For weeks?

Until two nights ago, he’d shown me only his gentler side.

“He busted Lucas’s nose during training,” she continued. “Last night, he punched a window and needed eight stitches.”

Last night? While he’d been with Veronica. “It has nothing to do with me,” I assured them. If I’d had claws, I would have scraped them over the lockers.

Calm.

“I happen to think it has everything to do with you,” Trina said. “I’ve seen the way he watches you when you’re not looking.”

“And I swear vessels burst in his forehead every time Gavin mentions your name,” Mackenzie said, nodding.

“Guys. Cole broke up with me. I told him I’d work on being his friend, and I will, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stroke his...uh, ego and make him smile.”

“Fine,” Trina replied. “We’ll stop trying to convince you to sex him up, but you still gotta talk to him. You’re the only one he’ll listen to.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

She ignored me, saying, “He disappears for hours at a time. No one knows where he goes. He’s paranoid we won’t keep detailed records about what we find on patrol. He gets phone calls from blocked numbers and steps out of the room so no one will overhear his conversations. Before, he kept us in the loop about everything.”

So he was still spying on the slayers. But what was it, exactly, that he was trying to uncover?

I reached my destination, freed the lock on my locker and stuffed my bag inside. “I’ll talk to him about his weirdness, but that’s all I can promise.”

Mackenzie shocked me to my bones when she hugged me. “Thank you. We, like, seriously owe you one.”

As if our conversation had summoned him, Cole turned the corner and strolled down the hall toward us. He was wearing a red baseball cap and had his hands in his pockets. I couldn’t see his newest wound. He walked past us, nodding at Trina, then Mackenzie—avoiding me. My chest constricted.

“Or maybe I won’t be talking to him,” I muttered, and took off for my first class.

Just before Cole turned the corner, he looked back at me; our gazes locked. I tripped over my own feet. No vision. But I saw hunger. Fury. Regret. Remorse. Fear. Then he was gone.

Someone laughed, breaking me from the spell he’d woven. Dazed, a little angry with myself—calm, dang it—I looked to see what was so funny. Wren and Poppy stood with a group of girls making fun of a tall, skinny redhead with freckles and braces. Wren and Poppy weren’t laughing, but they weren’t stopping the taunts, either. The redhead was doing her best not to cry.

I stomped over and, to a chorus of “Hey” and “Watch it,” shoved the girls out of the way. Glaring, I said, “You have five seconds to leave, and then I get mad.”

I wasn’t ever going to be a sedative, was I?

They might not know how good I was with my fists, but they certainly knew the people I ran with, and, paling, they left without another word. Poppy cast a remorseful look over her shoulder. Wren, too. Only she mouthed, Thank you, baffling me.

“Thank you,” the redhead said, then swallowed a sob. “My shirt... I didn’t bring a jacket today, so I can’t cover up.”

It was white and soaked with water, revealing every stitch on her bra. “Why don’t we trade?” I didn’t want her sitting in the cold and the wet and thinking about what had happened. “Your shirt goes better with my jeans.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She brightened, and we raced to the bathroom.

“Thank you so much,” she said after we’d made the switch.

“Don’t worry about it.” Shivering, I darted to class to avoid a tardy I couldn’t afford.

To my surprise, Justin was waiting at the door. “Hey, Ali.”

“Hey.”

He opened his mouth to say more, closed it. Opened it. Snapped it closed. Finally he settled on “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.” I headed toward my seat, and he followed me. “You?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

I studied him, saw dark circles under his eyes, gaunt cheekbones and lips that had clearly been chewed. He wasn’t fine. “I know you told me nothing abnormal had been happening to you. Is that still the case?”

His brow furrowed, becoming a slash of anger. “Want to tell me what’s been happening to you? Because something has, right?”

I still wasn’t sure what his motives were, but at the moment I had nowhere else to turn. “Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

I sat down. “That’s all I’m willing to say.” For now.

He sat down beside me. “Okay, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“Will you actually help me, though?”

His shoulders wilted, and he said, “I guess I deserved that.”

Yeah, but I didn’t have to be so crabby about it, did I? “Do you know someone by the name of Dr. Bendari?”

“No. Why?”

Crap. So...maybe Dr. Bendari wasn’t with Anima, after all. Maybe Justin was lying. Or maybe Justin just hadn’t met him. “Forget it.”

“Ali. Please. Talk to me.”

How many times was I going to hear those words?

The bell rang, saving me from having to reply. “Later,” I said. Maybe.

* * *

Lunchtime arrived. I’d successfully managed to avoid Justin after first and second period. Trina and Mackenzie, too. But not Cole.

He cornered me in the girls’ bathroom.

I was washing my hands as he stepped inside. A classmate of mine was in the process of closing a stall door when she spied him and squealed.

“Out,” he said, and she took off, leaving me alone with him.

My heart thundered as I dried my hands with a paper towel. “If you plan to yell at me for hurting your girlfriend, let me save you the trouble. My anger got the best of me, but it’s not going to happen again.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“It’s okay if she is. You don’t have to try and spare my feelings. I’ve moved on.”

He did not appear grateful.

I tried to bypass him, deciding to talk to him about Trina and Mackenzie’s allegations later, in a place without mirrors. He stepped into my path. “Stay,” he said.

“Orders?” I glared up at him. “You know I’m not afraid to punch you, right?”

“Do what you want to me. I’m not leaving until you’ve listened to me.”

Sometimes I really hated my curious nature. “What?”

When I backed off, he leaned against the sink, raked his gaze over me and frowned. “You’re wearing a different shirt.”

“Yes,” was all I said, struggling with the sudden need to cover my chest.

“Why?”

Struggling—and failing. I covered my chest with my hands. “Is that why you’re here? Because my reasons don’t concern you.”

His frown deepened. He shook his head, as if to get back on track. “I’m worried about you and want to discuss it like rational people.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Why? You said we could try and be friends.”

Lesson learned: it was better to think before I spoke. “Fine. Discuss away.”

He muttered something under his breath before saying to me, “Ankh told me you’ve been eating bagels at his house.”

Wait. “This isn’t about what happened on patrol? Or Veronica?”

“The bagels,” he insisted.

What was with the freaking bagels? “Yes. I have been eating bagels. Last I heard, that wasn’t a crime.”

“It is when it’s all you’re eating.”

I anchored my hands on my hips. “Why do you even care about this?”

He ignored the question, saying, “You didn’t bring your lunch and you weren’t planning on getting anything in the cafeteria today, were you? I know, because you didn’t get anything last week, either. You’re going to starve.”

He made it sound worse than it was. “I’m saving to buy Nana a house of her own.”

“Then bring food from Ankh’s. He has more than enough.”

“I’m living in his home free of charge. I’m not going to be any more of a burden and take more from him.”

“You’re not a burden.”