Free Breaking Out by Gayle Parness Page B

told me the guy wasn’t using
his real name and that I should keep away from him.”
    “Duh.”
    “Yeah, he didn’t look happy about me being
contacted. He wanted me to swear allegiance to him as my King, but
I’m not gonna be bullied into taking sides.”
    “Seventeen and you’ve already got a bad track
record with powerful supes.” Jay said, smiling.
    “Tell me about it.” I glanced at my palm.
Already healed. “I tried to exchange blood—kind of a
lets-agree-not-to-kill-each-other thing—but he wasn’t havin’ any of
that.”
    “He’s a control freak.” Jay pointed to my
cheek, screwing his face up in sympathy. “That must’ve hurt.”
    I didn’t want to go into too much detail. “He
did something weird. He tasted my blood.” Jay made a face. “I
thought it was creepy at first, but it put us somewhere…somewhere
else. I’d have guessed we were inside a line, but I’ve traveled
them so many times I’d have recognized the feel. No this was
someplace where magic was quiet.”
    “Quiet?”
    “Quiet on the outside, but talking some kind
of secret language that only I could understand. It was the coolest
place ever.”
    “Sounds like some kind of acid trip.”
    I laughed. “Yeah. Maybe it was. You never
know with Fin.”
    He looked me over. “C’mon. You need to
eat.”
    “Now who’s bein’ a mom?”
    “You talked to her, right?”
    “How’d you know?”
    “You were worrying your ass off about it.
Other than the hurting, you look a lot more relaxed. Did she disown
you like you thought?”
    “I didn’t think that.” I gave him a shove
with my hand on his shoulder, but he hardly budged. The guy was a
cement wall. “She was cool.” We walked another block. Samson
running a little bit ahead. “You eating again?”
    “I’d never say no to another meal.”
    “You’re going to explode, ya know. And when
you do, undigested corn chips and fast food burgers are going to
litter the street. The worst part is, the mayor will make me clean
it up.”
    He patted his stomach and frowned. “We’ll go
for a run tomorrow. Samson can use a workout.”
    “Umm hmm.”
    “Where are we headed next?”
    “Your dream destination.”
     
     

PART TWO: LOS ANGELES
    IVY
    CHAPTER NINE
    It had to rain today of all days. It hardly ever rained in LA; at
least in the few months I’d been living here, so why today?
Couldn't it have held off for another six hours?
    I pulled a short leather jacket over my black
V-neck, deciding at the last minute that a baseball cap would keep
my dark hair dry and in place. I’d end up with hat hair, but that
was better than a dripping mop. I'd spent longer than average on my
makeup, using shadow and mascara to bring out my hazel eyes, not
that it mattered much with all the rain, and had picked my favorite
shade of pink lipstick.
    Today, even the rain couldn’t dull my
spirits, ‘cause thirty minutes ago, I’d gotten the call that was
going to change my life. I did a little spin in place, then,
realized I was gonna be late if I kept dancing around the room like
an idiot.
     
    “ Ms. Lake, you’ve got the job. You’ll be
picked up at the corner of Melbourne and Riley in exactly one hour.
Look for a dark green van.”
     
    I ignored the fact it was kind of odd Mr. A
was picking me up on a street corner, but I was so excited by the
personal call from one of my heroes that I'd filed it away as the
eccentric behavior of a top exec. After all, this guy worked in a
profession that catered to the bizarre, so I dismissed my uneasy
feelings, grabbed my bag and raced down the stairs at full
throttle.
    Glancing at my cell, I frowned. If the bus
schedule was off, I’d be late and that couldn’t happen. Not today.
I picked up my pace, not taking any notice of the delivery truck
plowing too quickly through the large puddle in the street.
    The screech of his brakes and the sound of
the wheels tearing though the dirty pool froze me in place. Bad
decision—should have run. Smelly,