Хлоя Нейл - Hexbound

Having been dropped off by my parents at a school I wasn’t crazy about—and having met Scout on my first day at St. Sophia’s—I definitely knew. “Yeah,” I said. “I get that. You and Henry get along pretty well.”

“Ha,” she said. “Henry’s a secret geek. He just doesn’t want to admit it. He watches every sci-fi movie he can find, but wouldn’t tell his friends that. He plays baseball, so sci-fi isn’t, you know, allowed or whatever.”

We walked quietly back down the block, pastry in hand.

“Are you ready to talk about whatever it is you’re not talking about?”

I trailed my fingers across the nubby top of the stone fence around St. Sophia’s.

“Not really.”

“You know I’m here for you, right?”

“I know.”

She put an arm around my shoulders. “Do you ever wish that sometimes the world would just stop spinning for a few hours to give you a chance to catch up?”

“I really do.”

She was quiet for a second. “At least we have dessert.”

That was something, I guess.

It wasn’t until hours later, when Scout and I were in her room, listening to a mix of music from the 1990s, that I finally felt like talking.

“Jump Around” was blasting through the room. Scout sat cross-legged on her bed, head bobbing as she mouthed the rhymes, her Grimoire in her lap. Since my plans to sketch the SRF still hadn’t worked out, I sat on the floor adding details to a drawing of the convent, filling in the texture of brick and jagged stone while I picked at my pastry. And Scout had been right about that—maybe it was the whipped cream (the real kind!), or maybe it was the sugar (lots of it), but it did help.

I finally put my sketchbook away, put my hands in my lap, and looked up at her.

“Can we talk about something?”

She glanced up. “Are you going to break up with me?”

“Seriously.”

Her eyes widened, and she used the remote to turn off the music. “Oh. Sure. Of course.” She dog-eared a page of her Grimoire, then closed it and steepled her fingers together. “The doctor is in.”

And so, there on the floor of her room, I told her what I’d seen in the SRF, and what I’d learned in my follow-up visit to Foley’s office.

And then I asked the question that scared me down to my bones.

“They’re doing some kind of secret genetic research that they had to stick me in a boarding school and leave the country to work on. And we know the Reapers were using the sanctuary for some kind of medical stuff. What if—” Scout held up a hand. “Don’t you even say that out loud. Don’t even think it. I don’t know your parents, but I know you. You’re a good person with a good heart,

and I know they raised you to care about other people. Otherwise, you’d be hanging out with the brat pack right now instead of resting up for whatever is coming down the pipeline tomorrow—doing the right thing. The scary thing. I don’t know exactly what your parents are doing right now, Lily. But I know one thing—they are not helping Reapers. There’s no way.”

“But—” She held up a finger. “I know you want to say it so that I can disagree with you.

But don’t. Don’t even put it out there. There’s no way. It’s a coincidence, I’ll admit,

that we’ve run across two mentions of medical or genetic hoo-ha this week, but even coincidences usually have rational explanations. And you’re not thinking rationally. Your parents are not like them. You know that, right?”

It took a moment—a moment while I thought about all the stuff I didn’t know about my parents right now—but I finally nodded. She was right: Whatever questions I had about the details of their work, I knew them. I knew my dad had floppy hair and loved to make breakfast on Sunday mornings and told horrible, horrible jokes. And I knew my mom was the serious one who made sure I ate green vegetables, but loved getting pedicures while she read gossip magazines.

I knew their hearts.

She must have seen the change in my face.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Little more enthusiasm there, Parker.”

“Okay.”

“You’re probably going to find out your parents are in Germany working on some kind of top-secret new mascara or something. Ooh, or spy stuff. Do you think they’d be doing spy stuff?”

I tried to imagine my dad playing Jason Bourne, or my mom playing a secret operative. “Not really. That’s not really their bag.”

“Mascara, then. We’ll just assume they’re working on mascara.”

My phone picked that moment to ring. I snatched it up, wondering if my parents’ timing was truly that excellent. But it was Jason. Still pretty excellent.

“Hey. How’s your Friday night going?”

“Pretty uneventful,” I told him. Which was mostly true. “What’s happening at Montclare?”

“Poker night. Except none of us has any money, so we’re playing for Fritos.

Which Garcia keeps eating—Garcia. Lay off my stash, man. How am I going to go all in with four Fritos?”

In spite of myself, I smiled a little. Scout rolled her eyes and flopped down on her bed. “Ugh. Young love makes me totally nauseous.”

I stuck my tongue out at her.

“So, about tomorrow. How about I swing by at noon?”

“Noon works. What should I wear?”

“Normal Lily stuff. Minus the plaid skirt. I mean—you should definitely wear a skirt or some kind of pants, but you don’t have to wear your plaid skirt since it’ll be a Saturday—”

“You’ve been hanging around with Michael too much.”

He chuckled. “Anyway, you two girls have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. Good night, Jason.”

“Good night, Lily.”

I hung up the phone and cradled it in my hands for a few seconds. Guilt settled like a rock in my stomach.

Scout rolled over and looked at me. “Oh, cripes. What now?”

I wet my lips. Might as well finish the confession since I’d started it.

“Remember the other day when I went out to draw over lunch?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Well, I didn’t actually end up drawing anything. I kind of got distracted.”

“Distracted by what?”

“Sebastian Born.”

Scout sat up straight, blinking like she was trying to take in the statement. “I did not expect to hear that.”

“He found me on the sidewalk. He said he’d wanted to talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About firespell. He feels responsible, I think, that I have magic. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, that we weren’t friends. But then he asked me to go somewhere and talk.”

“Well, you’re not going to do it. You’re certainly not going to go somewhere and talk with him—” Her face fell as realization struck. “Oh, Lil. You already did it, didn’t you?”

“We walked across the street to the taco place.”

“Taco Terry’s?”

I nodded.

“You met with a Reaper at a Taco Terry’s?”

I shrugged.

She looked down at her lap, brow furrowed while she thought it over. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t either.”

“I’m not sure if I should ring your neck for going, or congratulate you for the opposition research.” She gave me a sideways glance. “I want more info before I decide whether I’m totally peeved.”

“He gave me a speech about being a Reaper. About how it’s not as bad as people think. About how magic can be a force of change in the world, even if it means sacrificing people.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

I gave her a flat look. “I think the sacrifice argument would be a little more believable if they could point to anything decent they’d actually done in the world.”

“Fair enough. But what was the point? Was he trying to sway you to their side or something?”