“Improvise?!” I growled. “You didn’t just compromise the mission, you could’ve screwed up all of time! I’m not just the leader of this team; I’m a fucking prince! You need to learn to do as I tell you!”
Danny shrugged. “Well, you’re notmyprince. I didn’t vote for you.”
“Princes aren’t voted for, dumbass,” Kallie grumbled.
“Either way, I’m a vampire, not an Elf. I don’t have to do what he says,” Danny argued. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re equals.”
“Like hell. You arenevercoming with us on a mission again,” I growled.
“Is that so?” Danny asked coolly.
“I’min charge here.” To reinforce my statement, I slammed my fist into the wall near his head. Danny barely flinched, but a piece of cinder block clattered to the floor.
“Charlie,” Ava said softly. The sound of her voice was the only thing that slowed my heart rate. “Danny made a mistake, but we still need him.”
“You might want to listen to your girlfriend,” Danny teased.
I didn’t know what kind of threats he wastryingto make, because I was certain I could take him.
“That’s mywife, you jackass,” I sneered.
Danny chuckled. Then it hit me what he was doing. Ava was my weakness. Every fucking time. Nobody talked down to my wife, and he fucking knew it’d get on my nerves.
I dropped Danny and stomped toward the other side of the room. “He can be useful somewhere else.”
“He could help,” Ava insisted.
The door opened, and Kallie announced, “The rest of the palace looks to be in order. I don’t think we changed anything significant.”
I hadn’t even realized she’d left the room; I’d been so angry.
“See? It’s fine,” Danny said.
He was so fucking cocky. I hated him.
“That doesn’t change that you went against my orders,” I said.
“Look, we’re back, we’re all in one piece, and we get a second shot at it,” Danny stated nonchalantly. “It’s all good.”
I pressed my fingers to my eyes. This kid didn’t get it. He was a poor substitute for Marcus, who I really wished had showed his ass up today. Where the hell was he?
I breathed a heavy sigh. “All right, time for Plan B. We need to time travel back to when the key was in the vault the night before the robbery and steal it without incident. Our firstrobbery attempt didn’t work, so we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”
“Easy,” Danny said. “You guys made it too complicated last time with all your disguises and potions. You had too many moving parts.Of coursesomething was bound to go wrong.”
“And how exactly is robbing a bank easy?” I demanded. “Have you ever done it before?”
Danny noticeably ignored my second question. “Look, we don’t need disguises if we go back far enough that no one will recognize us. Kallie can get us as far back in ourowntimelines as possible, when we’re technically still babies. We won’t be on anyone’s radar at that point.”
“We’re not going to become babies if we travel that far back, will we?” Ava asked.
“No. I’ve gone back pretty far, and my age never changed,” Kallie said. “Our child selves will still exist out there somewhere. We just can’t run into them, or we’d create a paradox.”
When Kallie and I time traveled at the Institute, there were two versions of us— the original us from the timeline we first experienced, and the version of us that was time traveling. It was only when we returned to the present that our timelines melded together. We’d show up back wherever our present selves were after the timeline changed.
It was a good sign that we’d returned to the demigod training room just now, because it meant any minor changes we might’ve made had still led us to the same place we’d left, here in the present. But I was wary about continuing to fuck with this, because I didn’t think we could keep doing it without consequences.
“All we have to do is get into the bank. Then I work some of my compulsion magic, and we get into the vault,” Danny said. “I can compel the employees to forget, so they never suspect a thing. Simple as that.”
