twice cursed mage 05 - claimed by j a cipriano Read Free Book Online

you,” Maya said, leaning forward in her the seat to peer at the weapon. She was sitting in the seat behind me and having her looking over my shoulder was a little weird.
    “Seriously? You don’t even have an extended stock on your MAC-10. If you did, it wouldn’t be so inaccurate,” I grumbled as I checked out the gun. I’d never used it before, but nothing seemed wonky about it.
    “Is this where you say you can’t work in these conditions?” Jack asked, keeping his eyes on the road as he made a right and began heading toward the edge of town. It was a little weird because I had expected Duane to be trapped within the city limits. Hopefully, the old Indian wasn’t playing me for a fool because, you know, I had a gun. Then again, I wasn’t sure how effective shooting him while sitting inside a moving vehicle he was driving would actually be.
    “I can work with these conditions. I just don’t want to work in these conditions,” I said, not sure where to put the gun because I didn’t want to stick it in the waistband of my scrubs. Yeah, that’s right, I was still wearing the stupid scrubs, and to make matters worse, I was also wearing a pair of flip flops because I couldn’t fit into any of Jack’s clothing. I’d tried to stick on a pair of his cowboy boots, and had nearly broken my toes getting the damned things half on. Still, I was mostly just grateful that whatever Maya had done to my stomach had healed me. If I’d still had a gaping hole in my stomach this adventure, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be saving anyone.
    “You’re officially the worst Bond ever,” Maya said, slouching back in the seat and popping her earbuds in her ears. “Next time you bring a reign of terror down on the city and I have to give a hand job to the toxic avenger to get you saved, try to do better than Timothy Dalton. I mean, I’m not saying you have to be Sean Connery, but Daniel Craig would be nice.”
    “Wait, what?” I asked, spinning in my seat to look at Maya, surprised by both her admission and her knowledge of James Bond films. Had she really done that with Ramon to get him to save me?
    Maya wasn’t looking at me, and when I tried to get her attention so I could ask her about it, she stared out the window with a smirk on her face. Then, very slowly, she wiped her right hand off on Jack’s seat before turning up the volume on her phone. I wasn’t sure if she was fucking with me, but I was reasonably sure she was. If not, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
    As The Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang began to spill out of her earbuds, I shook my head and turned back around in my seat. What did I care if she’d paid Ramon in hand jobs to get me safe? And, you know what, now that I thought about it, the whole situation was weird. How had Ramon known to find me in the sewer? How had Maya even known I’d escaped? I’d only jumped into the sewer as a last resort.
    I rubbed my chin as I tried to puzzle it out, but it just didn’t make sense unless Maya had seen me escape into the sewers, but if she’d seen me, why hadn’t she helped me earlier? Something was definitely off. I just didn’t know what it was. Hopefully, it wouldn’t bite me in the ass before I figured out what the hell it was. Still, I’d have to keep my eye on her. She might be helping me now, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t turn on me if it benefited her to do so.
    “If you’re trying to figure out what’s going on in Little Miss Sunshine’s head, you’ll have a screw go loose yourself,” Jack said, turning on the radio. Highway to Hell by ACDC spilled out of the speakers in a way that made me think someone upstairs was fucking with me. “She’s got all sorts of daddy issues, and you’re the lucky guy she’s picked to fixate on for the moment.” He shot me a serious look. “Word of warning, don’t take her to the can.”
    “What?” I asked, wondering why Jack knew so much about the girl. Then again, she’d said they were