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“I mean your first birth name.”
His lips twisted, the lip ring stuck out. “No.”
I smirked and did a small eye roll. “No Ravenstahl? Your first name is no?”
He rolled his eyes and he tilted his head at me. “No one needs to know my first name. Why?”
“Just wondering,” I said. I tried to come up with a reason. “Shouldn’t I know the first name of the guy that kissed me this morning?”
He grunted. He wasn’t going to answer.
“I don’t know anything about you.”
“What’s there to know? Is that the most important?” he asked.
“What’s more basic than knowing your real name?”
“Little Thief,” he said. He looked over at me, and then sat up, driving with his left hand and held out his right, palm up in offering. “Come here.”
I put the phone in my lap and then dropped my palm into his, trying to be compliant, feeling a compulsion to try to connect with him, since he offered.
His hand enclosed over mine and he gave it a squeeze. “I love my country,” he said. “I love mother Russia, but I was bad to her and she was bad to me back.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I left. With it, I left behind a lot of myself. Now, I’m just Raven. I’m not who I was. I’m someone new. Like you. You were someone else before. Now you’re with us and different.”
“Because I told you I wouldn’t steal wallets?”
“Because you said you give a shit and want to be different,” he said. “We asked you if you’d like to work for the good guys and you said yes.” He lifted my hand and brought it over, kissing the knuckle. “Now you’re Little Thief, but maybe I should give you a new name. Not thief.”
My lips parted and I ended up staring like an idiot at him, shocked at seeing a sweet side to him. “I just wanted to know.”
“Ask something else,” he said. He released me and focused on the road, where traffic was getting heavy.
I was running into a problem asking Raven things. I didn’t know what to ask next and I wasn’t sure I’d get an answer if I asked about Academy things. I’d have to wait to get a chance with Corey.
The more I was learning about them, though, the more I doubted myself. Maybe I was wrong.
However, I couldn’t let go of the feeling I had when I saw Mrs. Bernard with the files in her hand. Betrayed, especially since Wil was involved. I didn’t want him in the middle of this. I didn’t know what an adoption was but since it was expensive, would it mean Wil and I owed them money?
I glared at the window, watching the trees for a moment, trying to put a lid on my simmering anger. I didn’t want to lash out and create consequences that touched Wil. No, I should keep digging.
I went back to the cell phone, checking email on the off chance Wil may have tried emailing me. I didn’t think he would. I never told him the email address. It was just one I used for job hunting and I talked to him in person every day so it wasn’t important.
The email came with a phone number, too, but it only took voice messages. The voicemail box was flashing.
I felt my heart lift at the sight of it. Job offer? Or Wil? Did I ever give Wil that number?
When a voicemail comes in, the program translates it into text. There were no less than twenty messages. All the transcribed messages were the same.
Call me.
I sat up quickly. I didn’t recognize the number. My heart thundered against my chest.
Raven glanced over at me. “What?”
I stayed quiet, sitting back. If this was Wil, I didn’t want the Academy boys to know. Not yet. I didn’t want the Academy to find Wil before I discovered what they were about. I was already out of the state, too far to turn back. I was cursing myself for asking to go on this trip. I dropped the phone into my lap, trying to pretend to be bored. “Nothing. Junk mail. Thought it might be a job offer.”
He chuckled. “Do you really want to work at the mall? Do you want a job like that?”
“What other kind of job is there?” I asked, not really caring but wanting to distract him further.
“Something more exciting.”
“Like working for the Academy?”
He shrugged. “Work for me.”
I rolled my eyes. He shared an apartment with two other guys. He didn’t have money. I couldn’t imagine what he was offering.
When he was focused on driving again, I casually picked up the phone, checking the screen, trying to pretend I was just playing with it and gently tapped to read the messages again.
All of the messages started a couple of days ago, and continued up until this morning. Via the translated text, I couldn’t tell if it was Wil, or just some random person. I didn’t recognize the number. I’d have to listen to the actual message.
I hovered a thumb over the button that would play the recorded messages to me. I wasn’t sure if it would play it out loud or quiet through the ear piece so I could listen without Raven hearing. Maybe if I told him I had to use the bathroom I could get him to pull over.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated in my hands and made a beeping noise. A text message came through on the phone’s line.
I switched modes, opening up text messages.
Unknown: Can you call me from this one?
Same phone number as the text messages. I stared at it for so long. How would the person know...?
Another text message came in before I could finish the thought. I turned the volume down on it in the middle of the beeping.
Raven looked at me. “Messages?”
“Uh, I downloaded something,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Angry Birds?”
“What?”
“Download what you like,” he said. “There’s games.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. I tapped quickly at the phone to find that game so it would start downloading. “That’s what I got. Sorry. It said free.”
He shrugged. “Buy what you want.”
I turned the phone a bit, pretending to poke at it continually like I was playing around as I read the new message.
Unknown: Call me.
I sent a text back.
Kayli: Who is this?
Minutes passed. I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer. Did he not know who this was? Maybe it was a wrong number.
The phone vibrated in my hands and I checked the screen.
Unknown: I’ve got a few of those frozen hamburgers left in the freezer, and I’ll get you another bag of Pop Chips.
Everything around me froze, including my once wild heart. I’d been excited one moment with the possibility of it being Wil and I completely changed gears. My first reaction was to turn the phone completely off and throw it out into the road. Not who I wanted to hear from.
Then I was in a panic. Blake Coaltar was after me. I wrecked his boat. I shot him. He wanted revenge. He wanted to tell me off. He wanted to sue me.
In the chaos of the last few days, I’d forgotten that my voice mailbox number was the one I’d given to him before, when I’d crashed his party, and he pretended to offer me a job.
According to the voice mailbox, he first started calling the night of his party, an
d continued on until the night he brought me to his home. He started again when I ran back to Marc and the others. It stopped briefly again yesterday, with the yacht crash. The latest one was this morning.
But how did he get this cell phone number to reach me? I had a feeling it might have been another favor from his friend, Doyle, the Irish hacker. If Corey could hack cell phones and those types of things, I bet Doyle could, too. He must have traced who opened the email and found this phone number through it. Was that even possible? Didn’t matter, it happened.
The phone buzzed in my hands again.
Blake: Where are you going?
He wasn’t going to give the guys a hint as to who he was if he thought they might be looking at this phone. If I answered right, he’d know it was me. Did I even want to play this game?
Still, he knew I was on the move.
I swallowed, checking out the window as if that could show me the GPS signal emitting from the cell phone and it connecting to some secret device that followed me. Cell phones could be tracked. I knew it. Corey told me.
I looked around. Raven was oblivious, staring off at the road, thumping his fingers against the steering wheel as his mouth moved with the lyrics of the song. Corey was still asleep with an arm over his eyes.
Flashes of Blake’s face came to me. I’d be lying to myself to say I hadn’t thought of him. I even felt guilty for shooting him in the leg, even if he did deserve it. I sent a text back. I needed to cut Blake off. I could only handle one thing at a time and a lawsuit wasn’t part of the plan.
Kayli: Go away.
Blake: Sugar, I know it’s you. If you’re with those guys, you need to ditch them now.
It took me a moment to consider what he was saying. Ditch them?
Kayli: Why?
Blake: Are you part of it? The Academy?
I wanted to sit up but then realized I was drawing attention from Raven. To counter it, I curled into myself, even kicking off Marc’s boots like I was trying to be comfortable to expel the energy.
