Already screwed, I lunged the remaining distance to the display case. The current tenant was a ring with an obnoxiously large, canary yellow diamond surrounded by smaller chartreuse colored diamonds, all inset in a band with pink sapphires. The overall effect was a bit sickening, but who was I to tell the wealthy how bad their tastes were? I often wondered how many of them deliberately wasted their money on tasteless items with obscene price tags simply because they could.
Aware of the ticking clock, I whipped my arm back and smashed my gloved fist straight through the toughened glass. It shattered under the force I exerted. After snatching up the ugly bauble, I dropped a little plastic fox—my signature calling card—in its place.
“Kit, quit dicking around and get out!” Lucy screeched over the line at me. “Twenty-two seconds remaining, don’t you dare get caught, or I swear to God I won’t let you live this down!”
Satisfied at having grabbed my target, I raced out of the room and down the corridor, not hesitating before crashing straight through a tall picture window and plummeting thirty-odd feet onto the rooftop of the next building. I tried to break my fall by rolling as I hit. Instead, landed awkwardly on my left shoulder. It popped out of its socket. Hissing with pain, I glanced up at the gallery just in time to see the steel shutters slam closed on all the windows simultaneously.
“Kit,” Lucy snapped, barely masking the tension in her voice. “Give me an update; are you clear?”
The evil little devil on my shoulder wanted me to mess with her, but my conscience prevailed. “All clear,” I said, then added with a laugh. “Plenty of time to spare; not sure why you were so worried!”
“Any injuries?” A growl underscored her words.
“Nope, I’m totally fine. I mean, if you don’t include my shoulder, which is for sure dislocated, then all I have are a few scratches from the glass and a tiny bit of swelling in my knuckles. I got the God-awful ring, though!” I was rather proud of completing the job we had come there for.
“That was too close this time, Kit,” Lucy admonished me. “You’re bloody lucky you heal so fast, but it’s still going to hurt like a bitch getting that shoulder back into place. Get sorted then drop the ring to the courier, and call me if anything goes wrong. Otherwise, I’ll see you when you get back. Stay out of trouble.”
My best friend occasionally cursed like an Australian ever since she developed a Heath Ledger movie crush. “You know, most people would say ‘good luck.’ You say, ‘stay out of trouble.’ Should I be offended?” Teasing her was fun, even if my track record wasn’t the cleanest. In my defense, I always got myself out of trouble without too much hassle. Lucy didn’t dignify me with a verbal response and left the dial tone as she hung up to serve as her answer.
Tucking my earpiece into a zippered pocket of my leather jacket, I headed over to the A/C unit on the far side of the roof. Using it to leverage my shoulder back into place, I kept my cursing to a minimum. It slid back in with a sickening pop, and the relief had me wavering on my feet. After catching my breath, I brushed some glass out of my wig then swung over the fire escape and descended to the street below. Stripping off my gloves, I blended into the crowd. Even though it was autumn, it was still nowhere near cold enough to be wearing gloves unless committing a crime. I nervously checked the time on my watch. I had a very long drive ahead of me to get back to school and still needed to drop the stolen ring off with our middleman.
Allison's Adventures in Underland by C.M. Stunich
Flip the page for an excerpt of chapter one.
CHAPTER ONE
Down the Fucking Rabbit-Hole
A book.
That's what starts it all, the bloodshed and the violence, the romance and the sex.
A goddamn book.
“Are you seriously reading right now?” my younger sister, Lorna, asks as she stands next to me in a silver dress covered in sequins. Her hair is twisted into a bun and secured to the side of her head with about a hundred bobby pins. The design looks like a snail shell to me, but I decide not to say anything.
I close the book in my hands—some whimsical fantasy of a life I'll never lead—and watch her eyes latch onto the cover.
“You're reading for fun?” she asks, bending down and snatching the book from my hands before I get a chance to grab it back. I knew I should've brought my Kindle outside instead. At least then she wouldn't have seen the werewolves on the front cover. “This whole thing?”
“Sorry it doesn't have any pictures in it,” I joke as I rise to my feet and give her a smirking grin in response. “I know that's the only type of book you can read.”
Lorna rolls her eyes and swipes at her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Whatever, it's hot as hell out here and we have a party to get to. Come on.”
I roll my eyes right back as soon as she turns around, and take the daisy chain out of my own hair, tossing it onto Lorna's perfectly coiffed head without her noticing.
“This is a big deal tonight, so try not to screw it up for me,” she says as I cross my arms over my chest and follow her from the backyard, past the pond and my father's prized koi fish, and into the house.
“How could I possibly ruin a high school party? Isn't the whole point to screw up?”
“Seriously, Allison?” she says, yanking the sliding glass door open and stepping inside. She kicks her flats off near the door and heads for the stairs, probably to put on a pair of heels that would most certainly break my neck if I put them on. “And no tennis shoes!” she shouts down, just before slamming her bedroom door and making the whole house shake.
“Shit.” I run my fingers through the ratted, tangled strands of my hair, all mussed up from lying in the grass and reading all afternoon. “And you think this is gonna impress Brandon?” I whisper under my breath.
Grudgingly, I pound up the stairs and kick open the door to my room, digging around in the clean clothes pile on the floor (I'm not big on folding stuff and putting it away) until I find a fresh pair of jeans and a plain white tank.
“Is that what you plan on wearing?” Lorna asks, leaning against the edge of the doorframe and looking down at me from under a pair of false eyelashes. “Jeans and a t-shirt?”
“It's a tank top, Lor,” I say as I stand up and tear my grass stained tee over my head, trading it out for the new one. “It looks good on me,” I blurt, defending myself before she can say anything mean. With Lorna, it's always best to stay on the offensive.
“You're into Brandon, right?” she says coyly. I cross my arms over my chest and stare her down. The bitch sneaks into my room and reads my journal; I have no secrets. I don't even bother trying to hide them anymore. “That chess geek or whatever?”
“Fuck you,” I tell her, pushing past to get to the bathroom before she does.
Lorna chases after me and shoves her way in anyway.
“I've got a dress for you,” she tells me, sucking her lower lip under her teeth and smearing lipstick everywhere.
“I don't fit into your dresses, Lor,” I chastise, pulling out a box of tampons and waving them at her. “Can I please get some peace to put one of these in?”
“Not until you agree to try it on,” she says, heeling the bathroom door shut behind her.
As soon as she does, I see it hanging there on the back of the door.