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These kids do not deserve this. Neither do the teachers, or parents, or anybody else. They are innocent.
Am I going to go through life afraid to go out because of the trouble I might bring to others? Is that a way to live?
I look up at the guard who’s pulled Evie and me into a corner of the room, blocking anyone from seeing us with his huge body. “What’s going on? How will we get out of here?” I cry.
He brings his watch to his mouth and I realize he’s wearing a wire. He’s communicating with someone, somewhere. “It will be over soon, Miss Gates. But it looks like someone was coming for your sister.”
I don’t understand how anyone outside our tight group of the Alekseevs, us, and security could even know where Evie was going tonight.
And now there’s a shootout in front of the high school. It’s like I not only have a black cloud hanging over my head, but I am also spreading it wherever I go.
* * *
CHAPTERTHIRTY
Charleigh
“Can I sleep with you in your bed tonight, Char?” Evie asks, a long way from the smart-ass teenager she was earlier in the evening.
I look at her standing in my bedroom doorway, her face scrubbed clean of the black shit she rings her eyes with, in her striped pajamas, carrying the teddy bear she got from our mother. I push the comforter back on the empty side of my bed and wave her in.
“Thanks, Char,” she says, smiling as she scoots under the covers with me.
I snuggle up next to her and stroke her hair, hoping it will help her sleep. As for me, I think I’ll probably lie awake all night.
All of a sudden, my bedroom door flies open. “Charleigh, have you seen—” Kir starts to say.
Evie and I both raise our heads and he backs out of the room with a wave. “Oh, there you are. Goodnight, ladies,” he says, pulling the door closed.
“Hey, Char,” Evie says.
“Yeah?”
“Those guys like you. Like, really like you.”
Damn. Guess it’s pretty obvious.
“You think?” I ask, hoping to end the conversation before it gets started.
“Oh my God, Char. Duh!”
Evie drops off to sleep while I recount the aftermath of tonight’s attack. After she and I were rushed home, Vadik came by to fill me in. Turned out one of the guys after Evie was shot dead and the other got away. The man who was killed had no identification or fingerprints, which seems par for the course in this world.
So bizarre. I mean, I don’t even want to think about how one removes their fingerprints.
Vadik told me Evie and I can’t leave the house for a while because things between the rival factions are escalating at such a rapid pace. No surprise there. I just wish the guys would let me be part of the war. Vadik nearly burst out laughing when I suggested that, but quickly reassured me as soon as I’m ready, I will be welcome to join the team.
I’ll believe that when I see it.
Next morning, after an entire night of insomnia and stewing over things, I confront the guys when they come to the kitchen for morning coffee. I don’t care who hears what I have to say.
Hands on hips, I march up to the three of them. “Are you guys putting off the inevitable again? Are you not going after Dimitri because of something thePakhanis telling you? Are you keeping something from me?”
The guys look at each other with raised eyebrows. “Well. Good morning to you too,” Kir says, topping off his coffee. “Damn,” he mumbles under his breath.
“I heard that.”
A titter passes through the kitchen staff but when I turn to see what’s going on, not a single soul has lifted their head from their work.
