“Thank you!” I finally exclaimed after a stunned silence. This was way better than floor monitor duties. And Grandpa would puff up his chest with pride and brag to all his friends. I grinned.
“We’ll expect you every Sunday afternoon for training and Tuesday evenings after supper for weekly orientation.” She shook her head at Chloe. “Drink lots of water” was her parting advice before letting the door shut behind her. Loudly.
I tuned to Chloe, beaming. “Can you believe it? Cool.”
She did not look happy for me.
She swung out of bed, glowering. “Figures.”
I narrowed my eyes, some of my happiness congealing in my chest. “And by that you mean, congratulations?”
“I mean, I’m tired of the elitist nepotism of this school.”
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell, Chloe? I work my ass off.”
“And I don’t?”
I was really sick of this argument.
“Well, it’s not actually about you for one second,” I told her. “It’s about me.”
“It’s always about you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m so over your pity party. Green’s not a good color on you.”
“Shut up.” She stalked toward me, her hands clenched into fists. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I stood my ground. “I know exactly what I’m talking about so back off, Chloe. I mean it.” I couldn’t believe one of my best friends was all up in my face like that. It was totally surreal. “I really hope that this is a side effect from your dumb-ass vitamins,” I told her grimly. “Even so, it’s getting tired.”
“God, get off my case, already,” Chloe shouted, and shoved me. I stumbled back a step, shocked.
“You did not just do that.” I shoved her back before I could stop myself.
“So what if I did? Going to tattle on me to your new Guild friends?” She shoved me again, or would have if I hadn’t jerked my shoulder back. The momentum tripped her up, which infuriated her all the more. Frankly, I was past caring.
Especially when she hauled off and punched me.
The ensuing silence was cold and sudden, like a bucket of water. I’d managed to duck enough that her fist glanced my chin and shoulder but didn’t do too much damage. Still, I felt the throb on my jaw. She stared at me, eyes watering, cheeks red with fury.
I really wanted to punch her back.
Before I could give in to some idiot catfight, I turned on my heel and stormed out of the room.
•
Sunday night
“Are you telling me Chloe actually punched you?” Jenna stared at me. She whistled through her teeth. “Dude. That is messed up.”
“I know,” I agreed grimly. We were walking across the quad toward the infirmary. I hadn’t seen Chloe all day, not since our fight. Definitely for the best. I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m tired of getting punched in the face.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t punch her back. You are a better woman than I am.” She shook her head.
“Remind me of that when my jaw goes purple to match the rest of my bruises.” At least it was only a dull ache; she hadn’t cracked a tooth or bruised the bone. I’d have been mad at myself if she’d managed to get the best of me, even hungover and doped up on those weird vitamins.
“You two weren’t the only ones fighting,” Jenna told me.
“What? Who else?”
“Two eleventh graders went at it over the last box of cereal in the common room.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, one of them needed two stitches. And someone got carted off to the infirmary. Some kind of flu.”
I hunched my shoulders. “Jenna, we have to figure this out. It doesn’t add up.”
“We will.”
I wished I had her confidence. I felt as if we were going backward; everything was making less sense, not more. And it was starting to piss me off.
The safety lights blazed along the path and we could hear someone beating on the punching bags from the open window of the upstairs gym. Music poured out of the dorm behind us. It was familiar, homey.
Worth protecting.
We went straight to the infirmary, blinking at the bright fluorescent lights. The minute he saw us, Theo jumped up from his chair and blocked us.
“No way, girls.”
We both scowled.
“Theo, come on,” Jenna finally wheedled when he didn’t move. “Be a pal.”
“Not a toe past quarantine, kid.”
“Kid? You’re what, twenty-five?”
“Yeah, old enough to know better.”
“We just want to see Spencer,” I said.
“I know what you want. Forget it.” His expression softened. “Look, I know it’s hard. But he’s in quarantine for a reason. You won’t help him by getting locked up in quarantine yourselves, or getting demerits or expelled. You know the headmistress doesn’t mess around with this stuff.” He raised an eyebrow. “And you could get me fired as well.”
“Guilt trip,” Jenna muttered.
“Damn straight.”
I knew we wouldn’t change his mind, but all the same, I had to try.
“Theo, he shouldn’t be alone. He’s our friend,” I said.
“He’s not alone,” Theo said just as Spencer’s mother came out from behind the curtain blocking the quarantine rooms. Her eyes were red, her cheeks so pale under her tan that they looked paper-thin. The rest of her was the same, from her sun-bleached blond hair to her sandals and silver toe rings. Spencer got his love of surfing and the ocean from his mom and his supernatural obsessions from his dad. She saw me and her lips wobbled. I stared, horrified. If she cried, I didn’t know what I’d do. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I do public displays of emotion. Luckily she clenched her jaw and tried to smile.
“Oh, Hunter, come here, sweetie.” She hugged me hard. She smelled like salt and coconut oil. It was comforting.
“How is he?” I asked when she let go and squeezed Jenna’s hand.
