I wondered how long it would take to earn two hundred dollars if I worked with Luke and the others at the diner.
With the car loaded up, I slipped into the middle seat between Luke driving and Nathan riding shot gun.
I lifted my feet into the seat, but Nathan snagged my knees drawing them over his. He sat back into the seat, closing his eyes. “I am so ready for a weekend.”
Luke flipped on a rock station and wedged Kota’s sedan out of the parking space. “I am so ready for us to make Kota get a new car. This old clunky thing feels like it’s about to die.”
I sat up a little. “You all got this car for Kota?”
Nathan plopped a hand down on my knee. “Mr. Blackbourne gave orders to North to find a suitable car for Kota and I. So Kota helped him pick this one.”
I blinked after them. These guys disappeared for Academy work constantly. It seemed out of place that any of them shouldn’t have a car. “You didn’t want one?”
Nathan smiled. “It wouldn’t make sense for me to get one. If my dad came home and saw it, he’d wonder where I stole the money from.”
“Oh,” I said, “but wouldn’t you need one for when you do things for the Academy?”
“It’d be handy,” Nathan said, “but there’s no way I’d be able to explain it. For this thing, we pretended to put our money together to share the car. That way Erica wouldn’t have a problem with me coming to borrow the car when I need to.”
“That’ll change though,” Luke said. “Once the diner is open.”
“You guys won’t work anywhere else? Where do you get the money for stuff?”
Luke and Nathan exchanged glances over my head. Luke laughed. “We pick up odd jobs for other Academy members every once in a while,” he said. “We used to mow lawns and do repair work. We’d get normal jobs, but not a lot of bosses understand when we need to drop everything and run out the door.”
So Academy students can’t hold a job? “What makes the diner any different?”
Luke opened his mouth to answer, but something in the rearview mirror caught his attention. His eyes followed it instead of the road, enough for me to get nervous that he was going to drift into the other lane. “Were we followed from Sang’s house?”
Nathan stiffened next to me. “Followed?”
“Hang on,” Luke said. He stopped short at a traffic signal, and took a right.
I watched from the side mirror. A single dark sedan turned right behind us. Luke made a left on the next road, and the car followed.
“Shit,” Nathan said. “It’s Kota’s tail.”
“Is that bad?” I asked. “We weren’t doing anything.”
“Yeah, but we don’t want him following you home,” Nathan said. “Kota’s been keeping him busy so whoever it is wouldn’t notice your parents haven’t been home.”
My lips parted. So that was why Kota had been running out to Victor’s late at night. Why didn’t anyone tell me that was going on? I started to turn around. “Are we sure it’s the same guy?”
“It looks like the same car,” Nathan said. He patted my thigh. “Don’t look back at him. We don’t want to look like we’re worried about it.”
I fell back into the seat. “What do we do?”
Nathan glanced at the side mirrors. “Keep driving, Luke. Pick like a store on the other side of town to go to. Sang, call North. Tell him what’s going on. I’ll keep watching, maybe I can catch a glimpse as to who it is.”
I fished my phone out, finding North’s black car icon and smashing at it to call him.
He picked up on the first ring. It made me wonder if he hovered over his phone. “If Luke is driving you crazy, I don’t want him back,” North said. “Make him go to Kota’s.”
“We’re in Kota’s car and we’re being followed by the dark blue car.”
“Fuck,” North said. “Why didn’t you stay home?”
“Because I had no food at my house.”
“Baby, make the guys get you food. You stay home.”
Why was he being grouchy with me? This wasn’t my fault. “I can’t go to the grocery store? Kota told me to go with them.”
Luke waved at me for a second to get my attention. “Tell him to stop yelling.”
“What do we do?” I asked North.
“Have Nathan red line Silas so we can get your location.”
Nathan stuffed a hand into his pocket for his phone. “On it.” He stabbed at the screen.
“Is Silas getting it?” I asked North.
“We’ve got it. Have Luke keep driving. Don’t let him stop.”
I repeated it to Luke. “What else?”
“Just hang on, Baby. We’re coming for you.” He hung up.
Luke drove at five miles under the speed limit and took a long road around the block and back in a direction where we were facing town. “They better hurry up,” Luke said. “We’ve got groceries melting in the back.”
“Got a little more to worry about right now,” Nathan said. He angled his head at the rearview mirror and then at the side mirror. “His car windows are tinted too dark to see who it could be.”
“We should check the plate,” Luke said.
“We tried that,” Nathan said. “They’ve been lifting old plates and planting fake registration stickers on them. And we haven’t been able to get close enough to catch a VIN number. The guy’s always in it. And we’re not allowed to shadow him.”
“Should we call the police?” I asked. “Cou
ld we tell them we’re being followed?”
“No,” they both said at the same time.
I blushed. “Why not?”
Nathan glanced back at me. “We don’t really want the cops knowing about you.”
“Because of my parents?”
Nathan’s eyes darkened. “Yeah, that.”
I became distracted watching the car behind us. The sun was setting, and with the front lights on, it was harder to look at it and discover anything identifiable. Whoever it was wasn’t hiding the fact that they were trying to follow us now.
We were about to cross another road into a run-down part of the city when a text message came through my phone.
Silas: Tell Luke to speed up.
“Silas says to speed up,” I said.
Luke nodded, his knee jerking as he pushed harder on the gas.
The car surged forward. The moment there was a space big enough, a black SUV pulled around into the left hand lane into oncoming traffic from behind the blue car. It raced forward, sliding up in-between the cars.
When the SUV was securely in place, it slowed considerably.
Another text came through on my phone.
Silas: Next turn, make a right. Head home.
“Make the next right and then head home.”
“What is he doing?” Nathan asked, checking out the side mirror.
I turned on my knees in my seat, looking back. I could see North driving and Silas holding his phone, and also another device in his hand. I wondered where they got the SUV from. North has a motorcycle, the Jeep, a truck and an SUV?
North’s head twisted, catching me out. I could see his mouth moving. Silas did something with the phone in his hand. My phone started vibrating.
Silas: Get your seatbelt on.
I groaned, turned around and sat, putting on my belt. Luke made the next turn. The SUV came to a complete stop in the road, blocking the blue car. Luke weaved his way through a neighborhood and took a back road.
“Isn’t the guy going to figure out we tricked him?” I asked, still trying to twist around to watch what was going on behind us just in case.
Nathan leaned back against the seat. “He’ll probably think North is some asshole driver who doesn’t know his way around. That car isn’t registered to him.”