It’s either that or hunt something down and eat it. Everyone should be glad they usually go for the former. Except most normal people will never ever even hear of stuff like this.

The weight in my throat, prickling behind my eyes, was loneliness.

The toilet flushed again. All the starch went out of my legs and I sat down hard. Here I was again, sitting and waiting for someone to come back. But I was hearing wulfen argue in the bathroom, instead of just the creaks and thumps of an empty house while the wind moaned hungrily outside.

It wasn’t much of an improvement, but I’d take it.

Dibs gave me some ibuprofen and told me to ice my wrist. He looked unhappy, but he just gave Shanks a meaningful stare and carried his medical bag out, shaking his golden head. Shanks shut the door, turned around, and eyed me.

I stood in the middle of the big blue room and felt shipwrecked. Stared back at him. Deep dark eyes, the long fringe of dark hair over them turned aggressive instead of angsty, his sleeves pushed up to reveal lean muscular forearms. Silence stretched like a big old rubber band.

I wet my lips with my tongue nervously. “Get to it. I mean, if you’re wanting to beat me up, too, you’ll have to stand in line. And it would waste all the work Dibs just did.”

As a joke, it was in pretty poor taste. It had seemed funnier inside my head.

“Please.” He rolled his eyes. “Graves would kill me. I’m just wondering if you’re, you know, concerned.”

Concerned? I’m full-fledged paranoiac at this point. “About Anna? Or about—”

“About someone taking the screen off your window. Who’s been visiting? Or have they not been visiting because someone else is sleeping in your room?” One dark eyebrow vanished into the fringe above his eyes. “I’d ask you which side of the fence you’re playing, but the more I hang around you the more I think you ain’t playing at all.”

The sigh that came out of me would have made Dylan proud. “I’m not—”

He held up both hands. “I got it, I know. You wanna take my advice, then, or are you going to snap my head off for even offering it?”

Choices, choices. “Shoot.”

“’Cause you know, you’re svetocha and I’m a lowly wulf fresh outta reform school. You shouldn’t even be talking to us, let alone acting like Dibs and me’s your best friends.”

“But you are my best friends. I can’t trust anyone else!” I actually pitched forward, throwing the words at him like a dodgeball.

“Like I said. But anyway . . . I don’t trust this. Something’s hinky. What with Red getting all aggro on you and someone scratching at your window, not to mention the fact that you shouldn’t’ve been sent to our backwoods Schola in the first place and more vampires than I’ve ever seen in my life chasing you down. And let’s not even talk about Reynard, okay?” He stopped, waited for my nod, and continued. “I’m saying it might not be so good an idea for you to sleep up here if someone you trust isn’t with you. So. Either we stash you someplace nobody knows about, or . . .” His face worked itself up a little, like he was sucking significantly on a lemon. Like I should know where he was going.

It took my poor busted brain a few seconds to figure out what he was suggesting. “Or you stay here. Um, I guess not, Shanks. I mean, I trust you and all, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

He looked almost green with relief. “Well, cool. Because Graves would have a fit. He’ll probably be back anytime now. He knows we can’t leave you alone. So—”

A lightbulb turned on inside my head. “I’ve got an idea,” I said, and I told him.

Like I expected, he didn’t think much of it. “You’ll end up with your guts for garters, Dru.”

I shook my head. “He hasn’t hurt me. Not yet. And can you think of a better place? Nobody would expect it.”

“Bad idea.” Shanks shook his head so hard his shoulders moved, too. “Jesus Christ. You’re nuts. Completely bazonko.”

“All you have to do is act like I’m in here.” I sounded perfectly reasonable, even to myself. “And for Christ’s sake, it’s not like I’m not down there every night anyway.”

“But . . . ” He stopped. “You know, it’s actually not such a bad idea. Completely crazy, but not such a bad idea.”

“Exactly.” I stuffed my hands gingerly in my hoodie pockets. The wrapping on my wrist helped. Once you get all bandaged up, the fight is really over. You can afford to relax a little bit.

Maybe. Until the next crisis comes along. And I was jumpy. Who wouldn’t be, after all this?

Shanks thought everything over. “But when Graves comes back . . .”

“He’s smart. He’ll figure out where I am.” He would, and he’d either be angry or . . . what? What would he be like when he came back?

I ran up against the wall of everything I didn’t know about him. The Council had never mentioned his file again, and I hadn’t even been tempted to ask. I figured he’d tell me what he wanted me to know, and—

Shanks made a restless motion, like a dog shaking away water. “If he can figure it out, someone else can too.”

Werwulfen function on consensus among themselves. Getting them to poop or get off the pot is pretty impossible sometimes. Don’t get me wrong—when you’ve got teeth and claws and superhuman reflexes, it’s a good thing to want everyone to agree without violence. I’ll be the first to admit that.

But sometimes it just drives me up the fricking wall. “Then they can all come down and we’ll have a coffee klatch.” I rolled my eyes. “He killed three suckers at the other Schola, Shanks. He’s good protection.”

“I’m not worried about suckers just yet. I’m worried about him going crazy and opening you up like a can of Pringles.”

I was getting to the point where that thought was losing its ability to scare me. “Well, then this will all be academic, won’t it? And everyone will be ever so much happier without the problem that is me hanging around.” I shuffled over to the side of the bed, picked up the sleeping bag and the pillow. “That’s what I’m doing. I’ll stash myself someplace nobody except Graves will think of to look for me. You just hang out by the door until Benjamin comes to check in on me, and pretend I’m in the room. And ta-da, tomorrow Graves should be back and calmed down enough to be reasonable and we’ll figure out . . . something else.”

Like getting the hell out of this place. Hey, you can even come along. The more the merrier. I sounded hopeless even inside my own head.

Shanks was looking at me weird.“He’ll be back tonight. I’ll stick around and wait for him, I guess. You really want to do this, Dru-girl?”

I’d had about all I could take of boys looking at me funny, but I gave him a smile that hurt my face. My split lip cracked a little, and the bruises all twinged. “Yeah. What’s the worst that could happen?”

As soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t. But Shanks just shook his dark head, opened the door, and peered outside, sniffing. “It’s clear,” he finally muttered. “Come on, then.”

“Thanks. I mean it. For everything.” I shifted the sleeping bag around and winced when my arm almost cramped, the way bruises do when they settle down to the painful business of healing.

As usual when I thanked him, he shook it off and snorted. “Always was too curious for my own good. Be careful, okay?”

“I will be.” And I set off down the hall before either of us could get any more embarrassed.