Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set Read online

  “You two have known each other for a long time, haven’t you?” Yutika asked.

  “Since we were kids,” I replied, keeping my gaze focused on Nancy Axelrod.

  “Kaira’s my hero,” Yutika said, fanning her face. “I want to be just like her someday.”

  I laughed. I didn’t say anything else for fear of saying too much.

  “Seriously, though,” Yutika said. “You must know her better than any of us.” A thoughtful expression came over her face. “I’ve been living and working with her for years now, and I feel like I don’t really know much about her. It’s weird. I mean, I’ve met Ma and her grandma and cousins, but I don’t know her, know her.”

  “I guess being unMarked has made her a little less willing to share things about her past,” I said, giving Yutika a non-committal shrug.

  I couldn’t be sure, but I guessed Kaira kept her distance from her friends for the same reason I did. At the BSMU, I was friendly with everyone, but I never got too close with anyone. It was difficult to get close to people when I couldn’t tell them why I didn’t date or why I made periodic trips to my dad’s house to make sure no new pill bottles had appeared in his medicine cabinet.

  The day I’d walked out of Kaira’s life, I hadn’t just lost the woman I loved more than life itself. I’d lost my best friend.

  I cleared my throat. Nodding at the packed dance floor, I said, “This place is nuts.”

  “If you think this is crowded, you should see the holidays at my house. Five-hundred Indian relatives crammed into a kitchen this big.” She held her thumb and forefinger together until they were almost touching. Honestly, it’s a max capacity issue. If my house was an elevator, we’d get shut down.”

  I laughed again.

  “So, how long have you been…um…working with Kaira?” I asked.

  “Two-and-a-half years.” She looked at me. “You don’t approve of what we do, do you?”

  I shrugged, but when Yutika raised her eyebrows, I said, “What you guys are doing weakens the Alliance and makes the whole system worse off.”

  “I think you’re walking proof that the system is already broken,” Yutika replied.

  I wanted to argue with her, but a part of me wondered if she was right.

  As quickly as the thought came to me, I rejected it. The Alliance was the reason Boston hadn’t succumbed to the Slaughters like every other major city. It was the reason why we weren’t being governed by some tyrant. It was the only way to bring true unity between Naturals and Magics.

  A.J.’s voice in my earpiece said, “If Michael doesn’t stop staring at our mark like he’s an assassin or something, she’s going to know we’re here for her.”

  “Come on, Michael. Dance with me.”

  I jerked my attention to where Kaira was leading Michael away from the bar and into the crowd of people dancing in front of the musician-less band.

  A surge of emotions I didn’t want to feel took hold of me.

  It wasn’t that I was jealous. Even from here, I could tell from Kaira’s body language that she had no interest in him like that, and Michael was keeping his hands firmly in friend territory. It was just that I wanted it to be my hands on her waist.

  We were done, I reminded myself. We’d been done for three years, and I’d been doing fine. I still missed her…still loved her, but I could get through the day without constantly thinking about her. It was just now, being within sight of her…. That, along with everything else that was going on, was making me a little crazy.

  I forced my attention back to Yutika, but her narrowed gaze was on Michael.

  I checked to make sure my microphone was turned off before saying to her, “You could go cut in, you know.”

  “I didn’t. I wasn’t—” Yutika turned to me, and then she laughed. “Okay, I might have been.”

  I grinned at her. “I’m sure Kaira wouldn’t mind.”

  Yutika glanced back at the dance floor.

  “We work together. And Michael is…hard to get to know. All any of us know about him is that he came from Detroit.”

  I winced. Detroit was infamous for having the worst Slaughters in the country. It had been even more violent than Atlanta.

  “You don’t need to know his life story for a dance,” I pointed out, wondering what the hell I was doing.

  “I guess you’re right.” Yutika blew out a breath and threw a few fake punches, like she was a boxer going into the ring. “Wish me luck,” she told me.

  “Good luck.”

