without question.
“Wait,” I said. My heart was thundering at the sudden shift of their expressions and behavior. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Stay here,” Raven barked at me.
They returned to the elevator. Both turned at the same time, facing me, shoulder to shoulder. Something was wrong. I could feel it. “Go find Corey,” Axel said to me, more of a command than a request. “He should be in his apartment. Stay with him.”
The elevator doors closed and they were gone.
The upheaval from a moment ago settled on me. What was that all about? Some type of emergency? Did it have to do with this Coaltar? Or something else?
I wasn’t going to get answers standing in the hallway, so I tried to remember which door was Corey’s and knocked.
Corey answered, his eyebrows lifting in surprise at seeing me. “Hi,” he said. He was barefoot, and wearing a white ribbed tank shirt and a pair of long black shorts with a yellow Batman signal on the left knee. The tank shirt really showed off his broad shoulders and the lean muscle in his arms. It also clung to his stomach so I could count his abs.
“Oh man, those are awesome shorts,” I said.
His lips quirked up, but his eyebrows were still cocked as if he expected me to tell him why I was there.
“Raven and Axel just ran out,” I said. “They got a call.”
“Oh,” his eyes widened, and his hand darted to his back pocket. He pulled his phone out, turning it on and scanning the screen. “Uh ... okay. Sure. Yeah, come on in,” he said. He backed up a step. “I mean, not that you can’t come over when you want. I just ... sorry.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. “If you want me to, I can just walk around downtown or...”
“No, you should stay,” he said. He closed the door behind me and grabbed my hand. “When you were standing there, you looked worried, like I should come with you somewhere else. Come on.”
I wanted to argue with him or even ask him more about this emergency and what he knew, but I let it go. Probably because his fa
ce was so lit up, like he was truly happy I showed up at his door.
He led the way to his room. I paused inside the doorway, glancing at the mathematical formulas written across the walls. Some had been erased and redone since the last time I’d been there. One wall was erased completely clean. “What was on this one?”
Corey glanced at it briefly just to see what I was pointing at. “A mistake,” he said. “What were you doing today?” he asked, and I sensed he was trying to distract me from the board .
I shrugged. “I shot a gun today.”
“Is that why there’s a scope mark on your forehead?”
I reached up, touching the tender spot between my brows. “Is it bad?”
He grinned. “It’s not bad, but it’s a bit red. Does it hurt?”
“Only when I touch it.”
