That startled a laugh out of her.
He looked at her, a silent question forming in his unnaturally bright blue eyes.
She shrugged. “I know Beaverton. But let’s just say no one would miss it.”
He regarded her coldly. “You would not care for it if a void opened there. Nor anywhere within a hundred miles.” A tilt of his head. “At least, you would not care for it in the few moments you had left to live.”
She didn’t quitegulp, but it was a near thing.
“Here is the address,” he said, and held out a business card. On it was a scribbled address. “Call the others.”
And then, before she could answer, he simply vanished.
If she’d imagined James’s car, she would have conjured up images of a brown clunker—probably held together by paint and duct tape. She would have been wrong, it turned out. When James pulled up to the curb, it was in a very sedate, very normal blue car. A Mom Car.
He met her on the curb, smiling as if this was something they did every day. There were rough edges, a rawness to his face that she appreciated more after seeing the flawless Daemon. She never knew she’d long for rumpled hair or scruff, but James was so human she nearly relaxed.
She didn’t, though.
She was still Dee.
“I can’t leave campus,” she said, glancing up the sidewalk. “It’s not a weekend.”
Cora gazed at her, peering from her seat behind the steering wheel. It appeared that even though it was James’s car, Cora insisted on driving.
“This is kind of required,” said Cal, from the backseat. He had a magazine half-open on his lap, and he’d cranked the window down all the way. “Can’t you just sneak away?”
Dee glanced about the parking lot. Sure, there was no onewatching—odds were good that she could get away with it. But the dorm monitor would patrol the halls around seven—andit was five now. Two hours felt like too short a span of time.
And this school was what she’d sold her heart for.
Then again, she had a perfect record. Even if she was caught, she might just get a detention or a warning. And if she was truly late, maybe she could text Gremma, get her to stage a diversion.
She met James’s eyes; they were crinkled at the corners in a gentle smile. “I could call the school,” he offered. “Pretend to be your dad or something, say there’s a family emergency.”
She answered without thought. “Oh, no. That’d get the school’s attention, probably. My dad never calls.”
A lift of his eyebrows; she had said too much. “I mean,” she said quickly, “it’s just—you know—parents are busy and all that.”
Flustered, she hastened around to the other side of the car and yanked the door open. She slid into the backseat quickly. “Drive,” she said, keeping her gaze lowered. “Please.”
Once James was in the passenger seat, Cora hit the gas and yanked the car toward the main road. Dee glanced once over her shoulder, at the shrinking buildings of campus as they drove through the gate.
“Are we all set?” asked Cora. She was looking down at something near James’s feet. “Car, check. Rocks, check. First-aid kit, check. Emergency rations, check.”
“Emergency rations?” asked Dee, alarmed. “I thought we were just going to Beaverton.”
Without so much as looking at her, James reached over and pulled open the glove compartment. Inside was a paper sack filled with half a dozen bagels.
“Check,” said James.
“Cell phones?” said Cora.
“Check,” said Dee, feeling her own phone in her pocket.
“Check,” said Cal.
“C-4?” asked Cora.