  I kept one eye on the bartender as I watched Yutika weave through the crowd toward Michael and Kaira. She tapped Michael on the shoulder. Kaira smiled and stepped back.

  I assumed Yutika and Michael were dancing, but I wasn’t looking at them anymore. Everything in the club had faded. All of my attention was drawn to Kaira like a magnet.

  She moved to the side of the dance floor where she was partly hidden behind a column. Some guy immediately went over to her and spoke into her ear. It was so close to her mike that his words almost blew out my eardrum.

  “Dance with me, Gorgeous,” he said.

  She shook her head and turned away from him, toward me. Our gazes locked.

  I should stay put. I knew that. I had never been the self-destructive type.

  Then again, I reflected, maybe I had. I’d fallen in love with a Magic and broken two out of three high laws for her sake. I had convinced myself we’d find a way to be together and have the life we both wanted. At the very least, I was delusional.

  These thoughts were just background as I was drawn through the crowd to her by an invisible tether.

  It’s just a dance, I told myself as I held Kaira’s gaze, asking her without needing to say a word.

  I tried not to think about how we were in a crowded club, where anyone who bothered to look would know I was a Natural.

  We positioned ourselves behind the column so she could watch the front door and I could keep an eye on the back exit. Kaira slid her arms over my shoulders. Mine came to rest on her waist, and I pulled her closer before I could stop myself. This undeniable connection between us had always been here, and even after what had happened, it hadn’t gone away. If anything, it was stronger than ever.

  I drew her deeper into the column’s shadow, where we’d be hidden from view of most of the dance floor. I was distantly aware of the other Six’s chatter over my earpiece. I looked around once, just to make sure none of the others were watching us. I didn’t think they were. Besides, we were surrounded by people on every side. No one would see the way we were holding each other.

  It must have been the desperation of my current situation that emboldened me. I would never before have risked touching her in public in case any Magics noticed I wasn’t one of them. But the couples surrounding us now were too busy grinding and making out to pay attention to anyone else besides their partners.

  Kaira rested her head on my shoulder and moved her hands up my neck until she was playing with my hair. I felt her heartbeat quicken in time with my own.

  I slid my hands up to the bare skin at her waist and then back down to her hips, wanting to feel her every curve as I drew her all the way against me.

  She made a soft sound that raised my temperature several degrees. When she lifted her head from my shoulder and I caught sight of the expression in her dark eyes, I lost the battle I’d been waging with myself. I leaned in.

  An earsplitting scream made me jerk back.

  CHAPTER 15

  It’s the Nat!”

  “Penelope Heppurn’s murderer! He’s here!”

  “Graysen Galder!”

  People were pointing at me. There were more screams. I barely avoided a glass bottle that was aimed at my head.

  Kaira swore. “I’m sorry!”

  I looked down at myself. My illusion was gone.

  “Kill the bastard!”

  Another projectile came through the air. This time, it was a knife. I caught it in the air, miraculously getting the handle rat
her than the blade.

  “Get out of here,” I yelled to Kaira, but when I turned back to her, she was gone. In her place was…me. And then the other people around us turned into me, too. There were at least ten identical versions of me.

  “What the—”

  “An Animate Illusionist!”

  “Kai!” I shouted, searching the sea of carbon copies of myself for the one person I was desperate to protect.

  A version of myself went hurtling through the air, attacked by some invisible force. Another had red sparks erupting from his head.

  Kai. Where was Kai?

  “Six, get to the door,” Kaira’s voice called into my earpiece.

  “Kaira Hansley, get this illusion off me,” A.J.’s voice shouted over my earpiece. “Frat boy is not a good look on me.”

  One of the illusions of me erupted in flames. It was horrible, even more so to see it happening to an identical version of myself.

  There was the sound of glass shattering and more screams. A fire extinguisher flew through the air, bashing two Graysens in the head.