“He’s strong,” she said, her voice breaking. It wasn’t really an answer. I shifted from one foot to the other. I felt guilty and I didn’t know why. The clock on the wall ticked too loudly. “I have to get back to him.”
She wasn’t allowed in quarantine either, only on this side of the window. Once a day she was allowed in a full medical suit to go inside and hold his hand and talk to him. We’d studied the procedure in class last year.
The reality was so much worse.
“I miss him already,” I said miserably as Jenna and I shuffled back outside. It was Sunday night; everyone was in a frenzy of last-minute unpacking and organizing and pretending school didn’t start tomorrow.
“Me too,” Jenna said. She kicked at a garbage can. “I wish there was more we could do.”
And then it hit me.
“There is.”
She turned to eye me. “What? What are you talking about?”
I stopped, nodding slowly. “I bugged the eleventh-grade common room after Will was bitten,” I said. “I forgot.”
“You forgot you bugged a room?” Jenna goggled. “Dude, you’re fierce. And I totally love you right now.”
“We might not find anything,” I quickly added.
“But at least we’ll be doing something. No wonder Dailey tapped you for her Guild.”
“Didn’t she ask you?”
Jenna shrugged. “No.”
“She totally will,” I said, utterly convinced. “No one handles a crossbow like you do.”
“Thanks.” She tugged on my hand, dragging me after her as if we were heading for a giant mountain of Ed Westwick–shaped chocolate. “Now let’s go! I want to listen to those recordings of yours.”
“Slow down.” I tugged back. “If we go in there like a stampeding herd, people will notice. We’re going for subtle right now.” I scowled. “And everyone’s staring at me as it is.”
“I know,” Jenna said, slowing her pace and relaxi
ng her shoulders, as if we were just hanging out, strolling back to our rooms. “Everyone’s heard about Will by now.”
I nodded, my throat clenching. The dorm was buzzing with activity as students tried to put off going to bed. Morning meant school had officially started. We climbed the stairs and hung around the eleventh-grade common room but it was packed. If we stayed any longer people would start to wonder. There was no way to get in and get the microphones without giving ourselves away.
“Damn it,” Jenna muttered. “It’s like eleven o’clock. Don’t they sleep?”
“Apparently not.” We turned away, going back down to our own floor. “I’ll sneak up tonight after everyone’s in bed,” I assured her.
She looked deflated. “Okay.”
We couldn’t stop from pausing outside of Spencer’s room. The door was open a crack and we could see his roommate’s desk, piled with books and hand-whittled stakes. There was already clothes on the floor and an Angelina Jolie poster on the wall.
But Spencer’s side of the room was bare.
His surfing posters were gone, along with the old surfboard he usually hung over the bed. I kicked the door open, Jenna crowding in behind me.
“What the hell?” His roommate, John, jerked back. When he recognized us, his face went red. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Where’s Spencer’s stuff?” I demanded. His bookcase was cleared of his supernatural encyclopedias and boxes of charms and spell bags. Even his jar of sea salt was gone, which he always kept on his nightstand because every protective spell he researched called for it. I marched over to his dresser and yanked it open. Empty. Not even a single turquoise bead to prove Spencer had ever been here. Fury and something darker, more debilitating gnawed at me, fraying my temper. “John, where’s his stuff?” I barely recognized my own voice.
John stood up, pity making him shuffle awkwardly. “They packed it up today. Didn’t they tell you?”
“No. They did not.”
“Who packed it?” Jenna snapped. She was vibrating with anger as well. Between the two of us we could have powered a nuclear reactor. John wisely took a step backward.
“A couple of the guards.” He held up his hands beseechingly. “Look, I don’t know.”
“Well, they can damn well unpack it,” I seethed. “Because he’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah? I mean, yeah, of course,” he hastened to add. “Of course, he is.”
I had to turn away from the bare mattress. It was making my eyes burn. It should have been heaped with Spencer’s Mexican blankets.
“Don’t let anyone move in here,” I told John, whirling to glare at him. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I don’t really—” He swallowed again when Jenna added her glare to mine. “Of course. I won’t.”
Out in the hall, Jenna and I exchanged bleak glances. I knew she was remembering Will’s room, stripped of his belongings long before I’d had to stake him. I shivered. Jenna looked like she wanted to throw up.
“We’re going to fix this,” I told her grimly. She nodded just as grimly.
“Damn right we are.”
•
I waited until I was sure everyone was asleep. I paused in my doorway to listen, and again at the bottom of the stairs, and once more on the landing outside the eleventh-grade common room. I didn’t hear anything and saw no one except Chloe asleep on the couch in our common room, her laptop half open on the floor next to her. I didn’t wake her up to go with me. I honestly didn’t know if I could trust her. She’d feel the same way about me if she knew I’d gone through her stuff. I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here. It was a long way from counting the days until we could be roommates to punching each other.
But I couldn’t worry about that right now.
Spencer was my only concern. He didn’t have much time and we didn’t have much information. I hadn’t been lying to Jenna when I told her there was no guarantee my microphones had recorded anything worth listening to. But I could hope.
