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She turns and faces August. “August, you’re the only good person left that I can trust. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you and this little… group aren’t up to some shit.”
Oh no… of course she’d go for August… of course she’d realize he’s the weakest one of us. The one that can do no harm and caves in the face of Valerie.
August holds her eyes, but I see a bead of sweat on his forehead. “We were only trying to help Lex with his control when dealing with his fire.”
“Uh-huh. And beyond that, what else were you guys doing? You’ve been too quiet. Suspiciously quiet.”
August glances away, already falling into one of his tells when it comes to lying or exaggerating the truth.
Oh, he’s so innocent and precious. I just want to hug him and drag him further into the dark side.
“August is the one who TP’d your house,” I say with a grin.
Valerie’s eyes shift to me. “He would never do that. Now you, on the other hand…” She tsks. “I don’t trust you.”
August faces her. “I did do it and I felt really guilty, but it was so much fun and I’ve been dying to tell you for months, for some reason. But it was exhilarating, and it was the freest I’d felt in a long time and my god… I think that was the day I fell super in love with Landon,” he blurts out.
Valerie stares at him, pulls out the finger and jabs it at him. “You little shit.”
He grins at her. “I think this is the first time you’ve called me a bad name!”
She sighs loudly. “I just give up. That’s it. This is me giving up,” she decides as she heads off.
“I nearly broke,” August admits.
I pat his back. “You’re too pure and innocent.”
“I can’t tell if that was a jab or not,” he says.
“I can’t either.”
“I’m really sorry for… all of this,” Lex says. “And I’m especially sorry, Landon. I know you’ve suffered burns in the past, so I can only imagine how scary that was.” He looks even more disappointed in himself than ever.
I grab Lex’s shoulders and shake him. “Two things, Lex. Number one, I fucking love any opportunity I have to see August naked. Number two, the moment I saw Ellison, you made my day.”
Lex shakes his head and gives me a soft smile. “Thanks…”
“Now how about we all gather together and read?” I suggest.
“I don’t have any books to read,” Lex says.
“Me neither,” Deus says.
“Landon has a ton you could…” August hesitates as he gets a look at my face. “Not… read?”
“Correct. August, do you understand how hard it’d be to teach them how to properly hold a book? How to properly keep the spine from showing any wear? Deus is a lost cause and Lex…” I eye him for a moment. “Lex just looks like he’d open it more than thirty degrees.”
“That was the weirdest jab I’ve ever received in my life,” Lex says.
“So a movie, then,” August says. “Let’s get dressed and watch a movie to kill some time.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
LANDON
Sneaking out of Superheroes United proves to be mildly harder than I thought it’d be. As we head up the elevator to the main floor out, Ellison stops us.
“There’s a motion-activated camera there that will notice us the second we go through,” he says.
