I'll Protect You

Ch. 24 -- It's the academy, Logan, not the Louvre

There was nothing more set in stone than Logan Cross making an appointment with you. So, right at six in the evening on the Saturday before school, I opened up the door to the apartment, revealing Logan before me, his fist poised to knock. The sleeves of his dark brown sweater were rolled up, and tucked underneath one arm was a stiff black folder.

Before either of us could say anything, Darkwood shoved Logan aside to step into the apartment, holding up a piece of paper.

"I passed!" he crowed, his index finger pointing to the score printed across the left-hand corner. "Ninety on the dot!"

Maybe I should've told Elijah to hold off on hand-stitching Darkwood's name to a barista apron.

But that was Elijah's setback. Me? I was beaming. I had my palm held out to Logan who, with a roll of his eyes and a sigh rife with irritation, fished out his wallet.

Despite my sagely, Nirvana-unlocked type of advice on the plane ride home, Logan still insisted on trying out his four-practice-exams-a-day method ("At least once!" he insisted) -- a method which caused Darkwood's scores to plummet back below eighty percent. It was a new low for Logan, who'd probably never had someone's scores drop under his tutelage. Well, guess who finally saw the light after that?

God, I love being right.

Logan held out a crisp twenty-dollar bill clamped between his fingers. "Aren't you richer than me?"

"Not here, I'm not."

Darkwood, meanwhile, was already pinning his scores to the fridge using a spare magnet. "I'm an absolute natural," he praised himself, as if he hadn't had a major breakdown after scoring an eighty-nine the night before. "Should I go into academia? Just think: Professor Darkwood."

"It is an improvement from hitman," I concurred.

"Failed hitman," Logan corrected as he headed over to the living room couch. "Let's see how you fare with classes before having such dreams of grandeur." He sat down and unveiled the folder under his arm to be a leather resume padfolio. Flipping it open, he carefully pulled out a sheet of paper and laid it on the coffee table. "Speaking of classes--"

"Logan, I already told you: you don't have to change classes just to have the same schedule as me." I plopped down in one of the industrial-style accent chairs across from Logan.

The glower on Logan's face was the closest I'd ever seen him come to a pout. "You're in luck," he grumbled. "Admin said it's too late to let me switch." He tapped a finger on the paper before him. "That means we have to coordinate an itinerary of where we'll meet throughout the day."

I stared at the perfectly preserved copy of his schedule. "An itinerary of what? Are we backpacking through Europe? Let's just meet here at six like we did in the spring and--"

"Six?!" Darkwood darted from the kitchen and hopped over the back of the couch to land in the spot by Logan. "Six in the morning? That's so early!"

"It's a practically a two-hour ride there and classes start by eight-thirty, what do you expect?" Logan cocked a brow. "Try going to sleep earlier."

"No." Darkwood crossed his arms. "No, absolutely not. Sparrow, take the bus."

"I would, but Cross over here thinks that the bus driver will kill me."

"You nearly got killed during a highway robbery, at which you asked to be kidnapped." Logan shot me a foul look. "What's so outlandish about the bus driver being a hired mercenary?"

"What's the point of having all these Blackwell agents wandering about if I can't use public transport?"

"They're just an additional layer of security for emergencies or conflicting schedules. I will not be outsourcing my job to a third party." Logan's voice left no room for argument. He tapped the coffee table. "Schedules."