Leaping Read Free

clutching our piles of clothes.
Tarren’s spurs chime, and my heels make heavy clopping noises. When we get to
the jeep, I slide into the back seat, glance at my brothers, and slowly slip my
phone out of my jeans.
    Mission time his text reads.
I hold in my sigh as all my nerves go to town throughout my body. I recognize
the irony that I feel almost no fear related to the mission I myself am in the
midst of, but the thought of Rain struggling to climb on a roof, trying to tail
an angel without tripping over his own shoe laces, or missing the kill shot are
almost overwhelming.
    I really shouldn’t have asked–
okay, maybe demanded – that he tell me each time he went on a mission. Then
again, it’s the only way I can breathe the rest of the time.
    With who? I text back. The
Totem always mandates partners. I hope it’s Chain. Dude might have some serious
anger management issues and probably sleeps nuzzled up against his sniper rifle
each night, but he’s a hell of a shot and about as fearless as Tarren.
    Chain and Rattlesnake, the
text comes back.
    Rattlesnake? Who the hell is that? I
picture a tall, over muscled white guy with a shaved head and a tribal tattoo scrawled
across his back. Well, as long as it isn’t Finch. She is almost as inept as
Rain. I’m convinced that those two actually create a closed time loop of
disaster.
    In the passenger seat, Gabe relays
directions to Tarren. We pull into traffic from the alleyway. I keep my head
up, phone down by my side as I tap back a response.
    Be safe.
    While I wait the epically long time
for Rain to text back, I dig through my purse and glide some tinted lip gloss
over my lips. My phone vibrates.
    We can handle this.
    But I can’t, I think sadly.
My heart actually hurts to think of goofy, awkward, easy-smiling Rain out in
this world, our world, trying to be the dark and violent thing that we all have
to be. Every mission is Russian roulette, and he’s been lucky too long.
    This is going to be the one.
He’s going to get killed tonight. My brain always does this. Grinds my
heart into a pulp of worry. I can’t afford this, not when I’ve got my own
mission to look to. 
    Good luck, Xander my shaking
fingers tap out.
    U 2 Buffy, he writes back.
    I slide my phone back into the
pocket of my folded jeans. Rain and I have had more than enough fights about
his vigilantism, and it always ends with his sleepy brown eyes peering into
mine as he says, “It’s my choice.”
    I gaze out the window, at all the
lights, all the people, all the noises of this beehive city. Time to tuck Rain
and all my worries away and focus on my own mission. This nurse isn’t going to
be changing any bedpans tonight.
    “Right up here,” Gabe says, his
pointy ears bent forward as he gazes at the map on his phone. “We’re officially
in Beverly Hills, folks. Breathe in that sweet scent of money.”
    The homes are ballooning in size
out the window. Many sit behind tall, attractive fences.
    “So, Tucker Cartwright,” I say as I
put my phone…nowhere apparently. My costume doesn’t exactly come with pockets
or gaps. “What’s he famous for anyway?”
    Gabe gives me a fake, condescending
chuckle and then says in the tone of an admonishing professor, “Maya, my dear,
we’re in the 21 st century. People need not be famous for doing shit
anymore.”
    “So he’s famous for being famous?”
    Tarren makes a careful right and
slows behind a line of cars at a big gate. Gabe switches back to his own voice.
“Wikipedia says he was in some kind of band ten years ago, but then they broke
up. He’s been circling the celeb reality show circuit ever since and
occasionally crashing cars that cost enough to feed an entire African country
for a year.”
    “Yeah, they had that one song.” I
dig back into the foggy memories of my pre-changed life. They feel vaporous in
comparison to the sharp, clear reel of memories I possess stemming from the day
Grand changed my body and my life forever in ways that were