Free SHIFT (Mackenzie Grey #1) by Karina Espinosa Page B

condoned. With all the tattoos and piercings, they wrote her off as a screw up. Funny enough, Amy was probably one of the smartest people I’d ever met and was at the top of her class. It was their loss if they didn’t recognize her brilliance. She’ll be running the world pretty soon if she gets her way.
    Sebastian’s gaze turned from my best friend to me and he no longer looked friendly. “I can’t let you go alone, Mackenzie,” he said as his face twisted in rage, like I’d done something. Man, I can never win.
    “Oh come on!” I expelled. “I’m not even part of your Pac—,” I caught myself before I said something in front of James that could land us both in hot water. I didn’t know what their rules on human knowledge were, but I preferred not to test it at the moment. “Packet,” I corrected and felt incredibly stupid. I didn’t have enough time to think of something better. “I’m not part of your packet, so you can’t dictate what goes in it.” Someone save me, please.
    Amy whirled around and raised a pierced eyebrow at me. I rolled my eyes, exasperated. What did they expect? I couldn’t be witty all the time, sheesh.
    “Then you’ll take another document from the packet with you,” Sebastian said, playing along with my analogy, but he wasn’t happy about it.
    “Oh no! No, no, no, no way!” I said like a child. I swore, I was throwing too many tantrums lately. What was up with me?
    “This isn’t negotiable, Mackenzie. You don’t understand everything yet, but hopefully by the next full—by the next week or so, you will,” he said and cleared his throat.
    “Kenzie, what the hell is going on?” James whispered behind me. Jonah lurched forward again but Jackson had a good hold on him as he continued to stare at an oblivious Amy. I chuckled. He was totally smitten.
    “I’m sorry, James, I’ll explain everything to you later,” I said and put a hand on his arm, directing him to the bedroom. A growl came from someone behind us—most likely Jonah—but I didn’t look to see who it was. I was nervous about leaving Amy in the room alone with them but I had a funny feeling that Jackson would protect her.
    I closed the door behind us and leaned against it. “What the hell is going on?” James exclaimed in a loud whisper.
    I flinched. Not because he scared me, but because I would have to come up with a really good lie to cover this up. And no matter what happened between us, James was still someone I wouldn’t want to lie to. “Well?” he prompted.
    Come on, Kenz…think. “They’re cops,” I blurted and almost rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. Cops? Really? That’s the best I could do…geez.
    “Cops? What did you do?” he asked with concern.
    “Nothing, I just…I was on patrol with Michaels last week and was involved in a hostage situation. They’re just keeping an eye on me because the guys are still at large.”
    “Oh my God, Kenz, are you okay?” he pulled me into a tight hug and I let him. I sagged into his embrace and it wasn’t because he believed me, but because everything from the past couple days was now catching up to me. I needed some form of comfort, even if it was from the douchebag who cheated on me.
    “I’m fine, I just want to get home so I can get away from all of this,” I sighed into the crook of his neck. He kissed the top of my head and with his fingers, he rubbed circles in the middle of my back. I missed this, the familiarity. But I needed to cut it out, no point in getting comfortable with something that wasn’t real; no matter how much I wanted it to be.
    I pulled away and he tucked my wild strands of hair behind my ear. “So why did those guys jump me on campus?” he asked and that was going to be a little harder to cover up, so I needed to deflect.
    “I don’t know, but I need a favor from you.”
    “Anything, Kenzie,” he said, his voice so soft and warm that I wanted to curl up in it, but I knew it wasn’t real, it’s just