I could hope really hard.
The common room was finally deserted, the smell of barbecue potato chips lingering in the air. I crept forward, stepping as softly as I could. I retrieved the microphone from under the couch first, taking care not to stick my finger in the wads of old gum. Next, I plucked the one from the dresser. The one inside the coat rack was going to be decidedly trickier.
I stood in front of it, frowning as I ran through my options. I could tip it over and shake the microphone loose, but those old coat racks weighed a ton. There was a good chance the bottom would slide out and hit the floor. I didn’t have a magnet to lure it up the pole either. If Chloe and I were still talking to each other, she probably could have rigged up something. She was good at that sort of thing. I unscrewed the top and stood on my tiptoes to look down the length of it. Darkness and dust. I took the small penlight from my pocket and switched it on, keeping the light angled down the pole. If it flashed into a window, one of the guards outside might see it and come to investigate. It didn’t do me much good anyway. It only served to glint off the microphone pen casing and prove that it was far out of my reach.
I shook it once, rattling it. I’d have to abandon it until I had a better plan and hope the other ones had recorded something useful. I hated to do it. It galled my stubborn streak.
But I had bigger problems.
Such as the cool pale hand that suddenly clamped over my mouth, jerking my body backward against a hard chest.
Chapter 20
•
Hunter
I jabbed my elbow back as quick as I could but he was already dancing away. My heel caught his instep hard enough for him to make a sound. And then he tugged and whirled me around, backing me into the wall. His hand was still over my mouth. I hooked my foot around his ankle and shoved. He staggered back and went down, slipping on the area rug. He took me with him, yanking so that I landed on top of him. He sprawled with uncanny silence, not even rattling the furniture when he landed. Blue eyes laughed at me.
“Quinn,” I snapped, finally recognizing him. I whacked him. Hard. “What the hell are you doing? I could have staked you, you idiot.”
He grinned. “I’m quicker than you are.”
“Shut up, you are not.” Okay, so he was. But only because he had supernatural abilities. If he’d been a normal human guy, I could have taken him. I could still take him. I just needed a few more weapons to do it.
“I didn’t think you lived on this floor.”
“How do you know where my room is?” I asked. “And what are you even doing here? You do realize this is a school for vampire hunters, right? Why do I have to keep reminding you of that?”
He smirked. “I have a pass.” He was telling the truth. I hadn’t noticed it yet but there was a discreet metal button, like the ones you get at museums, pinned to the collar of his T-shirt. The shirt was almost the exact blue of his eyes. The pin was contraband. It allowed the bearer to be on campus without a mess of security coming down on his or her head. It almost certainly had never been worn by a vampire before.
“Where did you get that?” I demanded.
“Off Kieran.”
“Kieran gave you a campus free-access pass?” I repeated dubiously.
“Not so much ‘gave’ as left his knapsack out while he was kissing my sister.”
“So you stole it.”
“Did I mention he was kissing my baby sister?”
All the talk about kissing was making it hard not to look at his mouth. Or to pretend I didn’t know exactly how his lips felt on mine.
He frowned suddenly, his fingers on my chin, his expression going hard as steel. “What happened to your face this time?”
I wrinkled my nose. Great. I’d forgotten I was bruised and probably looked like a mottled grape. “Chloe punched me. Well, she tried to.”
“Chloe punched you?”
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Well, I can’t punch her back.” He sounded disgruntled. “She’s a
girl.”
I blinked. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“That’s what guys do,” he muttered. “When someone hurts a girl. Especially you.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but I felt kind of warm and jittery inside, like I’d had too much hot chocolate.
And then I realized I was still lying on top of him.
We were pressed together, close enough that my breath ruffled his long hair. He had the kind of beauty that almost burns, as if he belonged in a Pre-Raphaelite painting of a poet or a mythic doomed lover. He was that gorgeous.
He raised his eyebrow, the trademark smirk getting more pronounced.
And he was a vampire. Which meant he could hear the sound of my heartbeat accelerating while I stared at him and thought about how pretty he was.
Crap.
Totally unfair advantage.
I pushed up on my palms to launch myself off him before I embarrassed myself completely and irrevocably.
“Hey.” He watched me back away as if he was dangerous. He looked entirely too pleased with himself. “Where are you going?”
“To bed.” Double crap. What if he thought that was an invitation? Was it an invitation? And when, exactly, had I lost my mind? “Uh, I meant to my room. Where my bed is. And—shit.” I forced myself to stop babbling.
He rose into a crouch, looking feral and predatory. “Do I make you nervous, Hunter?”
I stopped, glaring at him. “Excuse me, I know seventeen painful ways to kill you. You don’t make me nervous.”
“I know seventeen different ways to kiss you.”
I ignored the flare of heat in my chest and focused on the fact that it was clearly a line. I tossed my hair off my shoulder. “I’m not one of your groupies.”
“Good,” he said, suddenly serious. He didn’t bother denying that he had groupies. That made me like him even more.
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