Heaven's Crime (gxg) ✓

eighteen. my best friend is a gang member

                    Today's weather report: blue skies with a 40% chance of blue skies and a 99.98% chance of bloodshed.

                     Here's how it went.

                    "Meet Cloudy," says the girl who introduced herself as Lacy. She seems around fifteen, with piercing eyes and shiny brown hair. There is an ease to the way she holds herself, and I guess it comes from living in the middle of the Mafia.

                    Once Hunter agreed to Veah's debt, they disappeared. Now it's me and Cassie, being led towards the room Cassie is going to stay in.

                    "Oh, he's a dog," I exclaim, crouching down to scratch his furry white ears.

                    "Yeah, he's―"

                    I am still kneeling when I hear a familiar voice. 

                   "I'm heading out to the market―Jude made a special request for pistachio-chip ice cream."

                  It takes me too long to slowly, carefully look up.

                  From where I am crouched, my fingertips digging into the soft fur beneath Cloudy's ears, I slowly rise to my feet.

                   We are standing in front of a door in a sleek, polished corridor, and it is now open, revealing the last person I expected to find here.

                    "Kaya?"

                    "Tommy?!" 

                     "Kaya . . ."

                     "Tommy," I blurt out . "What are you doing here?"

                     A flush darkens his porcelain skin. He rakes a hand through his chestnut curls, his blue eyes bright in the corridor's light. "Well, I . . ."

                     "Zio, can we take Cloudy on a walk?" says Kiara, eyes flickering between us like she doesn't want to get in the middle of this.

                     The girl next to her, who called herself Lacy, blinks her round green eyes innocently. And with Tommy's nod, they take off down the corridor, pulling Cassie along with them.

                     I'm pretty sure I hear the echo of giggling.

                     Tommy looks like a deer caught in headlights. His eyes are wide, and he keeps running his fingers through his soft, curly hair.

                     "Um, Kaya," he begins. "So . . ."

                     "I didn't know you were an uncle," I say.

                     "Um, yeah. About that . . ."

                     "Lacy and Kiara said they were going to take us to see Hunter's brother," I say suspiciously. "Where is he?"

                      I peer behind him into the room, as though Hunter's brother will somehow magically appear.

                      There is nobody there.

                       I have a bad, bad feeling about this.

                       For once, I wish I wish my common sense would try a trick called Vanishing.