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,