  By now, half the bar was filled with identical copies of me. If I wasn’t so worried about where the Six were in this madness, I’d be more disturbed about all the ways I was seeing my body punished.

  “Kaira!” I yelled. Where the hell was she? Which one was she?

  Half the people in the bar looked like me, and the place had turned into complete pandemonium.

  I caught sight of Bri, her skin glittering titanium, as she blasted through a crowd of Magics who were punching one of the Graysen’s senseless.

  I had to stop this before someone got killed. I looked around, searching for some way to end this insanity, when I caught sight of the bar. The bartender…our bartender…was gone.

  My heart leapt into my throat. I scanned the crowd, frantic. She was our only lead on the murders. If she disappeared, we had nothing. Somehow, my attention snagged on her white bartender shirt, which glowed under the fluorescent lights. I shoved my way through the crowd toward her.

  “Stop!” I called.

  The bartender glanced back at me. I saw her eyes register fear. And then she ran for the back exit. I went after her.

  I realized I still had the knife in my hand, and I waved it around to part the people punching, hurling magic, and screaming at each other. The bartender went through the fire exit, setting off the fire alarm. In addition to the screeching of the alarm, the sprinklers turned on. I barely felt the spray as I forced my way to the back door.

  I crashed through it. I glanced both ways, saw the bartender sprinting down the sidewalk, and raced after her.

  Fear made her fast, but I was faster. Nancy started to cross the street. Cars honked. With an extra burst of speed, I caught up to her. I tackled her, yanking her back onto the sidewalk before she got hit by a car.

  She kicked and clawed at me.

  “Stop,” I gasped, using my weight to pin her to the sidewalk.

  She screamed. Porch lights came on.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. Just calm down.”

  I felt her teeth sink into my forearm.

  I wrestled her back down and then raised the knife to her throat. “Stop,” I commanded.

  She went still.

  Some part of my brain registered that I was holding a knife to a person’s throat, but in that moment, all that mattered was making sure this woman didn’t get away. I hated that look of terror in her eyes, but if it was the only way to get what I needed….

  I got off her, keeping the knife pointed at her throat.

  “Get up,” I said, using the gruffness in my voice to let her think I might actually use the weapon.

  I used one hand to wrap an arm around her shoulders, keeping the knife lightly touching her neck. I used my other hand to turn my microphone back on.

  “I’ve got the bartender,” I said, wondering if anyone could even hear me over the screams and bedlam coming from inside the bar. “If you can hear me, get to the van and pick us up at the corner of Warrenton and Charles.”

  “Bobby was wrong about you,” Nancy sniffed.

  I didn’t have a chance to ask her what she meant.

  “Gray?” Kaira’s worried voice cut through the sound of sirens in the background.

  My knees went weak with relief.

  “Kai, are you okay?”

  Whatever she said in reply was lost in the squeal of tires. The blue van stopped in front of the curb. The door opened.

  “Get in,” I told the woman.

  She was crying. I felt like a complete asshole, but I didn’t feel bad enough to let my only chance at answers get away.

  I wiped down the knife’s handle with my sleeve, feeling more criminal by the second, and tossed it into some bushes before climbing into the van.

  The woman whimpered as I squeezed in beside her, but Michael was sitting on her other side and was already speaking softly to her. Within seconds, her tense posture relaxed and a tentative smile replaced her look of terror.

  “Yes, yes of course I will,” she said to whatever Michael had Whispered to her.

  It was a relief to see the Six back to looking like themselves. My gaze cut straight to Kaira. She was sitting next to A.J., and a quick scan reassured me she wasn’t hurt.

  My relief at seeing her unharmed turned to anger when I realized the danger she’d been in. Every Magic and probably most Naturals wanted me dead. And she had illusioned herself, and the rest of the Six, to look just like me.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” I told her.

  Kaira let out a shaky breath, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I mean it,” I growled. Staying angry was the easiest way to avoid thinking about how something could have happened to her.

