Her hair always smelled of warmth and fresh perfume. Her heart-shaped face and the prettiness of even her smallest gestures. Her dark eyes and Dad’s picture of her kept in his wallet, with a shiny place rubbed in the plastic over her face.
That shiny place was still there, though the picture was gone. If I dug out Dad’s billfold, I would find the photo missing and the place where I always ran my thumb while getting out a twenty or a fifty would glare at me. If I stared long enough, I could probably even see the curves and lines of her face from a long time ago.
Oh God. I pushed away the memory that wanted to rise to the surface, but not nearly quick enough.
You can’t ever stop thinking something quick enough. Something that hurts always gets the knife in too fast for you to slam a lid on it and shove it away.
We’re going to play the game, Dru. She’d hidden me in a closet and gone out to fight Sergej.
Dad had left me at the house and gone to face Sergej alone. Gran had tried to stay with me, but old age had taken her. Her body had failed right out from under her, and I could tell she’d hated leaving me. She’d held on all through summer, but the first cold wind coming up the valley had been too much for her, and the hospital…
There it was again, a hurtful thought. I let out a long, slow breath, as if I was working through a cramp. It didn’t help. This cramp was on the inside, someplace no deep breathing could touch.
I wasn’t as pretty as Mom, or as smart as Dad. I wasn’t good at everything I touched, like either of them. I was just one scrawny punk-ass girl.
I met my own gaze in the mirror. I didn’t look like I should be holding the wooden sword. I clasped it awkwardly in one hand, away from my body like a baseball bat I was afraid might bite me.
Just me. Just Dru.
The girl in the mirror was smiling a little, which I suppose meant I was, even though my face felt frozen. I cautiously put my hand down, let the sword dangle.
I stamped back to the bed and slid the swords underneath the dust ruffle with Dad’s billfold. I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know I had them. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone I’d seen Christophe, but there was one person I had to tell. If Graves wasn’t too busy running around with his new friends, if I could get him alone, he could… what could he do?
Was it even fair to dump this on him too and ask him to help me figure it out and deal with it?
Most of all, I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know I had a job now, one Christophe had given me.
And that was trying to find out who at the Schola had wanted me dead bad enough to betray Christophe as well.
So I’m not pretty or smart or any other hundred things. But I’m stubborn. And tough.
It was time to start using what I had.
CHAPTER 6
Cafeteria noise washed over me in waves. Catcalls, conversations, laughter, everyone was at breakfast. I stabbed at my scrambled eggs with a fork. The pancakes had been steaming hot and fresh; now they just sat there.
Like me, just sitting here. It was just after dusk, class started in forty-five minutes, and I was really feeling the urge to go back to bed. I mean, I’ve never loved school, and I was determined to start doing something, even if it was putting up with the stupid remedial classes.
But getting up and getting dressed, braiding my hair back, and dealing with the cafeteria was really testing that determination. My shoulder still ached from the little tango with Christophe, but not as bad as it could have. Those baths worked wonders.
A shadow fell over me. I was hard-put not to twitch. But it was just a young blond wulfen with dark eyes and a gentle face. He was pale and gripped his tray so hard his knuckles were white. He looked about ready to break something from sheer nervousness.
I seconded that emotion.
His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear whatever he was saying under the noise. The screen of steam that the food came through hissed underneath all the crowd sounds.
“What?” My fork clattered on my tray. He flinched, shoulders hunching under a blue cable-knit sweater. He was built slight and narrow-hipped for a wulfen, but long corded muscle stood out on his forearms beneath the pushed-up sweater cuffs.
“Dibs,” he croaked. “Name’s Dibs.”
I closed my mouth with a snap. I’ve seen shy all over the United States, and this kid had a bad case of it. My conscience poked at me, hard.
I pushed out the chair next to me. “Hi. I’m Dru.”
The way his face lit up, you’d have thought I’d just given him a winning lottery ticket. He dropped down, and his tray held a huge pile of raw meat slopping over the edge of a plate. I saw two T-bone steaks and a mess of hamburger, and my stomach turned over. I swallowed and reached for my coffee.
“Hi.” He scratched at his leg through his jeans and grinned. White teeth gleamed, and his hair was a buttergloss sheen. Girls would probably love him, he had the big-eyed look of a nervous deer. “I, um. Hi.”
“Hey.” I took a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Tried not to look at his plate. “So what is it?”
“What?” He looked genuinely confused.
“Nobody wants to talk to me. Why are you here?” I was glad of the company, especially since Graves was nowhere in sight. But I’ve been the new girl in schools all over the country. You don’t ever trust the first boy who wanders up to you. Or at least, you learn to look for what they might be thinking they can get out of the new kid in town.
Of course, Graves had been the first one to approach me back in the Dakotas. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. It had been lucky, I guess. Maybe.