Angel Dares (31 page)

I jumped down from the wall. ‘No way: that’s a good song!
Sent to torment me
,’ I sang. ‘
Fly back where you belong
.’

He groaned. ‘You really did hear it all then? I was hoping you’d forgotten.’

‘Hardly, the words are graven on my heart, Marcus “OMG” Cohen.’ I pulled him towards the stage door, aware there would be people waiting for us inside. ‘You’ll need them when I annoy you, which I’ve no doubt I will. Besides, good music is good music.’

His hand slid from my waist to my hip. ‘I’ll just have to write another song then—the one where the guy wakes up and realizes he’s the shallow fool for getting her all wrong.’

‘Or you could write me a song where I get to answer back.’ I pushed open the fire doors that hadn’t closed properly behind us. The warmth of the stage and the buzz of people reached out to wrap around us.

He patted my hip in approval. ‘Great idea. I’ll write you one then our bands can duel for that top spot. Him and her.’

‘Black Belt versus Angel Dares? That’s one story I don’t mind being part of.’ I headed for the green room.

‘Sorry, but you don’t stand a chance against us highly trained guys.’ In the corridor just outside the lounge, Marcus feigned a judo move to throw me, giving me plenty of time to skip out of the way.

Backing into the room laughing, I shook my finger at him. ‘Uh-huh, we’ll just dance out of your reach.’

Cameras flashed—and yes, that was the second picture that made it into the press the next morning along with the onstage kiss: Marcus and I fooling about in the doorway to the green room, both laughing, me holding him off, him with his hands outstretched to grab me.

‘Oops.’ I blushed and quickly checked my dress was straight after our tussle.

‘Yeah, the backstage press conference.’ Marcus cleared his throat, looking more amused than embarrassed. ‘I forgot about that.’

I turned to take in the avid looks of what appeared to be at least fifty journalists. Marcus closed the gap between us and slung an arm around my shoulders. ‘I think they’ll want us down the front with the others.’

Kurt, his band mates, and Pete and Michael were all smiling at us.

‘You did say “send in the clowns—there oughta be clowns”?’ I said brightly.

‘Don’t worry: we’re here,’ finished Marcus. I just knew that before me he would never have made a joke like that at his own expense.

‘Thanks for the floor show, guys,’ said Kurt. ‘Come closer.’ He patted the sofa beside him where they had left room for two.

‘Not stay away?’ grinned Marcus, pulling me down onto this lap.

‘Definitely not stay away. Right, Margot, over to you to pick the questions.’

As Margot took the floor to control the interview, I relaxed back against Marcus. Kurt refused anyone who asked about Marcus and me, making clear this was about music, not about our private lives. That was sweet of him but I guess Marcus had kinda blown the private part when he did his apology in front of thousands. From my perch I was able to take in some of the details that had escaped me before. Will, Uriel, and Victor were in the room, standing at the edges, eyes on the journalists rather than us. I could see Alex also, standing next to Uriel, Misty just behind him, visible only because I could see her hand wrapped in his. That left Summer. I spotted her sitting on a chair behind Victor, eyes closed as she concentrated. What was she doing? When I’d seen that expression on her face before, she’d been using her gift. She can get into just about any head unless they have formidable shields. As I watched, she got up and whispered something to Victor. His eyes focused on a man in the middle of the crowd, face hidden behind a large camera that he didn’t lower.

I sat up, not believing the man’s gall. Eli Davis had dared to come to our press conference! Was he that stupid to think we’d let him walk in and out with impunity? I sagged a little. Of course, we had nothing to charge him with. We couldn’t stop him as I’d been unable to prove he’d been behind my abduction.

Marcus noticed my reaction. ‘What’s wrong?’

Eli Davis—the guy with the black Gifted baseball cap and checked shirt.

Marcus stiffened and started to shift me off his lap. I’m not sure what he was planning to do but tearing the guy limb from limb appeared to feature heavily in his thoughts.

No, not here
, I begged.
Let’s not give him the story he wants.

Kurt stood up and signalled that the question and answer session was over. ‘Thanks for coming, everyone. There are drinks and stuff in the waterfront bar. We’ll be over for the party when we’ve had a chance to wind down, OK?’ Gifted were famous—and well liked—for their hospitality to the music press. These parties were a regular event at the end of a tour.

As the press filed out, Victor and Will moved in on Eli Davis. Victor relieved him of his camera as Will took a firm grip on his arm.

‘Mr Davis, I believe we need to have a word in private,’ said Victor coolly.

Davis’ eyes flicked to his colleagues heading for the free drinks. ‘You can’t do anything, Benedict. People know I’m here.’

‘I believe Mr Voss would like a word too.’ Victor marched Davis up to where Kurt, Marcus, and I were still sitting. Margot moved to Will’s side; Alex, Misty, and Summer stayed in the room but kept back. None of them looked surprised at this confrontation.

Did you know about this?
I asked Marcus.

No—but I think I like what I’m seeing
. He settled me protectively against him.
Just sit back and enjoy the show
.

Kurt glanced down at us to check we were OK then turned to face Davis.

‘Davis, I have some bad news for you,’ he said.

‘What? That you’re one of them?’ Davis spat at Victor’s feet. Victor raised a brow but said nothing.

‘One of what?’ asked Kurt blandly. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. No, what I mean is that my lawyers are delivering an injunction against you and your newspaper.’