  Kaira replied with a silent look of challenge that made me want to yell at her until I turned blue in the face. Or haul her into my arms and kiss her senseless.

  “I’m not gonna lie,” Bri said, blowing on her fists until they turned back to human skin instead of titanium, “that was the most fun I’ve had in…well, forever.”

  “It was like eating shrooms and then going into one of those houses of mirrors,” A.J. said. “Equal parts interesting and terrifying.”

  “You all had one simple mission. Get the bartender and get out,” Smith grumbled from behind his screens. “Destroying a club and drawing the attention of every Mag and Nat cop in the city isn’t exactly going to help our cause.”

  “It’s my fault,” Kaira said. “I let Gray’s illusion slip. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not like you to get distracted enough to lose one of your illusions,” Yutika said. “What happened?”

  “I—I lost focus. I’m sorry.”

  I felt my face heat with shame and self-loathing. Kaira and I had destroyed a bar because of an almost-kiss. People got hurt. Some might even be—

  What on Earth had I been thinking?

  The simple answer was that I hadn’t been thinking…at least, not about anything other than Kaira.

  “Well, the police just arrested all twenty-two Graysens still inside,” Smith said.

  “They’ll be back to themselves in a few minutes,” Kaira said. “We’re reaching the edge of my range.”

  “That is super impressive,” Yutika said from the driver’s seat as the van screeched to a halt at a traffic light.

  “Meanwhile, have any of you said boo about how I levitated the whole goddamn bar to block the door behind us?” A.J. huffed.

  “That was pretty sweet,” Bri said.

  A.J. winked at her.

  I turned my attention to the bartender, who was speaking quietly to Michael. His eyes widened, and then he asked her, “Can you tell my friends what you told me?”

  Nancy hesitated. Michael said something in her ear again.

  In a hurried voice, Nancy began to speak.

  “It all started about six months ago, when Bobby said he’d gotten a big promotion at the Alliance. He started acting weird after that. He wo
rked all the time, and when he was home, he was always taking strange calls when he thought I was asleep. He was getting nervous, too. He installed a security system in our house and insisted we keep our blinds drawn day and night.”

  Nancy looked at Michael, who gave her an encouraging nod.

  “Then, a few months ago, I got a notice in the mail that we were overdue on our cable bill. Usually Bobby pays the bills, but he’d been so busy with work I assumed he just forgot. When I went to transfer the money, I noticed there was almost a million dollars in our account.” She laughed nervously. “Bobby and I could barely pay our bills. School loans, car payments, and alimony payments from Bobby’s first marriage. You know how it goes.”

  “Of course,” Michael told her.

  “Well, anyway, I was so flustered, I called Bobby’s cell. When he didn’t answer, I called his office.” She took a gulp of air. “He’d been real insistent that I only call him on his cell, but it was a million fucking dollars. Can you blame me for wanting to talk to my husband?”

  “Not at all,” Michael said.

  “That was when his secretary told me that Bobby had left the Alliance six months ago. She didn’t know where he’d gone to work, only that he wasn’t at the Alliance anymore.”

  The van was silent as she took a nervous little breath.

  “When Bobby came home that night, I confronted him. He yelled at me for calling the office, and then he told me he was working in some secret department that no one knew about. He said it was so secret he couldn’t even tell me about it.”

  “I knew it!” Smith exclaimed, victory lighting his eyes. “I knew the Alliance—”

  Kaira put up a hand and gave him a warning look.

  “Go on,” Michael told Nancy.

  “That night, he was on the phone again, so I listened. I couldn’t hear much, but he kept mentioning the Lab.”

  “Do you think your husband was involved in a drug lab?” Michael asked.

  “Yes.” She whispered the word, but we all heard it.

  It was what I assumed, too. It would explain Bobby Axelrod’s sudden increase in wealth, paranoia, and unwillingness to tell his wife what he was mixed up in. Except, something felt like it was missing with that theory.