Davis’ eyes darted to me, then to the door. ‘Nothing can be proved.’

‘Sadly, we are aware that we can’t pin attempted murder on you, you scum, but that is not the charge I am bringing against you. I have presented evidence of phone hacking to the police here and in the US. So desperate to get celebrity gossip, you stole a phone off a new associate of mine and dug through her contacts for our numbers. One of those stolen was mine and I know you attempted to break into my voicemail—I had my security team watching for it.’ He gestured to Will. ‘And Mr Benedict here also has something to add.’

Will passed Davis an envelope. ‘You also hacked into my account and picked up a message left for me by my brother four days ago. Taking his number, you attempted to do the same to his voicemail. Unfortunately for you, his phone is FBI-issued, which bumps up the charges to attempted espionage on a government official. Homeland Security has got very interested in you. When you’ve got through the court case here, I imagine the US authorities will be asking for you to be extradited to face further charges at home.’

Davis went white. I had no sympathy—not a scrap. He had brought the whole stinking bucket of gunk down on his own head by forgetting to behave like a journalist with any morals and almost killed me in the process. Margot spoke into her walkie-talkie and two uniformed police officers entered the room.

‘You can’t do this,’ spluttered Davis. ‘I’ve got rights!’

‘Excuse me, sir, I was just about to read you those now,’ said the senior officer as she approached. Victor gave her a nod and stepped back. Davis had forgotten in his mad dash to expose us that Victor had friends in most major police forces in friendly countries. He was now about to find out just how unpopular the charge of celebrity phone hacking was going to make him.

He was led away, shouting out about savants and plots. Kurt stood between Will and Victor, savouring the moment.

‘Ah, that felt good.’ He turned to me. ‘You OK seeing him again? We thought you’d like to be here when he was brought down.’

I bounced off Marcus’s knee and did a little happy dance. ‘Yay, score for the good guys!’

Marcus got up and spun me once. ‘And it was all thanks to you.’

‘Me?’ I squeaked. ‘No, it was these wonderful people.’ I gestured to my friends.

Victor gave me a wry smile. ‘No, Marcus is right. It was your phone that did it.’

Misty approached hand in hand with Alex. ‘None of us planned it that way but he had stolen it off you already so Alex here had the totally brilliant idea of using it as bait.’

Alex cleared his throat. ‘I might’ve made a call to your old number suggesting persuasively that whoever was listening go through your contacts and focus on Will and Kurt.’

‘And Summer tracked him for us tonight so we knew he would be here,’ beamed Misty.

‘And believe me: you owe me for that. His is one horrible little mind to shadow,’ said Summer. ‘I’ve had to live in his head since he walked through the doors.’

I hugged Marcus tight as I looked round at them all. ‘So what you’re saying is I was totally amazingly cunning to get him to steal my phone—and even cleverer not to passcode it?’

‘Just this once,’ said Victor, ‘but yes.’

Marcus laughed into the crook where my neck meets my shoulder, sharing my happiness. ‘You genius, Angel.’

‘Your genius,’ I corrected. Holding out my hand to my friends, I smiled at them all. ‘And do you know something? I think we deserve a party to celebrate our combined brilliance.’

Kurt came up to us and hugged both Marcus and me to him. ‘So it’s just as well I’ve got one already laid on out front. Let’s go, people.’

Joss Stirling lives in Oxford and is the author of the bestselling
Finding Sky
trilogy. She was awarded the Romantic Novelist’s Association’s Romantic Novel of the Year 2015 for
Struck.

You can visit her website at
www.josstirling.com
.

A black eye. Great.

Raven Stone studied it in the mirror, lightly probing the developing bruise. Ouch. The strip light flickered over the wash basin, making her reflection blink like the end of an old newsreel. The tap squeaked a protest as she dampened a cold compress.

‘You look about seven years old,’ she told her mirror-double.

Ten years on from the schoolyard of scraped knees and minor bumps, Raven considered the injury more a humiliation than a pain. She tugged a curl of her spiralling black hair over her face but it sprang back, refusing to hide the cloud gathering around her left eye. She wondered whether she could hide in her room until it faded … ?

Not possible. All the students were expected to attend the welcome-back supper and her absence would be noticed. Anyway—she threw the flannel in the sink—why give her enemies the satisfaction of knowing they had driven her out so easily? Cowardice was not part of her character résumé. She had far too much pride to allow it.

Raven stripped off her tennis kit and pulled on a towelling robe. She tossed the dirty clothes in the laundry basket by the door with a snap of the lid. It was tough keeping her promise to herself that she would be strong; easier when she had someone at her back. But the second bed in the room was empty—no heap of untidy belongings or suitcase as she had expected. What was keeping Gina? She was the only one Raven wanted to talk to about what had just happened. Raven flopped on her bed. How had it come to this in a few hours? Until the black eye, life had been skating along fine, a smooth place after years of rough. Westron, as run by the head teacher, Mrs Bain, had been weird sometimes, putting too much emphasis on wealth and parents, celebrity pupils and privacy, but teaming up with Gina, Raven had been able to laugh off most of those absurdities. She would have said no one in the school wished her ill. In spite of owing her place to her grandfather’s presence on the staff, the other students had not appeared to mind her numbering among their privileged ranks. Now she knew better.